Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game

Kind of boring and lack luster. it feels incomplete and very linear. Nothing new or stand out about any of the game features.

A worthy follow-up to the CRPG masterpiece that was Age of Decadence, this game offers a similar story sandbox to play in with a variety of play styles, although it feels a little easier to wander into a situation that you have no way of resolving with your skills and tools. If you don't mind keeping a few backup saves, you'll be fine. I will say that my playthrough (with a largely diplomatic non-combat character) had me feeling that combat was very clunky and unwieldy, largely due to battlefields providing almost no usable cover for you and your party when the system felt as though it was almost trying to go in an XCOM sort of direction with the importance of half-cover, full-cover, etc. This might just be my experience, as my combat characters in my party were underequipped and a long way from full effectiveness, so take this with a grain of salt.

This one's worth it, though. Recommended.

Played the game since the days of EA, primarily on GoG, but I own the game on Steam as well as a show of support.
Its a old school RPG with tough combat that greatly rewards preparation and persistence.
Recommended!

Once I'd got over the lack of rotatable camera I really got into the game.

I liked the morally neutral tone, the factions who were all in it for themselves and the combat was fun and varied. The right mix of story, exploration and action.

I'd happily buy a sequel or expansion set after the finale.

I can forgive the iffy UI and control problems, but the save game system keeps crashing and forcing me to start from scratch. I'm just lucky I found that out before putting more than a couple of hours into it. Caveat emptor

Good Game, Play on Hero

Story

Graphics

Character Creation/Progression

Stealth

Combat

TLDR

Super fun. Kind of like Fallout 2 in a space ship. Or Wasteland 2/3. Or Underrail.

I enjoyed the game, but it can be completed in a little over 20 hours, which isn't a long game for the price. Also, the "Underdog" difficulty setting is really, really hard. I couldn't even complete the first chapter on the setting and I'm not a novice gamer.

Is it perfect? No. There are a few game mechanics that aren't explained well/don't work well. Some areas are hard to navigate because you can't tell what ground is traversable. But, as others have mentioned, there are some nice features too. The game auto-saves like mad, so you can always try again. It warns you before you initiate any major quests that will cut off side-quests. And playing in a post-apocalyptic (without the apocalypse) world is always fun.

I'd give the game a B-.

(And on a side-note, don't read the Heinlein story it was based on. Doesn't spoil anything or something like that, it is just really sexist. Not the game, the source story.)

Long story short, I think Colony Ship deserves to be regarded as one of greatest RPGs ever made, among the elite of the elite. It’s excellently balanced in a genre of games that is known for a lack of balance, it’s very challenging but fair, the combat is deep but intuitive to grasp, the setting is expertly written, it has fun stealth mechanics, I could go on and on.

That said, I don’t think Colony Ship is as good as The Age of Decadence—it doesn’t have the off the charts levels of choice and consequence that AoD does, the dialogue isn’t as sharp, the prose is a bit less polished, AoD’s skill leveling system allows for better roleplaying—but overall, it’s a highly respectable follow up game. And although I think AoD is clearly superior, it must be said that Colony Ship does do a number of things better, e.g., combat and stealth, as well as the ability to form a party.

However, I think there is one aspect where Colony Ship drops the ball hard, and that’s its lack of interesting characters. The setting is excellent, the factions are fantastic, but when it comes to interacting with the people inhabiting this expertly written world, far too many of them give a dull impression. The characters are very detailed and believably depicted, but many of them have such mediocre personalities that it’s hard for the player to care about them. Even the most important characters, people the game gives you the option of allying with, tend to be corrupt careerists, rigid bureaucrats, conmen, narrowminded simpletons, bookish intellectuals, etc. It’s hard to like any of these people, and that’s a big problem in a game that expects you to take sides in their conflicts.

The best example of this mediocrity of character—spoilers ahead—is the conflict between Jonas and Braxton. On the one hand, Jonas is a fairly honest and well-meaning man, with a certain amount of smarts and savvy, but he has no higher ambitions in life than running The Pit, and he’s clearly in over his head just managing that, let alone taking on more responsibilities. He hardly inspires confidence as a leader. On the other hand, Braxton does appear to have higher ambitions for himself and the world and he has the drive to organise a coup against Jonas, but he’s such a slippery, slimy liar that he also comes across uninspiring. And the game throws this choice at you more or less at the very beginning. Do you want the unambitious, friendly pimp running The Pit? Or the arrogant, scheming, potentially overambitious lawman?

Compare this with The Age of Decadence’s opening act—spoilers ahead—where the player is given the choice of siding with Antidas or Carrinas, and the difference is night and day. Although Antidas and Carrinas both have their share of faults, their good qualities far outshine the bad. Antidas is a bit naïve and narrowminded, but it’s exactly his naïve and narrowminded dream of restoring his noble house to its former glory that makes him an interesting character to side with. On the other hand, Carrinas is bitter and volatile to the point of insubordination, but again, his bitterness at the state of society and his willingness to turn against his superiors is exactly what makes him interesting to side with.

That’s what’s missing from Colony Ship. For all of its great strengths as an RPG, it doesn’t have interesting characters, characters that the player can easily get emotionally invested in and roleplay alongside, like Antidas and Carrinas. The fact that the game stands among the best of the best RPGs ever made, despite having such bland characters that fail to pull the player into the roleplaying experience, is a testament to how well done the rest of the game is.

Space game? No. B a s e d game. Lot of ways to go about the game, however there's a couple kinks and a MASSIVE requirement to invest into electronics and lockpicking. 8.9/10 Make a second game on Proxima B.

This is an absolutely fantastic CRPG. I prefer this game over many triple A titles due to the perfect atmosphere/setting, great exploration, tight combat, and compelling dialogue. The game does pretty well on choice and consequence as well. Truly a unique experience that leaves you hoping they are working on Colony Ship 2. Probably the best indie title that I've ever played. The game is a 10/10 for me.

I can't say enough about this game. Steam has been doing a solid job lately on the recommendations, but this might be the best game I've played in the last 5 years. Cyberpunk? Baldurs Gate 3? PoE? DoS2? This has a better story than all of your favorite RPGs.

The game is heavy on the reading but also enjoyable if you just escape through all of it and just play it for the turn based combat, which is perfectly done in a way that doesn't make it feel like battles take an hour.

The variety of weapons/armor/cybernetics is pretty phenomenal too, it's not Borderlands levels of redundant weapons just with weird affixes. It's reality based sci-fi with guns that make sense and resemble the guns they were inspired by generations ago on Terra.

One of my personal favorites has always been the Winchester lever action. This game has both the rifle and shotgun Winchesters, though not by name.

The only negative is the AI pathing. When you tell your character to go somewhere, there's a chance they get stuck on some random thing, or try to run through a wall because it seems faster. There should be a setting of some sort that makes actions you take repeatedly stop giving you a prompt (I don't need to confirm I want to squeeze through this gap the 14th time this playthrough with a popup)

Heavily inspired by Fallout 1, Colony Ship keeps the virtues of older and beloved CRPGs with an interesting premise, exciting exploration and various ways to roleplay and influence the story.
Dont expect to see everything in your first playthrough, especially on the harder difficulty, and just enjoy the ride.

This game crashes with a fatal error at least once an hour. Tired of reloading back to the last save.

It's...okay. Colony Ship tries to give you the freedom to play the game how you see fit, which is nice, but it's sorely lacking in depth and QoL features (for the love of GOD why is there no decent inventory sorting or filtering system?). Frankly it feels like a worse version of Underrail pretty much across the board. The story premise is cool, and it's presented well, but ultimately I spent most of the game thinking "Is this it?" Fights are all the same - hope your stats and items can see you through with very little strategy. Half of the fights don't give you access to any good cover, and *none* of them start you off in it. Your deployment area is always tiny as hell, and even if you pump your points into initiative, a bunch of enemies will always go first.

It's also *extremely* rigid with what does or doesn't work. Doing even one thing wrong on your build can completely screw you over, but at the same time doing everything right barely pushes you over the edge to passing. You're basically required to swap over and use your energy weapons for some fights, which is fine, but the simplicity of the game's combat system combined with the lack of variety and this rigidity means the game might give you freedom of choice in the story...but god help you if you want freedom of choice for how you tackle your characters.

The game has an interesting story and combat was always challenging. My advice make sure to have a character with high intelligence for all the skills you will need to know. Avoid pistols for ranged combat.

The only real downside is that the camera view never changes making it hard to navigate sometimes.

This is such a gem of a game. I really enjoyed the story. The gameplay is fun. I love how many ways you can complete objectives. Lots of replay value due to varied endings and factions and playstyle.

Some of the fights are super tough even on hero mode.

Love the way it tells you if quests need to be resolved before you move onto the next bit.

The feats are pretty cool. I like the companion characters and their differing personalities.

A proper "Fallout in Space!!" game. The atmosphere is great and the prose is delicious. A couple of caveats!

I found the combat a little lackluster, especially with how much there was. It's perfectly serviceable, but it seemed to lack depth. Line of Sight and Cover didn't seem all that important. I (unfortunately) never found a need to set up firing lanes or flank people. My guys would fire from one pile of cover at the AI who were behind their pile of cover. I rarely moved my team after the first turn. Sadly the environments didn't really allow for a lot of positioning, and the stat bonuses for cover seemed largely negligible. Combat items like stims and grenades did add a bit of variety, but I would liked more emphasis on movement/positioning. Ymmv.

The story was divided into a couple of distinct vibes: exploring and faction politics. Exploring the ruins of Starfarer was fucking excellent, some of the most enjoyable exploration I've had in an RPG. The looting, lore, and interactions with NPCs have cemented this game as a favorite of mine. The faction politics were, imo, a little less interesting. The ideologies of the various habitat factions were aesthetically pretty different, but the factions themselves felt pretty bland and uninteresting. The game makes it clear up front that there are "no good options, only less bad ones" -- which is a cool idea, ala New Vegas, but in practice each faction lacked any half-convincing reason to go along with their scheme. I appreciate the commentary that comes from the "they're all equally shite" writing, but as a player it just left me feeling disillusioned and disengaged from the factional struggle (just like irl).

Despite my longwinded critiques, the game really is excellent. Iron Horse knows how to write a damn good setting. There are dozens of memorable set pieces and quests, and the lore is some of the best of any game I've played. Please give these people your hard earned credits so they can make a sequel!

Good game for a certain type of gamer. If you like a classic isometric style RPG with tactical combat and big stories, then you will likely enjoy this game. That said, it really doesn't hold your hand and does not have "something for everyone".

Pros:
The story is deep and full of meaningful choices. The story takes place decades after a mutiny wrecked the generation ship, with an almost post-apocalyptic tone because of how far the ship has declined. There are multiple factions trying to deal with the reality of life on the Ship in different ways that you'll need to work with/ against throughout the story, though there's no clear "good" or "bad" faction which I liked.

There is a good variety of builds and strategies you can employ to progress the story, but you can also recruit other characters to your party to cover your bases (mostly). It's even possible to beat the game without killing anyone if you play your cards right. The combat can be quite difficult but there is difficulty settings to make things easier or harder. Though the difficult combat does add to the appeal of going the peaceful route to avoid hard fights.

Cons:
The UI is not great, I don't like how the trading UI works in particular and sometimes it isn't clear what some things do. I had to google what stuff would do fairly often to make sense of the game systems. The graphics are nothing to write home about if that's something you care about.

Overall I've had a fun experience with this game. If you are on the fence I recommend playing the demo and seeing how you like it. Demo saves are compatible with the main game so you could pick up where you left off should you buy the game. (Also props to the devs for having a demo)

Not as good or difficult as Age of Decadence but very much enjoyable.

This game is Fantastic. Unique setting and great writing. My only complaint is that I want even more than my 30 hour play-through. I loved every moment of it.

Loved all the games from this studio, especially this one. Definitely hope they get to make more :]

This is an old-fashioned game, and I consider that its greatest selling point. This game feels like Fallout (1997) or Wasteland 2 (2014). Since I enjoyed those games, I am really enjoying this game (just finished chapter 1). I will probably play it again with a different character and make different choices to experience all that the game has to offer.

The writing is above average for a computer game. There are no recorded voices and not too many sound effects. The art is good quality, although it's hard to tell your party members apart if they are wearing similar armor pieces. I would like to see the graphical representation of NPCs be of different heights and builds. Some combat animations take longer than I would like--it would be nice to either make them quicker or have a setting that allows them to be sped up.

I'm playing on the original/hard difficulty level, so combat is harder than I'm used to. I typically have to fail each fight at least once in order to figure out what the optimum strategy is for my party against the opponent(s) in question. For hard fights, I may have to replay the combat more times in order to win. Once so far there was one fight that I could not win without getting tactical advice from a walkthrough. Part of my difficulty of this could be due to the fact that I decided to try something new: my character is a speech-oriented character with stats and skills not suited for combat (I won't be making that choice again).

This game suffers from the limitations of its genre. It's easy to blunder into quests too early and not be strong enough to take advantage of certain opportunities. It's easy to miss quests entirely if you're not being very slow and methodical (holding down "tab" helps to see which parts of the environment you can interact with). Playing with a walkthrough to guide you is required if you don't want to miss out on quests or blunder into quests early.

One of the things that makes this game different from others in the genre is the setting on board a generation ship. In this era of boring repetition in video games (every game is basically a remake of an older game), I consider this innovation refreshing. However, it's hard to imagine a generation ship being so big as the setting in this game is. It's also hard to imagine a generation ship's crew and passengers surviving a mutiny. It would have made more sense if the setting had been a hollowed-out comet or asteroid.

I am enjoying this game so much that I am going to check out Iron Tower's previous game. I hope this game is a great success and that they keep producing games like Colony Ship.

For now, 8h in (so not very far):

What an amazing game. The atmosphere, the writing, the intrigue of the factions, the choices and gameplay come together nicely, all of that is wrapped in a cozy blanket of "nostalgia" for old giants of the genre done right.

It helps that the graphics are very... very nice (with a small caveat.).

The good:
- Writing
- It feels like you can do a LOT without resorting to meta (unlike the earlier game from the studio)
- Combat is a step up from earlier game and is somewhat doable on a speechcraft char.
- Gearing feels fun, satisfactory
- Graphics!... (however...)

The Bad:
- ...Sometimes the lack of fading out upper levels makes for confusing times trying to find where to click to navigate. On rare occasion the graphics feel less thought out for the fixed viewpoint.
- Pathfinding feels somehow even worse than in AoD (the earlier game from the studio), however the problem is not that large, since the areas are meant to be more cramped and linear.
- Lone Wolf (in my opinion) does not do quite as much as hoped, this of course affects only solo playstyles which is NOT the intended way of playing, especially for combat.


Very minor glitches, very very few typos / inconsistensies (for now), very good time. Streamlining has done a world of good while not oversimplifying things. All in all, a big YES on should you buy this game.

8/10.


(( Review might change once I go farther in))

Great ideas went into this game. It's a futuristic cRPG with turn-based combat, dialogue, skill ckecks. Every area is handcrafted, you only encounter enemies once and they permanently disappear after being killed. Aside from armor, you also have a gadget which can be either a type of shield or a cloaking field. Your body also supports a limited number of implants that will give you a +1 to your main (otherwise unchangeable) attributes and some other perks.

Overall I loved the general idea. This is definitely a project with a somewhat modest budget (Eg. no voice acting or cutscenes whatsoever) however its heart is in the right place. Other things I didn't love that much were probably limitations due to the engine used. I didn't particularly loved that you could easily completely avoid confrontation/combat in almost any scenario - this was a choice as the devs could have simply not present the option of avoiding combat in some cases. I do get why they did it: probably because it would become a little tedious to have to solve situation after situation with a relatively long fight, however this is where I think it could have been a little more elaborate: instead of simply using your impersonation/persuasion skills you could have been given an alternative quest. I get it, even that would have required more work from everyone in their team and again, it seems like the budget was an issue (I am assuming this is a very small company that created the game).

The writing is pretty good, I really enjoyed the music in this game, the world is as immersive as it can be (constrained by the budget). I liked most aspects of the game (I am definitely a cRPG and sci-fi guy). I would love to see a future project from their creatores that's more ambitions, better funded, with voice-acting cutscenes. Overall I really liked the direction of this game.

Maybe there's a gem in here somewhere, but the controls are so bad it's really a deal breaker and ruins the game. Not sure I'm going to devote any more time to this disappointment. I am a bit suspicious of the game's raving reviews...

The game is Extremely tedious and very hard on normal difficulty. I'm a casual player, but love most strategy games. I do not enjoy games that punish the player if you don't get everything right in the very beginning.

Many, many battles are Very hard or at least hard, especially if you have less than 4 in your party. I chose to be a Squad Leader so I could get 3 followers. But, in chapter 1, I didn't know certain NPC's could be your companions until it was too late. I was having difficulty with battles with 3 in my party. So, I sought out a 4 player, only to find online that I missed out on Jed, whatever. No way to get him, no way to progress in the game because I can't get past several battles to finally make it to chapter 2!

The game is EXTREMELY linear as a result of this. The game presents everything as if it is semi-open (that is, you can go almost anywhere and do virtually any quest in any order. But, the problem with this is you very well could end up going "out of order" and screw yourself as I apparently have done.

I would love to reduce the difficulty to Easy, but that is not an option without restarting the game from the beginning. No way am I going to do that.

I may try to play some more, but I just don't see how to finish the game at this point. That sucks!!

Отличная рпг старой школы, ненмого камерная и нехватает свободы или открытого мира. За возможность пройти игру в режими поцифиста - мое почтение)

Just so well done. The RNG feels like actual RNG, which if you've ever played this kind of game you know is actually an amazing technical achievement. They also understand what so many other games fail to get: you can never have too many fast travel points. I'm not very far into the game as of writing but the fact that I can instantly fast travel to all the major vendors I want to buy from is a great sign that the devs understand what they're doing. You want the player spending as little time as possible in between the actual "fun" parts of your gameplay loop. I've yet to run into something where I'm tediously managing resources or thinking about what's the most efficient way to make a resupply run. SO many developers don't understand how that can detract from your player experience.

I have barely been able to put this game down since I got it. It is ridiculously good. It has fascinating world building with a setting that is almost a dark exploration of human nature - Just how far will you go to get ahead - lots of moral / ethical choice. The factions are distinct with meaningful interactions and goals. Choices really matter... from the attributes you choose to the people you help (or ignore)... so many things impact your game play and even the overall narrative. Encounter design is one of the best I've ever seen giving you multiple ways to deal with most things. You can talk your way out of / around things... or slink through the shadows and take people down one by one. When and if you go into into full combat is often completely your choice but the devs didn't skimp here either. The combat is gritty, balanced, and tactical. There is a learning curve to be sure, but after you get the hang of it, it clicks into place and you realize how good and nuanced it is.

Whether you just want game with tactical combat, or one that has an exuberant amount of choices for role play in an interesting story... Colony Ship checks many boxes. (As long as you don't mind reading a fair bit) I undoubtedly recommend this game.

Everything is so clunky, dialogue options are very limited and boring, combat just plain bad.

You feel like you're playing a game in the 90s, but in a bad way.

It feels similar to Wasteland in perks, stats, and gameplay. I dislike that the camera is very quickly moved when scrolling around.

Very nice at first half, but lacks exploration and variety at second half. Awesome writing, though!

Snagged this game around the time it came out without ever hearing about it at all. Finally played it through in two sessions over a year later, and i have to say, I never leave actual reviews, but this game is worth picking up if you're looking for an in depth RPG with lots of Stats, Weapons, Choices, and replayability.

I pirated the game and finished it then bought the game. This game is almost amazing but there are a few kinks here and there so it sits as a very high good. Very Good game, 100% recommend.

I really like the story, setting and overall aesthetic of the game... but the combat is absolutely dire...
The devs present the modes as 'Easy Mode and Normal', but playing the 'Normal' mode feels like trying to club someone in a suit of armour to death with a fist-full of soggy Pasta.

You're always surrounded, with little in the way of cover, against AI that never misses and always gets the drop on you... sometime downing characters before you can even get a shot / swing off.
it's deeply unsatisfying and often feels unfair.

I've only made it to ACT 2 now by avoiding combat as much as possible and going the 'high charisma' route to talk my way around conflict.

I'm aware there's a lower difficulty setting, but that requires starting over and I don't really feel motivated anymore.

This game has nothing to offer that is worth the heavy character build restrictions placed upon you if you want to successfully beat the game on the standard difficulty. The game gives you the illusion of character building but punishes you for playing anything other than min-maxed characters by not allowing you to proceed and forcing you to create a new character to try again. You will be gatekept hard if you fail to read guides before playing. There is no learning or skill curve, you either make a character that can beat the game or you do not and there is nothing in between.

The game isn't difficult, it just challenges you to a game of chess without telling you the rules to play by, which is as about as objectively bad as a game can be. You can always play on easy mode or fine tune the difficult settings to "play your way", but it just feels like a cheap and lazy way to balance a game. The game is too linear, you really only decide which order you will read the page in a given chapter, but eventually you will be corralled into the next chapter. Your actions on a place hardly have an impact, enemies don't move around or respawn and there is little reason to explore places you've already visited and the world feels lifeless for it.

The game just doesn't offer enough of a reward to be worth playing multiple playthroughs and even a single playthrough is tedious and uneventful enough.

I've played tons of these types of isometric rpgs (fallout style) games over the years. It pains me to give this one a thumbs down but I must even after 30 hours of trying to enjoy it. There are so many strange design decisions in this one. Its odd that a colony ship spending hundreds of years in space doesn't have any crafting capability. Most of the fights are in 1 room types of areas where the differences between weapons is not very pronounced. Dialogue/Charm based battles are ridiculously easy to win and yet gun battles are ridiculously hard to win. I can have perception of 10 (high) and yet I miss a guy 6 feet in front of me with a shotgun. However If I throw a flashbang I hit everything easily. I must have started this game 10 times over with all different kinds of builds, but every run ended in frustration. I also noticed on the steam achievements that my act 1 ending (allying with Braxton) was completed by only a small percentage of people. Hence I think most people who start the game don't make it even that far. Its quite sad because there are some good ideas here (the story reminded me of M.R. Forbes Forgotten books). If you want an indie game of this type that is good, try underrail, encased, atom rpg or something like that.

This is one of the best fallout CRPGS I've played in an extremely long time. If you're a fan on the genre it's a no brainer.

Massively clunky UI. I absolutely love this genre of game, and despite evidence of significant work and effort to make it manageable, it's just too janky and weird. Great lore, poor execution.

If you value tactical based combat in RPGs, avoid this shit at all costs. I know, I get erect when I read "turn based tactical combat", but trust me, in this case it's false advertising.

Worst combat design that ever got shat into a turn based combat RPG.

You're incentivized at character creation to pick guns and stats like awareness for accuracy etc, but every combat encounter takes place in an area the size of a small toilet with the enemies spawned right on top of you on turn one, with everyone bashing each other or shooting smallarms at 0 range. Clusterfuck garbage.

Then you have the most convoluted piece of crap Action Point system ever puked into code, where your action point total can change every turn based on all sorts of conditions, and each attack with each weapon costs a different ammount of AP, except with each weapon you have 10 different types of attacks (flurry, target head, target arm, aim more, aim less, etc), but not done in an elegant way like JA2, but in the most convoluted crappy way you can imagine.
In effect, in every combat your eyes will always be on a tiny number on the bottom left of the monitor, where it says how many AP your next attack will cost and how many AP you have left, and you'll be forced to minmax with many many mouse clicks every turn.

I swear if whoever designed combat in this game just didn't design it, left it out, it would have probably been a great game, that's how bad this design is.

Fantastic game. I NEED a sequel

Going to recommend it if it's the type of game you're looking for. It wasn't for me, but it's not a bad game and might be for you. I probably won't be finishing it myself. It's the type of RPG that has no renewable access to experience or skill points preventing you from overcoming difficulty spikes with a bit of grinding, and there _will_ be difficulty spikes. It's also the kind of RPG that is tuned to require starting over multiple times and optimizing.

If you're looking for a one play through type of game, you won't find it here. On your first play through, even if you're a veteran RPG player, you'll find yourself always a couple of levels too short to pick that lock or hack that computer or pass that persuasion check. Fights will start taking hours and many retries and becoming more and more dependent on RNG luck until you hit a wall (for me was the Bart fight). At that point, you start over and begin optimizing builds and point allocations. The game seems very intentionally built so that your 3rd or 4th attempt will hit that satisfying balance of being just difficult enough to beat it while making you work for it.

It just wasn't for me. I like games that are designed for that first and possibly only play through.

A gem and a delight, a science fiction RPG with superb writing, fascinating world, great combat mechanics but also a number of alternate ways to accomplish goals including stealth and persuasion. Some difficult choices, unique scenarios, and pretty decent graphics to boot. I think it's especially great for old-timer gamers like myself, who fondly remember isometric RPGs of yore but shudder everytime they try to replay them due to lack of modern conveniences, UI, and respect for player 😂. highly recommended!

Good rpg system, story is passable. World building in pretty good. Combat will be hit and miss. Kind of old school rpg. Also game is pretty cheap. I would say worth a buy for rpg lovers.

A great hardcore RPG with real choices and consequences. Great developer.

Iron Tower, the developers of the game, claims that their game is for a very small percentage of hardcore RPG players. I think Colony Ship RPG should be enjoyed by much wider audience.

If you relish a great in-game narrative, if you prefer a great story more than shooting things up - then this game is definitely for you. Colony ship is true to RPG genre – it really gives you the freedom to play the type of persona you like: fighter, thief, negotiator archetype and everything in between. It’s deep, complex and extremely rewarding.
I do not dash through the game, playing it for nearly 100 hours and enjoying it as a fine wine. Take you time to enjoy this immersive setting, beautiful soundtrack and compelling story of Colony Ship.
One of the very best classic RPGs of all time among Betrayal at Krondor, Baldur’s Gate. Very highly recommended.

It's good. I love these Pandorum-esque stories about a colony ship where things have gone awry, and after some indeterminate amount of time has gone by, no one knows what exactly is going on. I also loved that the interactions had multiple paths to resolve. Meaning that you could have talked, stealthed, hacked, or fought your way out of them. I remember the designers of the original Fallout games had the same design principle. Clearly an inspiration, as seen from the subtitle. In Colony Ship, there is even an achievement for completing the game without starting any combat at all.

Now, this does railroad you to play a certain style. If you never fight anything, then you don't get much exp in fighting skills. So, the later fights can become somewhat impossible for you. I also feel that the other gameplay systems here do not support this as much as they should. For example, you can mostly buy guns and armor. Wearing too much armor takes away from your stealth skills. But there isn't almost any armor or consumable that would add to it or benefit any other non-combat skill. So, in a run where you want to mostly talk things out or find some other solution than combat, you still get mostly combat-related gear.

The writing is quite interesting. I was very captivated by the story and world. Reading the logs of people long dead who actually knew what was going on, was so intriguing. The scenery was also great. Seeing how the trains on the ship had crashed, and the railroad made into a street in the Brotherhood was amazing. However, some of the writing could have been a bit better. For example, at some point, you read a log that the ship hasn't made it to the destination according to the schedule, and the author of the log postulates that maybe the engines have been damaged and the ship has been going too slow because of that. This is not how you fly in space. The engines could be dead, and the ship would still travel at the same velocity. After acceleration, you only need the engines to break or avoid collisions. Driving a spaceship is not like driving a car. I feel this was a bit dumb in a game about a spaceship. :)

The art was nice. I get it that this is made by a small studio, and so many of the NPC portraits looked similar or were reused. The portraits of some of the more memorable NPCs did stand out nicely. However, I wish the portraits of your party members would have also been more distinguishable and less brown. It would have also been nice to have another female core follower early on. I liked the small interactions you have with the followers at different story moments (entering a new area, making a choice, etc).

This game also has a very good soundtrack. I wish they would sell it separately here. The music has an epic industrial and celestial ambiance that is also mixed together with broken melodies. I love the track that is playing at the Maintenance Deck. There are subtle layers that really resonate with the world. A string melody that doesn't quite follow through as you would expect, leaving the melody broken and uneasy. It also has creepy industrial sounds underneath it. Perfect representation of what is happening on the ship and the story.

One more little thing. Why does it have such a generic title Colony Ship? :D
This title makes it feel like it's a strategy game where you are building and managing a colony ship.

Anyway. The game is good. Very captivating sci-fi spaceship story where you can resolve most conflicts with words. I hope there is a sequel. The ending kinda left me wanting to know what happens next.

Amazing game: the lore, the exploration, the choice, the stealth, the combat, the replay-ability.
P.S. If the combat is too hard - play on hero mode, after you get the idea of how ti works, you can play gain on underdog (and make different choices).

This game... Where to begin?

Story. Excellent. LOVED the ending.

Choices. Holy shit so many choices. I had decision paralysis at least 10 times.

Development of story. There were no stale parts for me, I thoroughly enjoyed and felt that the story was chugging along at all points.

Grittiness was a major plus. I enjoyed knowing that my decisions had direct affects on the story, even things like whether or not I chose to fight a seemingly random and pointless battle against no names directly affected my character's reputation and gave me unique options during conversationS. That S is capitalized because it wasn't a one-off comment I made in a random conversation. No it influenced NPC attitudes and behavior toward me and my party for the entirety of the game every SINGLE time I caused a ripple. Telling someone off? Helping out a random NPC? Killing those nameless guys? Picking up a random datapad I found and selling it without to make a quick buck? All actions feel like they MAKE your character yours, something I find severely lacking in many AAA titles, including Baldur's Gate 3 (Sorry but they have to cater to the global crowd. This studio doesn't. They make what they think is good, not what shareholders tell them is good.)

Overall Rating? 20/10. I have completed 1 full playthrough, having owned the game since the first day of Early Access and putting it down while they developed it into the brilliant game it is now. Well done Iron Tower Studio. Well done indeed.