Space Colonizers – The Sandbox Review

Collecting to Infinity and Beyond, and Beyond, and Beyond…

Space Colonizers – The Sandbox is a new space simulation/strategy game released by CapPlay. In Space Colonizers, due to a horrific tragedy, all the planets have been destroyed. Countless aliens are now homeless and it’s up to you to help them. You do this by using various types of matter to rebuild their planets for them. Do you have what it takes to save them? Probably, because apparently, it’s incredibly easy to put a planet back together.

Same Formula With a Sci-Fi Twist

For anyone who’s played the Adventure Capitalist and Adventure Communist games by Hyper Hippo the concept is very similar here. In Space Colonizers, the way you will be rebuilding planets is by completing a number of goals per planet. To start, the number of goals will be small but will increase as you progress through the game. These goals can include things like upgrading a specific form of matter collection, collecting a given amount of material or collecting/upgrading cards. Cards are aliens who will automate and speed up your production of the material they are associated with.

Players will quickly realize that there isn’t much new here in the way of gameplay. The reason Hyper Hippo has been so successful with this formula is their sense of humor. The gameplay is dime a dozen but the motivation to keep playing is the funny upgrades and characters. So, when you use that formula, you need something beyond upgrading for upgrading’s sake to excite players. Space Colonizers does not have anything like this unfortunately. It’s a shame because the setup here seems ripe for creativity. Maybe your planets can form societies and interact in ways that affect gameplay. Even just having a screen where the aliens say thanks would be an improvement. As it is now you just create planet after planet with nothing keeping you engaged.

It’s Not Too Late to Fix It (Fix it Good)

This game’s concept has a lot of promise and it wouldn’t take much to live up to it. I was excited when I saw the space station as a reward for reaching level 12 because I thought it would add a way to interact with the planets I had created. To my disappointment, the space station is just a timed boost for your resource collection. Then the spaceship that unlocks at level 15 seemed like it might be what I’m looking for, but it’s just a way to get fuel for your space station.

In its current state, Space Colonizers isn’t great. It asks you to upgrade and collect endlessly, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When there is no light at the end of the tunnel, though, it’s time to rethink some things about your game. With the state of modern gaming this is not a death sentence the way it would have been in the past. With a couple updates this game could be fun, but right now there’s not much of a point. At least it’s given me hope that when our planet is destroyed by climate change, it will only take someone with a smartphone about 20 minutes to rebuild it.