• Price: $19.99
• Developer: LAB132
• Publisher: Klabater
• Release Date: April 21, 2022

A review code was kindly provided by The Game Marketer on behalf of LAB132 and Klabater. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Even since I was a kid, I’ve been pretty interested in the idea of outer space. I don’t know if I’d want to leave Earth, as I’d be too worried about things going wrong in space, but I still find it fascinating. I also really enjoy simulation games, and orbit.industries combines space with a simulation experience that allows you to build and manage your own space station!

Starting a mission scenario, you’re able to customize the difficulty settings from an economic standpoint (allowing you to choose to earn more or less revenue from projects you complete) as well as the frequency and degree of harmful errors that appear in your space station. I always chose to earn more and have less errors pop up.

A voiced AI will instruct you on the procedures for building and maintaining the station. There are several different viewing modes to manage: Exterior Station View (ESV), Abstract System Layout (ASL – basically the interior with wires), and the Station Management Interface (SMI).

As the name implies, ESV has you deal with the exterior part of your space station. You choose where to build different modules in order to expand the station. It doesn’t seem to matter where modules are placed in the ESV; there are different colored adapters/connectors that only allow you to place specific modules there, and there are also space (😉) limitations to avoid modules bumping into each other. But other than that, you can design your station the way you want.

Modules have different systems inside of them that you manage in the ASL; you connect these interior parts using their uniquely colored wires. In the ASL, placement matters a lot more. Just because a wire is blue like another one, that doesn’t mean that it can be connected solely based on the color similarity. You need to match the symbols across the modules – otherwise they don’t work.

It’s necessary to build a certain amount of Habitat Capsules linked with airlocks and environmental controls in order to build up a workforce capable of working on the projects. I eventually figured out (after actually reading the module glossary in the SMI 😅) that you unlock the research projects for additional modules by adding more workforce. Adding more and more modules can clutter the ASL a little, so I would often pause the flow of time and rearrange the module connections to make them a bit more organized with all of the wires. It’s possible to edit your station in real time, but doing so can result in its efficiency decreasing until the new modules are connected.

After the ESV and ASL, the SMI then displays the projects that will generate income to help your space station stay…afloat…as well as those that help you unlock new technology. The project options for the space station include research objectives to develop new modules, contracts that will provide you with additional funds, and then a set of missions to complete the overarching scenario. Every project will display the symbol(s) for the modules required for the job, and once the specific modules are used for a job, they can’t be used again until the mission is completed. However, if you have duplicates of a module, those can be used to complete additional projects requiring that type at the same time.

A mission may consist of sending crew members out on a search and rescue job, breaking encryption, or data analysis. One mission resulted in the discovery of a compendium containing cultural information; it might have been nice to actually be able to read whatever was found. You don’t get to watch your crew performing any of these tasks, and instead have a section that indicates the current percentage of the progress made so far.

The tasks take some time to complete, and that results in some downtime. During that downtime, I continued to add modules to the station. I was initially a little confused as to why my station’s efficiency was at 86% when everything was connected, but then I tried adding more “support” modules, like airlocks and environmental controls to support the Habitat Capsules. I figured out that I shouldn’t connect a ton of modules to the same ones or the efficiency would lower.

Sometimes it felt like there was too much downtime, as I would start projects and then sit back and wait for them to be finished. In later parts of a scenario, the game became more of a passive simulation experience than I would have liked. You can speed up the passing of time from 1x to 3x speed, which helps a little.

As you switch between the different menus and manage the station, it will be extremely important not to go into debt, because going into debt can result in a “game over.” In several attempts at a scenario, I actually did end up going into critical levels of debt and reached the point of game over. You have the option of taking out loans (SMI tab), but when I went into debt I took out 3 loans and still wasn’t able to get out of the negatives in time. The amount of money you can get (and the associated interest rates) change frequently. Some loans have really high interest rates (around 50%), so whether or not you luck out and get lower interest rates depends on if the loan screen updates in time for you to get a better deal.

The level of debt you’re allowed to get into until you reach game over seems pretty small, unfortunately. You can only reach 3,000-4,000 “Kreedits” worth of debt before it’s game over. I would have liked it better if the game started you off with a decent sized loan and had you pay it off in monthly installments. It felt too easy to reach a game over after several hours of playing a mission, which was demoralizing for me. I frequently saw the “mission failed” screen throughout my playthroughs. After some trial and error, I realized that A) you need to build up a large amount of funds through contracts at the beginning of the scenario before getting into missions and research, and B) create multiple save files for the same scenario in case you need to reload upon a game over.

I also didn’t understand the error messages that popped up regarding some of the modules, and from what I could tell there’s nothing you can do but wait for them to be fixed – there doesn’t seem to be a way to actively fix the errors (i.e. module infection) yourself.

Navigating the modules in the exterior view felt overly complicated, and was made difficult by awkward camera angles and only being able to move through one module at a time. The orange line in the above screenshot is the “cursor” used to move between modules; I would often navigate to the incorrect module or have trouble quickly getting to the one I wanted. I also had issues when I accidentally deleted a module in the exterior view a few times. Sometimes I would accidentally (re)move a module in the interior view, which wasn’t as big of a deal because removal in the ASL just adds it back to the module “stock.” If you accidentally remove a module in the exterior view, you have to spend more money to build it again and then also re-establish the connections between module wires in the ASL. I really think an “undo” option would have been useful.

Besides the four main mission scenarios, there are two other scenarios you can access from the main menu. One is the “endless” mode, where you can play an extended scenario that still has you keep track of the station’s finances. Unlike the four mission scenarios, where you can “win” and complete the objective, endless mode doesn’t have a clear end – as the name implies. The game also has a creative mode that provides you with infinite funds from the start, with all modules unlocked as well. The above screenshots are from the creative mode.

I really liked the less stressful environment of the creative mode. There is a decent amount of content in orbit.industries between the scenarios and endless/creative modes. I played for around 40 hours and easily could have played for more. While I did have some difficulty with the debt aspects especially, I found the building parts of the game pretty accessible overall for those without much of a “science background” like me.

Switch it ON or Switch it OFF? orbit.industries is a fairly in-depth space station management simulator. There are some balance issues with the monetary system, and some elements could have used more explanation. It may seem complicated – and it can be – but eventually you’ll “have it down to a science” after some trial and error. Designing and managing your space station is a unique experience, and there’s a lot of content between missions and creative mode. 7.5/10