A space-themed life simulator
One Lonely Outpost is a premium role-playing title developed by Aurorian Studios. It's a life simulation game set in space and will have players start a farming colony and try to grow it into a bustling community. You can go all-organic or incorporate tech into your crops, it's up to you. This RPG is available to be played on PCs.
Just like Stardew Valley, One Lonely Outpost focuses on agriculture for its core premise, as well as a similarly charming story and presentation. What makes it intriguing is the way it tries to meld two opposing ideas and concepts to make something unique when it comes to its gameplay.
What is the story about?
In One Lonely Outpost, you are presented with a barren, alien world, and it's your job to transform it into a vibrant farming colony. Armed with nothing but your trusty space RV, a handy tech gauntlet, and some seeds, you will start from scratch and turn this seemingly hopeless place into a prime location that will attract other colonists and build a healthy and thriving community.
The game lets you create and customize your character to suit your style. Invest in traits and specializations, such as farming, crafting, or even dungeon-diving, as you explore various ancient ruins for lost knowledge and technology. From there, play however you want. You can even choose how to grow agriculture, with high-tech robo-cows and gene-splicing, or go old-school by raising animals and tending to your crops.
The game also features online multiplayer that can let you play with up to 3 friends in a collaborative effort or simply compete in the various minigames available. Now, as for the gameplay itself, the experience is affected negatively by poor performance that gets in the way at times and needs more optimization. Also, progression in the game is quite slow, which lends itself to a “grindy” feeling when playing.
One thing that makes the game attractive to players is that the developers continue to actively participate in community discussions, listening to what the players want. Additionally, there were changes to make Storage Lockers more visible. The light indicators that note what each chest contains have been made brighter and are now available in a wider variety of colors. Similarly, the Omni-Forge and the Refinery are now mechanically redesigned to come with a more user-friendly interface. You can even watch the items inside as they are processed.
Second act
The game has received a major content update in the form of the Act II patch. It's a milestone that introduces plenty of new things, including five new playable characters to add to its roster. They each have their own unique storylines and relationship dynamics. In addition, there are over 15 quests to take on that aim to progress the story further and facilitate new interactions.
There is also a dynamic weather system in place that can let players experience full seasons. Of course, this can also affect what types of crops you can plant, depending on the current season. Gene-splicing has also received something, it now has five new crop types you can create through different possible combinations and rarity levels to Legendary grade to discover.
Other notable features of the game are the new festival event and mini-games, better Steam integration and enhancements, and various improvements to the overall UI to make gameplay even more seamless and intuitive for players. These are just some of the things that new and returning players can expect when they dive into what this Act II content update has to offer.
Organic vs. synthetic
Upon first look, you might think that One Lonely Outpost bears a striking similarity, in both premise and presentation, to other farming games, but it offers so much more than that. From the sci-fi setting to the various customization options, and the whole natural vs synthetic debate, make it unique in its own right. Give this one a try and see for yourself what type of gameplay it offers.
