Autonauts

Sandbox games require a steady set of gameplay mechanics in order to provide the players with a great experience, given the fact that most of the time they lack a proper storyline. Hence, everything must be rooted in the idea that the players can have fun by themselves, which is impossible if they do not have a large number of possibilities at their disposal.

Autonauts is a very interesting game concept that allows you to gather resources and use them to build various structures, all in order to help people enjoy an easier lifestyle. You start with nothing to your name, except an “autonaut” that can take the resources available around it and use them to erect certain structures. As you get further and further into the game you can assemble a pretty big team of robots working together.

The materials at your disposal are fairly basic at first, given the fact that they include lumber, clay, trees and cereal. Every structure requires a certain number of specific resources in order to be built, so your first task is to explore the map and find what’s required. Your robot can pick up and transport the resources in his inventory, and the building process depends on the number of autonauts under your control.

Since the people around the map do nothing to help you along, every part of the building process is left up to you and your robots. Some structures make it easier to gather certain resources, and others unlock the way to more advanced buildings later on. You can also herd animals in order to produce food, as well as cultivate various plants around the map.

The controls can be a bit clunky sometimes, especially since you can run into bugs and interface issues every now and again. This is still a very early build of the project, on the other hand, so a few problems are to be expected at this point. Lastly, the graphics are blocky and very basic too, although they are certainly colorful.

Although Autonauts sits on a gold mine, the game is far from polished, and it can be a bit too boring at the moment. Thus, a lot more work is needed to make this into the addictive sandbox game it strives to be.