Good atmosphere and laid-back game, but perhaps a little too taxing on your patience...
Eufloria is a strategy game with only one unit - little flying robots. There are only two structures to be built, one robot-producing tree, and one defensive tree, both of which take 10 robots to build, so essentially they're the game's resources as well. The objective is to use your little robots to build up different asteroids scattered on a level, then attack and take over enemy controlled asteroids who are trying to do the same to you.
Pros:
- Nice serene and relaxing atmosphere
- Minimalistic presentation - easy to jump in and play, no clutter
- A few different play modes, including custom levels
- Easy to begin with, but can become difficult to master, requiring more strategy as the levels get harder
- Low system requirements - works on a netbook
Cons:
- Perhaps a little too much waiting involved at times - I often had to enter Steam overlay and check on various websites waiting for my little units to 'build'
- It's easier to play the entire game zoomed out, bypassing all the nice visuals
- Too much micromanagement
- Lacking multiplayer
- Slightly repetitive
Overall thoughts:
I think this is a game that doesn't really know what it wants to be. On the one hand it looks like a relaxing game and you don't mind just spending time watching the trees and the little robots that fly around them. And a lot of the times you'll do just that, as you wait for more units to come into existence. I often had to surf the web for a few minutes, then come back and continue playing. Then when you've assembled your units and are ready to attack, the game suddenly becomes a lot more frantic as you move from asteroid to asteroid issuing move orders for your little guys. This is a big pain because not only can you not select robots from multiple asteroids, but their pathfinding is definitely not great - instead of going around a mined asteroid, they'll head right toward it if it's a more direct route, most likely killing themselves in the process.
So you've got this relaxing game on one side, then this click-fest on the other. This is a problem because it's just too laid-back most of the game, which players craving action will be very annoyed about, and a little too much micromanagement when the action starts. So if you did want to relax, now you're clicking away, trying to give orders to hundreds of robots.
The visuals don't really matter either because a) you'll probably get bored of it once the novelty wears off, and b) it's much easier and more efficient to play the game zoomed out, which is a shame because the visual component of this game is probably its main draw.
While I do want to love this game for its idea and atmosphere, I just don't know where I stand. I mean, it's a pretty fun game still, but it's definitely not for everyone.