Gameplay and Mechanics:
The ground level is where you build structures, create pickup and delivery routes, decide how much you need of each robot type (there are 4), and create a whole economy from the ground up. Each building has that barely scrapped together but working effectively style to them which set them apart from each other, and I could always find whichever building I need by just what animation it is looping, and that is very high praise. Placing of buildings is of the most importance since being placed too far does increase the travel time and the delivery of needed materials to create other material, but even more, you will not meet the requirements needed to have the most type of robots and their specific needs. For a town made exclusively by robots and nothing else, you would be astonished how many needs each of these specific ones have. If you don't meet their needs to a 100%, you will not be able to upgrade their buildings to acquire the next robots, however if you do decide to upgrade them, you lose the previous ones and some buildings that require them to work will not be at full capacity, and (if you are too much in the negative) they will outright stop working. The game has plenty of buildings and each serves a specific purpose, and as you are advancing with the story more and more buildings are being introduced, but never to an extent of it becoming overwhelming.
Mines are a whole different breed; here we forget about building a whole town, rather constructing a small community of highly efficient structures that serve a purpose to mine, gather and deliver resources, build mines for specific resources or specific traps for different enemies. These mines added an interesting twist compared to the town-building part and served a story purpose as well, as here is where you will find the technology needed to escape this planet. Each mine introduced new mechanics, and as a player, you are tasked to create an effective supply route to an elevator which transports the resources to the town. Developing it such a way as to require as little time and as little cost in terms of upkeep is an interesting challenge, and it made me rethink my routes as more and more options were being introduced that make the previous ones, not ineffective, but could be built even better.
Also, I don't want to even admit to it. In level 3 as you are finding more equipment needed to escape the planet, you also open more ways that the enemies can attack. That and in combination with the AI of the combat robots can create not much of a challenge, but rather a nuisance which I would consider is worse to an extent. I found it a very specific way, by just trying something that made little sense, since they have flying enemies, to just tear down bridges and ultimately destroy their way to get to me. To my surprise, that simple decision made it so that side never spawned enemies again and I made my game effectively ¼ of the difficulty by not even going into the options and changing it manually. Of course, if you do tear down their way to attack, you also cut yourself off from gathering the resources placed there, but if you don't require them to keep your economy going, you won't miss them. I don't know if that is how it's supposed to work, but it somehow did. Also, last point here, if you do have some forethought in planning which blocks to mine and which not, you can make it so that enemies can only come in from a very narrow passageway and you can pick them off very easily with traps and turrets in your own makeshift chokepoint.
AI - This is where I had my most fun watching the game. I love when small characters just go and do their designated tasks around the town, building, moving, baking, creating, mixing, and whatever else. I love that and is always something I look for when playing a strategy game of any sort. However, then we get to the mines, and this is where I was letdown. Have to get into a bit of spoilers here for it to work, you get a few different kinds of robots in the mines with each serving 1-2 tasks. The non-combat ones serve their purpose without missing a beat and don't require any managing on the player's part. The problem are the combat ones that could have used a way to control them since over half the time they were on the exact opposite part of the map rather than where I needed them. They react fast and correctly to enemies and are almost every time where they need to be before the enemies has even spawned or I receive a notification of an attack. However, they react to the first spawned and all go for him, that means that if 1 enemy is on one side of the map and 10 are on the other, the will all go for the 1 and will go back after he is killed. This made a big inconvenience in the late game where attacks are set apart by a few minutes. Each time they weren't where I needed them, I had my other robots running around (because they need the combat ones near them to not be afraid) and buildings or traps being destroyed.
Sound Design and Music:
At any time, you can zoom into different buildings, and you can hear each of them having a unique sound depending on what item they are trying to create. The roads are filled with robots moving from place to place dropping and taking items, you can hear them having seemingly unintelligible chatter while moving, you don't need to understand them, it's just simulating the hustle and bustle of a town, which I liked very much.
The soundtrack, created by Ola Bäckström is very wholesome with different instruments, from time-to-time vocals and very specific whistling especially in the intro theme and some others, and especially the vocals in the credit song. Represented in the songs Main Menu Theme (A Gem In The Rough), End Theme (Astrids' Theme) (feat. Matilda Bäckström), and City (Counting Stars, Counting Days). The mines added a mysterious aspect to them, where you know what to do and how to do it, but you may meet stuff you aren't certain how to approach, through a bigger focus on drums and a very melancholic guitar. Represented in the songs Mine03 (Blue Dots In The Dark) (feat. Silia Hahne) and Mine03 (Down and Back Again).
Game Setting and Worldbuilding:
SteamWorld Build is situated in a seemingly abandoned world that at first sight doesn't seem all that left in disarray, until you get down to the mines and start seeing items that shouldn't be there. Leaving the player to gather, think over and ultimately create mini stories in their head is always a plus.
Everything in SteamWorld Build is constructed by bits and bobs from different metallic plates to construct buildings and robots which in terms of worldbuilding really adds to the atmosphere of 'we are here for a specific task and for a very limited time'. Also, I just have to add this ach map has a very cute looking greetings card giving you a rough idea in which place you are going to be building.
Story, Side Quests, and More:
You are marooned on a world with the simple task to escape this planet, but nothing ever goes smoothly. Tasked with the 'simple' mission of creating a self-sustaining town and operational mine, your objective is to find and collect rocket parts scattered underground. On your path you will be met with the ever-growing needs of your town robots and the constant attacks on the lower levels, making it so that you are constantly needed to oversee simple tasks like building up again support colons so that mine doesn't collapse on itself (it sounds rough, but it's just that some rocks may fall down and enemy or two with them). That is mostly it, find, collect and build the rocket so you can evacuate and leave everything you build to waste. The story is however prompt up the different characters represented by father, daughter, and old townsfolk and a mysterious machine. Their voice acting is pretty respectable especially the father and daughter.
Probable Visual, Audio and Gameplay Bugs:
I had about 3 different instances of a very specific bugs that caused my ingame time to pause in the mines (level 2/3) which in return made it so that materials do not get gathered (even if I see the animation of my robots delivering the materials). This in turn made it so that combat music that starts when I get attacked never ends, since the timer doesn't go on so that the attack ends. On the town section nothing changed and timer was still going correctly. The only way I found to fix it is to just reload the save.
Further into the game you get access to teleporters, from one point of the map to the farthest possible location wherever the player chooses. I decided to cut down on the travel time of my mines and create two points, and since they were teleporting, I didn't need my bridges up anymore. The problem was that seemingly my miners still needed the path physically connected from point A to B even if they didn't use it. They weren't using the teleporters if there was no physical connection. The fix was just building the bridges up again.
Replayability:
Once you finish the story and before taking the final decision, you get an option to continue where you are and finish digging up the mines, optimize everything up and down and try to achieve as much population as possible.
However, if you do decide to end it, you are then presented with a final cutscene and credits. After that, there is a possibility to start a new game on a different map but with a bonus structure from the map you already finished. In a way having a constant buff for each next map (there are a total of 6) to reach the endgame point faster and to ultimately reduce the slow pace of early game.
Closing Thoughts:
SteamWorld Build is a well-crafted game in almost every aspect from building, to managing (macro and somewhat micro), to developing new and better ways to play, constantly adding new mechanics without it being overwhelming and, most importantly, leaving the player to play how he/she wants.
The ground level is where you build structures, create pickup and delivery routes, decide how much you need of each robot type (there are 4), and create a whole economy from the ground up. Each building has that barely scrapped together but working effectively style to them which set them apart from each other, and I could always find whichever building I need by just what animation it is looping, and that is very high praise. Placing of buildings is of the most importance since being placed too far does increase the travel time and the delivery of needed materials to create other material, but even more, you will not meet the requirements needed to have the most type of robots and their specific needs. For a town made exclusively by robots and nothing else, you would be astonished how many needs each of these specific ones have. If you don't meet their needs to a 100%, you will not be able to upgrade their buildings to acquire the next robots, however if you do decide to upgrade them, you lose the previous ones and some buildings that require them to work will not be at full capacity, and (if you are too much in the negative) they will outright stop working. The game has plenty of buildings and each serves a specific purpose, and as you are advancing with the story more and more buildings are being introduced, but never to an extent of it becoming overwhelming.
Mines are a whole different breed; here we forget about building a whole town, rather constructing a small community of highly efficient structures that serve a purpose to mine, gather and deliver resources, build mines for specific resources or specific traps for different enemies. These mines added an interesting twist compared to the town-building part and served a story purpose as well, as here is where you will find the technology needed to escape this planet. Each mine introduced new mechanics, and as a player, you are tasked to create an effective supply route to an elevator which transports the resources to the town. Developing it such a way as to require as little time and as little cost in terms of upkeep is an interesting challenge, and it made me rethink my routes as more and more options were being introduced that make the previous ones, not ineffective, but could be built even better.
Also, I don't want to even admit to it. In level 3 as you are finding more equipment needed to escape the planet, you also open more ways that the enemies can attack. That and in combination with the AI of the combat robots can create not much of a challenge, but rather a nuisance which I would consider is worse to an extent. I found it a very specific way, by just trying something that made little sense, since they have flying enemies, to just tear down bridges and ultimately destroy their way to get to me. To my surprise, that simple decision made it so that side never spawned enemies again and I made my game effectively ¼ of the difficulty by not even going into the options and changing it manually. Of course, if you do tear down their way to attack, you also cut yourself off from gathering the resources placed there, but if you don't require them to keep your economy going, you won't miss them. I don't know if that is how it's supposed to work, but it somehow did. Also, last point here, if you do have some forethought in planning which blocks to mine and which not, you can make it so that enemies can only come in from a very narrow passageway and you can pick them off very easily with traps and turrets in your own makeshift chokepoint.
AI - This is where I had my most fun watching the game. I love when small characters just go and do their designated tasks around the town, building, moving, baking, creating, mixing, and whatever else. I love that and is always something I look for when playing a strategy game of any sort. However, then we get to the mines, and this is where I was letdown. Have to get into a bit of spoilers here for it to work, you get a few different kinds of robots in the mines with each serving 1-2 tasks. The non-combat ones serve their purpose without missing a beat and don't require any managing on the player's part. The problem are the combat ones that could have used a way to control them since over half the time they were on the exact opposite part of the map rather than where I needed them. They react fast and correctly to enemies and are almost every time where they need to be before the enemies has even spawned or I receive a notification of an attack. However, they react to the first spawned and all go for him, that means that if 1 enemy is on one side of the map and 10 are on the other, the will all go for the 1 and will go back after he is killed. This made a big inconvenience in the late game where attacks are set apart by a few minutes. Each time they weren't where I needed them, I had my other robots running around (because they need the combat ones near them to not be afraid) and buildings or traps being destroyed.
Sound Design and Music:
At any time, you can zoom into different buildings, and you can hear each of them having a unique sound depending on what item they are trying to create. The roads are filled with robots moving from place to place dropping and taking items, you can hear them having seemingly unintelligible chatter while moving, you don't need to understand them, it's just simulating the hustle and bustle of a town, which I liked very much.
The soundtrack, created by Ola Bäckström is very wholesome with different instruments, from time-to-time vocals and very specific whistling especially in the intro theme and some others, and especially the vocals in the credit song. Represented in the songs Main Menu Theme (A Gem In The Rough), End Theme (Astrids' Theme) (feat. Matilda Bäckström), and City (Counting Stars, Counting Days). The mines added a mysterious aspect to them, where you know what to do and how to do it, but you may meet stuff you aren't certain how to approach, through a bigger focus on drums and a very melancholic guitar. Represented in the songs Mine03 (Blue Dots In The Dark) (feat. Silia Hahne) and Mine03 (Down and Back Again).
Game Setting and Worldbuilding:
SteamWorld Build is situated in a seemingly abandoned world that at first sight doesn't seem all that left in disarray, until you get down to the mines and start seeing items that shouldn't be there. Leaving the player to gather, think over and ultimately create mini stories in their head is always a plus.
Everything in SteamWorld Build is constructed by bits and bobs from different metallic plates to construct buildings and robots which in terms of worldbuilding really adds to the atmosphere of 'we are here for a specific task and for a very limited time'. Also, I just have to add this ach map has a very cute looking greetings card giving you a rough idea in which place you are going to be building.
Story, Side Quests, and More:
You are marooned on a world with the simple task to escape this planet, but nothing ever goes smoothly. Tasked with the 'simple' mission of creating a self-sustaining town and operational mine, your objective is to find and collect rocket parts scattered underground. On your path you will be met with the ever-growing needs of your town robots and the constant attacks on the lower levels, making it so that you are constantly needed to oversee simple tasks like building up again support colons so that mine doesn't collapse on itself (it sounds rough, but it's just that some rocks may fall down and enemy or two with them). That is mostly it, find, collect and build the rocket so you can evacuate and leave everything you build to waste. The story is however prompt up the different characters represented by father, daughter, and old townsfolk and a mysterious machine. Their voice acting is pretty respectable especially the father and daughter.
Probable Visual, Audio and Gameplay Bugs:
I had about 3 different instances of a very specific bugs that caused my ingame time to pause in the mines (level 2/3) which in return made it so that materials do not get gathered (even if I see the animation of my robots delivering the materials). This in turn made it so that combat music that starts when I get attacked never ends, since the timer doesn't go on so that the attack ends. On the town section nothing changed and timer was still going correctly. The only way I found to fix it is to just reload the save.
Further into the game you get access to teleporters, from one point of the map to the farthest possible location wherever the player chooses. I decided to cut down on the travel time of my mines and create two points, and since they were teleporting, I didn't need my bridges up anymore. The problem was that seemingly my miners still needed the path physically connected from point A to B even if they didn't use it. They weren't using the teleporters if there was no physical connection. The fix was just building the bridges up again.
Replayability:
Once you finish the story and before taking the final decision, you get an option to continue where you are and finish digging up the mines, optimize everything up and down and try to achieve as much population as possible.
However, if you do decide to end it, you are then presented with a final cutscene and credits. After that, there is a possibility to start a new game on a different map but with a bonus structure from the map you already finished. In a way having a constant buff for each next map (there are a total of 6) to reach the endgame point faster and to ultimately reduce the slow pace of early game.
Closing Thoughts:
SteamWorld Build is a well-crafted game in almost every aspect from building, to managing (macro and somewhat micro), to developing new and better ways to play, constantly adding new mechanics without it being overwhelming and, most importantly, leaving the player to play how he/she wants.