~ A 7.4/10 overall ~

The Diamond
* Really solid mechanics fleshed out in the UI and world simulation, mostly thoroughly implemented
* Good premise and world-building, nice art style and dynamic city building
* Great attention to detail for animations, geometry, resource distribution systems, etc.
* Nice OST, great ambiance, world feels alive and active

The Rough
* Resources/Logistics can very suddenly fall out from under you; despite the UI saying having food/water in the reserves and people working/living right next to food providers/storage, they die anyway. You NEED to have a significant reserve to be stable
* Tools, protective clothes, refined resources - these all take a lot of time to churn out at scale and especially a lot of man power to maintain (which only spikes the problem); your nearly always chasing runaway demand
* Only way I've managed to keep up with demand is by constantly inflating my population, which constantly spikes demand, which needs more people to satisfy
* Could use a more streamlined management overview for bigger cities; constantly enabling buildings, triggering water tower filters, tweaking resource collection zones, etc. does get cumbersome after ~100 people

> Verdict <
A chill game to watch your poor management choices // bad luck crumble and spiral out of control in. Having played games like this for years, there're a lot of mechanics and features packed in here I've wanted to see in a lot of *other* games for a long time, but there are trade-offs. It feels tricky trying to figure out what the game wants from me in order to succeed; I think I figure it out, then a drought sweeps through and survival is a whole new animal where my previous approaches stop working almost entirely. I haven't played Endzone 2 so I can't say these issues will rectify, but getting it discounted (bought @ ~$5) felt about right for the experience.

~ A 7.4/10 overall ~ The Diamond * Really solid mechanics fleshed out in the UI and world simulation, mostly thoroughly implemented * Good premise and world-building, nice art style and dynamic city building * Great attention to detail for animations, geometry, resource distribution systems, etc. * Nice OST, great ambiance, world feels alive and active The Rough * Resources/Logistics can very suddenly fall out from under you; despite the UI saying having food/water in the reserves and people working/living right next to food providers/storage, they die anyway. You NEED to have a significant reserve to be stable * Tools, protective clothes, refined resources - these all take a lot of time to churn out at scale and especially a lot of man power to maintain (which only spikes the problem); your nearly always chasing runaway demand * Only way I've managed to keep up with demand is by constantly inflating my population, which constantly spikes demand, which needs more people to satisfy * Could use a more streamlined management overview for bigger cities; constantly enabling buildings, triggering water tower filters, tweaking resource collection zones, etc. does get cumbersome after ~100 people > Verdict < A chill game to watch your poor management choices // bad luck crumble and spiral out of control in. Having played games like this for years, there're a lot of mechanics and features packed in here I've wanted to see in a lot of *other* games for a long time, but there are trade-offs. It feels tricky trying to figure out what the game wants from me in order to succeed; I think I figure it out, then a drought sweeps through and survival is a whole new animal where my previous approaches stop working almost entirely. I haven't played Endzone 2 so I can't say these issues will rectify, but getting it discounted (bought @ ~$5) felt about right for the experience.