Have you already played Hydroneer? It takes sandboxing and makes it more about the sand than the box! The whole concept is like all those other ones where you gotta mine a resource to get better tools to mine even more of that resource, you know the deal. But Hydroneer stands out because it’s like a mashup of Minecraft and automation mechanics, with a bunch of extra bells and whistles that you can use to your advantage if that’s your jam. The focus is on simulation and base building, with no story to drive things forward. And don’t expect a tutorial either. The game just kicks you to the curb and you have to figure it all out on your own!

There’s gonna be no slack!

The way things are set up here is not the same as you would expect either. Instead of a nice, organized inventory system, you just gotta chuck all your stuff on the ground like some kind of savage. And let’s not even get started on trying to set up even the tiniest thing – it’s a straight-up pain in the ass. You gotta haul all your gear around with you, either on your back or on some clunky tractor thing. But either way, you gotta go back and forth, picking stuff up and moving it to where you need it. And when you’re trying to set up some dope automation, that means a whole ton of back and forth.

And even getting to that point is a major chore. You gotta mine up all your cash by hand, which takes forever. You scoop up dirt, dump it in a pan, scrub it down, and hope something good pops out. Rinse and repeat, my dude. And even when you get some basic stuff up and running, it’s not gonna be fully automated. Plus, the world doesn’t even have a proper grid system, so you’re constantly adjusting and tweaking to get everything lined up just right.

Well-designed and none-refined!

But there is some kind of crude charm in it. Aren’t we all tired of games where things are just all sleek and smooth, and it’s almost like the system does half of the job for you? If you feel it, then you will surely be intrigued to check out Hydroneer. Speaking of the graphics, they are pretty simple, with hand-drawn or physics-engine animations that are just chill. It’s weird though, cause the game’s not even made in Unity, but rather Unreal 4. Not that you would really know – everything looks pretty basic. But that’s probably on purpose, since these types of games can get cray-cray once you start automating like crazy. So that’s it! Hydroneer is a nice one to give a shot. And you can do it right now!