This becomes even clearer as later levels add even more complexity and even combat to proceedings, so suddenly there are even more plates to spin. More could have been done when a mistake was made to alert the player, as opposed to having to click on individual robot colonists or buildings to finally squeeze out the information. When there’s this many complicated systems in place, I often felt like I was just spinning plates and any second it could all go wrong. It took me several attempts to truly start the game as my settlements would grind to a halt and it took me far too much time to realise the trivial reasons things stopped working. While the UI does a fairly good job of making things clear – and you can easily swing or zoom the camera to get close to all the units you have to manage – there is still a lot of information buried in different menus that the game does little to prepare you for. While The Colonists looks great in motion, more could have been done to make the backgrounds and details more visually appealing. Mercifully, it’s very easy to scrap inconveniently placed buildings, but there’s a lot to consider and you’ll need to make roads to reach every point as well.
Plus you will have to place watchtowers to expand your visible terrain and your available building space, so even a single misplaced road can cause havoc later on. Each level also has mineral deposits that you need to reach to mine certain materials, so you have to consider this when planning.
You’ll soon get a good eye for exactly where you should place your orchards or your sheep farm, for instance, and exactly the best way to build your roads around a level. Once you do get a grasp of things, however, it can become very satisfying to tinker with optimal layouts and building preferences, as to develop as quickly and efficiently as you can. Surveying your surroundings for resources will reveal the best places to explore first. There is a menu option to give you some quick tips, but these are generally in the vague to obvious category and don’t help with some of the minutia needed to fully understand the game.
Despite the first level being entirely tutorial, a lot of seemingly simple things are also left up to the player to discover. It’s a complicated hierarchy of needs, and it becomes a bit of a house of cards when one single thing can stop production entirely if you don’t pay attention to the smaller demands. There’s also a fairly complicated production line of materials needed, with your colonists needing energy and resources (food and water), buildings and research needing logs or stone to be built or discovered, and then further developments needing newer resources you’ll unlock through research. It feels so satisfying to line up your buildings perfectly and efficiently! The landscape of each planet is randomised, so it’s up to you to make the most of the layout, designating roads and production units in the most efficient way. It’s a great set-up for a game and one that immediately gives you a lot of room to mess around with. You’ll complete your colonisation by meeting a specific request, such as building a certain item that demands a large number of resources and research, and how quickly you meet this goal will ultimately decide your score on that planet. In The Colonists, it’s your task to colonise (duh) different planets, with each planet increasing in complexity and difficulty. So, does The Colonists do enough to stand out from the pack? Or does this planet-hopping title leave us feeling stranded? Given how easy the Switch is to play for short bursts or longer sessions, it’s flourished when it comes to management sims with titles like Stardew Valley and Two Point Hospital, offering some hugely satisfying simulation gaming even when you’ve only got five minutes.