Have you ever been in a relationship with somebody who surprised you in all the right ways at the beginning, but eventually frustrated and disappointed you so deeply that it all ended in a messy breakup? Farlanders is my messy breakup.
It's a space colony city builder with a puzzle game mentality - and set on Mars to make things even more enticing. The best part of Farlanders is its story, and while it’s not quite a full-blown commentary on colonialism, it examines what you’re doing and why you’re doing it with a self-awareness that I did not expect at all. That being said, annoying difficulty curves, awkward terraforming, and frustrating progression systems stop this space colony sim from really taking off. A graph charting my enjoyment over time would look like a child’s drawing of a mountain.