Your typical "Terraria" game with a twist. It's quite a bit more arcady then other games in those genres, with a constant threat of losing the market of soup, you must go out, find ingredients, make soup and ship it off, eventually just doing it by manpower alone becomes too slow, so purchasing aids is in order until the entire game turns into a soup making factory. You could think of it as having a slight Tekkit feel to it, maybe even as far as a... simple Tekkit Terraria.

The graphics have a nice textured feel to them, it's certainly one of the better looking games in its genre, with colorful characters and plenty to gawk at.

The controls feel nice, although the character can feel a tad slow at times, the tank is even slower but well... it's a tank. I found that not all was explained to me too clearly however, but it doesn't take long to figure out yourself.

Gameplay's addictive, typical Pixeljunk stuff, I find all their games are really fun, this is no exception.

I bought this in Early Access and as of now there's little content, no saves, bugged keyboard and mouse support and a few bugs, but I'd say this has a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to more.

Edit: Keyboard and mouse support has been added, saves are in, more content has been added and it's slowly realizing its potential, I could cry manly tears I'm that proud.

Nom Nom Galaxy is a strange hybrid of defence tower and resource management, been following this game for awhile ever since it was revealed in March last year and finally had a chance to play it when it released on Steam Early Access.

After a 4 hour session with the game, I feel like i can give a suitable verdict based on what I played.

A few reviews have drawn similiarities between this game and Terraria and they wouldn't be that far off.

The 2D geometry, the pixel aesthetics and controls all feel quite similiar to the aforementioned game, where it differs though is it's execution which I'll get to in abit.

Since this game is of course still in Alpha, there is a lot of missing features still not in place but what is there is enough to play through for a couple of hours and then some so its not unplayable.

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Good Points

The aesthetics are pleasing and simple, you can clearly see where your character is and where all the items in the world are so you'll hardly get lost trying to look for a item.

The controls (i recommend on controller) are decent with some support for mouse and keyboard which is not quite there yet, rotating blocks was one feature I had trouble with, prompting me to switch to controller and the difference was significant.

The sound quality is acceptable, there isn't much in the way of background music but you will notice the punchy and effective sound bites that add to the overall atmosphere, e.g., the sound of you smacking invaders and the gulp of your customers slurping down your soup.

Don't let the Alpha label deterring you from supporting this game, there is already quite a variety of items you can craft and plenty of combinations of soup you can make to turn that all important profit.

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Bad Points

*Possible spolier*

When buying the tank, the controls felt very stiff and trying to scale any wall of more than 6 blocks were nigh impossible making this purchase a wasted oppurtunity since its concept is generally fantastic

*Spoiler end*

Oxygen should be extended when outside base, its okay at the moment but if you want to do any real exploring you'll best hope for those precious pockets of air.

The robot AI is not very good, Charlie and Charles are great for picking up items and automating some of tediousness of the soup making process but they prioritise storing your ingredients over making that precious soup if they are given the choice.

And probably most vexing of all is the limited corridors you can place. *READ* 4 Way Corridor.

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All in all though, I'm happy I picked up this game even if i did miss the early bird offer on their site and ended up paying for the £15 standard price.

This game is obviously still in Alpha so there a ton of stuff they can still implement and fix so here are my suggestions:

-A 4 way corridor

-Jet Pack/grappling hook please, sick of dying to fall damage and the pogo stick is...yeah.

-I assume the passive improvments still need implementing (99 research points!)

-Smarter AI for poor Charlie and Charles or allowing us the option to choose their list of priorities e.g.,
take ingredients to closest relevant soup dispenser > take finished soup to avilable rocket > store ingredient in hand,
from highest priority to lowest.

-Oxygen mask, you can send mini rockets packing delicious soup through space but a means of external oxygen storage is non-existent?

-That vacuum tank is awesome but it's way too hampered by its cumbersome controls and limited jet capability

-A clock icon would be useful to track the progress of day

-Extending 2 ingredients soups to 3 maybe?

-After a day is over and you start off a new day, the player character keeps the same level of health from the previous day. Can a feature be implemented when it's full on the next day? Would remove some of the hassle from wasting potential ingredients on a start of a new day just to get their health back to full.

-Implementing a way for Charlie and Charles to use those floating elevators? They seem to be stuck to the platform they travel back and forth on

-On that note, perhaps a system that allows the the player to take the current ingredient out of their hands or swapping it with another ingredient, e.g., if they're running back and forth with a ingredient that can't be used for a soup dispenser yet because that soup dispenser is waiitng for another ingredient.


Bugs

-I'm not sure if it's a bug but sometimes after planting mushrooms or other plants of any sort, they dissappear after a few days, is this meant to happen? If not, then this needs looking at.

-One instance when I was invaded, after a enemy died and a rocket turrent just fired a missle after it died, the missle image stayed uprght as it homed to the where the enemy disappeared.

7/10

Recommended Purchase.

Needs work to get it sparkling but what is there, is already solid.

Looking forward to what else they have planned.

This game isn't quite what I expected. I love the polish, the style, and theme. The mechanics are solid and fun.

I saw it compared to things like Terraria and Starbound, and while that isn't incorrect, it's not quite right either. This isn't a sandbox game. At the time of this review, there are "levels" and a finite play time.

The game is broken down into days with the goal to get 100% of the market from your competitor (which as far as I can tell, is just a virtual system selling soup rather than a physical entity playing in your map). For instance, there is no enemy building a base and harvesting resources.

When the day is over, you are transported back to your base to start again, some of the monster spawns and resources will have changed. I couldn't tell if it was randomly generated or based on some kind of ecology.

After completing the mission the game does allow you to go back to your mission and "continue to play" however, you can only play one day at a time because once the day is over, it quits you out because you already have 100% of the market share.

I'm not sure where they plan on going with this, if it's a linear experience or if they do plan to add more sandbox elements in it like the other games in the genre.

From what I played I enjoyed every bit of it, but am a little let down on the fact it isn't an open ended, indefinite game type. Maybe that's my own failings for not doing enough research, but I would love to see the polish, art, and mechanics of Nom Nom Galaxy to have a sandbox mode.

At this time, it's realyl well done, but there isn't enough content to warrant the sticker price, so for that reason I cannot recommend the game. Hopefuly when more mechanics are added, levels, or what have you, I can reverse my position.

I have been following this game for a long stretch now, and now that I have had a chance to sesh it, I wanna say that this is a brilliant game. It has an amazing aesthetic and art style warm vibrant colors really immerse you whilst hunting ingredients to make soup. Simple yet excellent game, highly recommend.

This is pretty fun, but very alpha-stage (you have been warned). I can see the direction it is going in though.

2D world - you start with a barebones base. You deform/mine the area around you for INGREDIENTS and RESOURCE as well as to make space for expanding your base. Mix INGREDIENTS to discover RECIPES of differing value. Make a SOUP which must be loaded onto a rocket and launched, which generates MONEY.

Meanwhile, a RIVAL corporation is doing the same thing, hostile CREATURES - which can also become INGREDIENTS - are popping around, and you need to shuffle ingredients back to base.

You can PLANT the things you find to FARM close to base. You also can research BLDGS (like conveyor belts), ROBOTS (which can move stuff around for you), BUFFS, and WEAPONS. You also have to worry about collapsing your base if you dig under it.

I think it has a lot of potential, and overcomes the "What I Do?" problem that sandbox games sometimes have... this has a very clear goal and cycle, without bogging you down with "COLLECT AND ORGANIZE ALLLLLLLL THE CRAFTING INGREDIENTS"

Tooled about in the game for a while, then tried digging down just to explore... there are some interesting game mechanics to be found, and already several creatures of varying size. Dirt falls, water flows, Tomato Plant pops out killer tomatoes at you, Giant Dino thing stomps you flat...

Once the tutorial and UI/controls become better explained (You have been warned) and fleshed out, it will be quite amazing.