My Little Universe has made the jump from mobile to PC and in this polished, refined and expanded version I had hoped to find a resourcing farming game that would be both addictive and engrossing. I can certainly confirm that the game is addictive. Engrossing? Well, not for me personally, but your mileage may vary.
In My Little Universe you play as a rubbery playing piece with an axe, pickaxe and sword. The first two are for chopping trees and mining resources. To do that you’ll stand next to the thing you need to collect and either hold a button and select auto farm and off and away your character goes. The resource goes into your inventory and you can run to the next thing to mine or chop. Why are you collecting resources? Well, your universe is entirely covered by the fog of war and in order to uncover the next hexagonal piece of the planet you are on, you’ll need to fulfil the resource quota provided. It starts off quite simple with some wooden logs or chunks of metal. As you explore more of the planet different resources are uncovered and will start to be added into the mix. By the end of the first planet you’ll have a collection of gem types, gold, metals and woods, with the option to convert wood into planks and metal in steel girders.
The initial pace of the game is quite speedy and extremely addictive. As the next hex tile to uncover is unveiled before you, its just so compelling to plough onwards. Grab the resource, drop it on the hex tile, see what’s next. The game loop drops tiny hits of dopamine so often initially, you’ll love the progress you are making. Soon some monsters are added into the mix that you’ll need your sword for. Again this can be manually or auto triggered and monsters drop gold. This is another type of resource used for unlocking hex tiles too. Pretty soon monsters and resources become too tough to mine at speed though and so you’ll be using the coins and resources gained to upgrade your items too. Better get more resources farmed then…
By the end of world three, this initial excitement and constant drip feed had slowed to more of a begrudging crawl. Each tile now wanted 2,500 of a resource to unlock rather than 100 and whilst you will now be mining or chopping much faster, the progress now feels slower. This is in part because it is slower but after several hours of the exact same thing, I’d grown tired and bored of the basic gameplay loop. I found myself AFK’ing to mine certain resources that were rare so I could return and unlock a few tiles in a row. I found the hands off experience and total lack of anything else to do very empty as an experience. Yet I still wanted to crack on as the constant “just clear this tile” thought was begging me to continue on. By world 5 of 9, I now hated myself for it and couldn’t bring myself to continue the game any longer.
This doesn’t mean My Little Universe is a bad game. It just means through playing this game, I’ve realised this style of hands off mindless grind is just not for me.
My problem wasn’t so much the endless grind being the game, it was that it is only a grind and nothing else. Combat is very under developed. There is no dodge or block. You just run away from an attack. Bosses repeat the exact same moves over and over as you move through the game and so they never feel special. Dungeons repeat the exact same formula as uncovering the world and whilst some of the graphics look nice, it feels like an asset swap out with no actual skill required to complete the game. Just. Keep. Resource. Farming. Combat is also a bit clunky in other ways. Enemies get stuck in walls, fall through the floor and only run towards you – they have no other brain. I also ran into problems where I got stuck in walls, fell through the floor and had the UI get stuck on the screen when completing a tile.
There is a rhythm fishing game which adds little to the experience. Four player local co-op may add a few more thrills and spills but there is little to do co-operatively. There are no puzzles or things to do aside from grind so I can’t see this being a great multiplayer game for many to sustain a long playtime. I was bored and disengaged but if you just want something to idle away and collect things in the background, My Little Universe does a good job of giving you that exact thing. There is just nothing more or less to it. I would also argue that since other farming games that are repetitive by design for harvesting items also give you a story, characters to chat to and challenges to win, this feels like a step down from those games too.
If you are looking for a totally hands off farming grind, add a point or two on the final score. My Little Universe does that very, very well. If you are looking for anything else beyond that mindless stat increase though, you’ll be very disappointed.
Review copy provided by publisher. Out now on Steam.
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