There are two things in games that I will never get tired of: farming and pixelated art styles. Developed and published by Freedom Games, One Lonely Outpost is a combination of the two, so of course when I saw it years ago on Kickstarter, I had to back it. It was the first game I’d ever backed, actually. I’ve been following it for a long time, but after playing the Early Access version, it doesn’t meet my expectations…yet. It’s good to keep in mind that One Lonely Outpost is in Early Access, and everything I mention, the good and the bad, is subject to change by the full release date, whenever that may be.
In One Lonely Outpost, you are tasked by the Pan-Galactic Parliament (PGP) with establishing a colony on Calypso, a planet which harbors no signs of life. It is empty, it is desolate, and true to the game’s name, aside from your robot-kitty companion QWERTY, it is so very lonely.
From the start, you’re able to use your Omni-Tool, a useful device good for mining, watering, and blowing dust to—well, mine, water, and blow dust. The PGP gets you started with a few seeds, tasks you to plant and harvest them, and you’re on your way-ish. The beginning is extremely slow. It’s okay to take time to introduce colonists and new mechanics to Calypso, seeing as the point of One Lonely Outpost is to build it up to be not so lonely. But when there’s nothing to do for the first two in-game weeks aside from watering your crops and mining some rocks, it makes it pretty hard to get through.
True to the usual farming sim games, One Lonely Outpost has many familiar mechanics, such as planting and watering, having a stamina bar and a time system to keep an eye on, mining, fishing, and bug catching. There are also plenty of things that make it unique. You wake up at 8am instead of 6am which is kind of rough seeing as eventually it does feel like the days go by too fast. You can collect Omnistars by discovering new plants, fish, bugs, and other things amongst Calypso, and there is a map that you can expand by collecting a different number of survey points. You start by taking water from the water crystals lying around and once you do have enough colonists, since you’re the only farmer around, you’re tasked with making enough food to feed the people.
Oh, and did I mention the aliens? The PGP isn’t a fan, but there are alien ruins where you’ll be able to meet an alien via a terminal who’ll have tasks for you. Upon completing those tasks, little by little, Calypso becomes beautiful. That’s one of the things I actually enjoyed about One Lonely Outpost. As you continue to live in these barren lands, you get to witness the beautiful changes that occur as life becomes apparent, all because of you. The desert becomes greener, bugs and animals start to appear, and of course, the colonists you end up with make life a lot less lonely.
The art style is beautiful with the very animated pixel sprites, and the pretty character portraits. The world itself is okay, but the buildings, internally and externally, are some of my favorite things to look at and the music was great as the different tracks appropriately matched different scenarios.
Now I’ll talk about the things that hindered my experience. The basics are not there. There is only a male character option, and I couldn’t even name him. I feel like in Early Access, even if I can’t choose between masculine or feminine presenting, I should still be able to pick a name. There were also a couple of bugs that I only experienced once, thankfully, but I feel they were big enough to make my eye twitch. One was the game freezing at the end of a very productive day, and the other was me selling items and getting nothing for them in return. All things that can be fixed.
There are a few mechanics I mentioned earlier that sound great, but don’t seem to be working as they should. The map is pretty useless at the moment as it only shows you the area names and how they’re connected. The colony food supply mechanic where you harvest crops or make food that the colony wants is a cool idea, but it wasn’t working the way it probably should have been. The “days until due” kept resetting, and when you would turn something in, they would ask for more the very next day instead of waiting until the end of the week like the tutorial said it would.
The mini-games in One Lonely Outpost have to be some of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had to deal with. Most of them are the same with a few minor differences in between. If you want to catch a bug or a fish, you have to do quick-time clicking events, making sure to click when the moving line is in between the sometimes ridiculously thin yellow bar. If this isn’t something you’re good at, then my friend, I wish you the best of luck. But those aren’t the worst of it, oh no. It’s the mining game that’s impossibly confusing and frustrating. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t understand it. You have to mine in a minesweeper style, but I’ve never played that game so I’m not comprehending. I just mine and run out before it explodes and go back in.
And QWERTY…QWERTY is cute, but when he’s not being adorable he’s only ever an obstacle determined to get in your way and stay in your way. He hovers over the crops I need to water, stands in the way of the areas I want to place my machines, and it used to be so that I couldn’t even walk through him. Thankfully I say ”used to be” because now I can. Still, I would love to see “stay still,” “go home,” and “come here” options for him.
The ideas are there, the passion is there, the story is there, and the hard work is clear—but while those are all there, the game as a whole isn’t. Everything I mentioned earlier are things that can absolutely be fixed in time for the final version, but right now, instead of Early Access, it feels like it should still be in beta. As much as I want to love One Lonely Outpost, at the state it’s in right now where I feel 85% frustrated and am having 15% fun, I can’t. These problems can be fixed, but I cannot recommend this game at the moment. I have faith that in the future, One Lonely Outpost will be a gem. Just not right now.
Inanna played One Lonely Outpost in Early Access on PC with a code provided by the developer after supporting the Kickstarter page.
