Review by Jon Donnis
"Before We Leave is a non-violent city building game set in a cozy corner of the universe." Well, that is what the official blurb says, so let's go with that.
As with all city builders, your job is to create a society, and help it grow, and expand. Your people are known as "Peeps", and they have spent generations underground, so their civilisation is lost, you will slowly help them grow, expand the settlements, discover new as well as lost ancient technologies and eventually even leave the planet and colonise new and wonderful places.
Everything is very laid back, the mechanics of the game are very simple, the planet your play on is based on hexagonal tiles, each tile represents an area you can build on. You start off with everything very basic, and as you go along, you will find that you can research new ways to do things, everything from the way you build roads, to the buildings and so on.
One of the things that makes Before We Leave stand out, is the look of the game, as I said you play on the whole planet which has kind of been shrunk down, you will start on small islands, create shipping routes to other islands, and eventually leave the planet and go to the next.
You will start off playing with a pretty cool and detailed tutorial that will help teach you everything you could possibly need to know. It does this in steps, and at no point will you feel overwhelmed. My only gripe, and this is a small one, when you are first learning how to play through the tutorial, you may find yourself frustrated when it comes to placing certain buildings, that can only be placed in certain areas, for example, adjacent to a mining spot on a mountain, the tutorial tells you what you need to do, but until you have done it, you may not completely understand how to do it. Of course, once you figure it out, it is easy, but for a good ten minutes I was shouting at the screen at my obvious incompetence at placing a single building. Of course, I soon figured it out and felt stupid.
As city building games go, this is pretty cool, it looks great, it sounds great, it has some original touches, it is easy to pick up and play, and things do get more complicated and detailed as you grow, that it keeps the challenge going.
The Good
Looks great, easy to play and learn. Fun, easy going gameplay.
The Bad
The tutorial is great, but perhaps for stupid people like me there is one or two things that could have been better, but this really is me grasping at straws.
Overall
A Fun city builder, that fans of the genre will love.
I score the game a solid 8/10
Review by Jon Donnis
Out Now on Steam
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