Maybe because I overplayed 'Quest' a bit, I don't know. I honestly am not in love with 'Steam World' as a setting any more, I think it's getting a bit stale. My minds been all over the place with this one.

Again, this is lost to a degree due to the graphical sacrifices on Switch, which is a bit of a shame. Similar levels of personality can be seen in the finer details of buildings and how they function, such as a sand refinery simply flinging out whatever it deems too coarse to make it through its filter, presumably hitting some nearby family’s home repeatedly and at all hours. It’s not breaking any new ground, but it’s a harmless addition that stuffs more personality into things. There’s also a story that will accompany you on your first playthough (although you can disable it), and it’s a nice little context-provider. The touchscreen goes unused, and we would like the option to scale down the UI in docked mode, but we got used to it fairly quickly. We’re sad not to see more detail of the robot cat on a bench, but prioritising performance is absolutely the right move. Moreover, graphical fidelity has been sacrificed to maintain performance, and although you will encounter dips as scenes get busier, it's still very playable in both handheld and docked mode. The game runs at 30fps and details are muddy, but considering you’re zoomed out so far 99% of the time, it’s not a dealbreaker. Such a complex game sounds like a struggle for the Switch, and truth be told the graphics are pared back a lot compared to other platforms. One thing we hadn’t banked on was the weird self-inflicted social commentary of moving low-level workers to the outskirts of the city because it really is just easier to do that, leaving all the wealth and services further away from those with the least. The whole thing, as every good management sim should, becomes a delicate balancing act of managing resources, maintaining populations, and expanding to achieve progress.

Whenever we felt we’d discovered it all, the game gave a hearty chuckle and then revealed that we needed to use more of our sulphur gas and oil reserves because the Aristobots demand a sparkling diesel manufacturer (hmmm). Throughout an entire playthough you’ll be discovering new structures and resources that need to be managed, culminating in Scientist bots advancing your understanding enough to rebuild the rocket and ‘Junior Birdman’ the heck off the planet. The harder difficulty definitely gives combat a bit more edge, so if you’re the type that goes for that, that might be something worth thinking about. It’s quite the intoxicating blend, although the penalty for miners being eaten by giant worms or guards being blown up is fairly small, as they’ll just be replaced fairly briskly. To be honest, the whole game feels like it’s riding a line between management sim and RTS at times, and - once you gain the ability to place turrets and other static defensive structures to stem enemy flow - even some tower defence ideals, taking us right back to the series' roots. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked) You’ll need to employ Aristobots as guards to keep the other workers safe and fend off these foul foes, and we start seeing some light RTS-like mechanics seeping in. These lower two levels also bring with them some complications in the form of enemies. The Aristobots and their woven glass hats are the top rank with ludicrous demands and top-tier rewards, right? Well, we’ll get back to it, but obviously the answer is ‘no’. Make them happy enough, and you can even boost them to the heights of a new class, Aristobots, and by this point you’ve got the whole thing sussed. The mine allows you to mine (!) for minerals and other resources to support the city above, and improve the lives of its population with the likes of moonshine, spare parts, and many other bits and bobs that Engineers love to have. We don’t mean 'there’s barely a loading screen' or even 'a short transition', we’re talking a sub-one second process, and it’s utter bliss. The mine is an entirely separate map beneath your city, which you can switch to at the press of two buttons, and it’s instant. Once you have enough Engineers at your disposal you are able to repair the mineshaft (which was the whole point of your Steambots upping sticks and dropping tools in this particular location), and this is where the game goes from surprisingly layered to literally layered. But back to the proverbial discovery train.

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