Originally published as a mobile release, My Little Universe made it onto Steam and the Switch, making it possible for you to play it with up to three other players. So, today’s review is about this little game that was ported over from mobile with some differences and improvements alike.
Developer: Estoty Publisher: SayGames Genre: Indie, Sandbox, Exploration Release Date: October 5th, 2023 Reviewed on: PC Available on: PC, Switch, (mobile) Copy was provided by StridePR.
In My Little Universe, you crashland your ship onto a desolate planet’s island. You start off gathering resources and using them up to expand said island, hence giving you more and more space to work with, more resources to gather and more secrets to uncover.
The whole premise is rather simplistic and really digs deep into that Forager-esque gameplay loop of grinding away at resource nodes that respawn once some time passes. It’s oddly satisfying in a way, especially because of how simple it is.
Checks out, the mobile version had over 30 million downloads, after all.
On that note, Davis Toliasvili, the CEO of Estoty Riga said that they enjoyed exploring forests and participating in rafting expeditions as a kid. According to them, that spirit of exploration is what they wanted to share with My Little Universe… and I think they did so quite well.
There are nine planets to explore, each coming with a bunch of different biomes, dungeons, and cute bosses. The big idea is that you explore, grind, and then rinse & repeat. It’s a very comfortable game to play – and one for all ages, at that.
Still, at times, I found myself wondering if that’s really what I wanna play. Mindlessly grinding away, doing the same tasks over and over again, then exploring new areas that took inspiration from somewhere else. “Is that something that I would recommend to people?”, I thought… but I think that’s a bit goofy of me to ask, innit?
I mean, clearly, I’m not the target audience. I don’t think this game is necessarily for children but it definitely would hit all the right buttons for children. I’d imagine that the mobile game was probably played a lot by children, as well.
Personally, as someone who is pushing 25, I’m missing any sense of “challenge” from the game. The puzzles are one-dimensional. I don’t get surprised anymore. The world design is too colourful for my taste…
But for kids, this could be just the right entry-level game to get into games.
Simplistic controls, a colourful and chipper world, no hard resets or frustrations, no complex and hard-to-understand narrative, and on top of that… new surprises around every corner or hexagon!
Add to that that parents can join their kids in couch-co-op on this adventure, spend some time together (if they wanna of course)… Personally, I played a few hours of this and had enough. Probably forever. But I could see kids enjoying this a lot. Like way too much.
I’m not the target audience but My Little Universe is not a bad game, so to speak, so I’d recommend this to those wanting a bit of a more relaxed and chill time without any surprises, frustrations or big setbacks.
This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.
If you see this article anywhere other than Indiecator.org then this article has been scraped. Please let me know about this via E-Mail.
Indiecator 