Is Surviving Ceres the Next Must-Play Space Survival Game?

What is Surviving Ceres?

Surviving Ceres is a space colony simulator. The concept of this indie survival game is to weather the harsh environment, build a colony, and survive alien attacks. Games like Surviving Ceres, I would say, one is Planet Crafter. It falls in the same genre of a harsh environment that you want to improve. 

Surviving Ceres was developed by Ryan Saunders, who also made the game Game Dev Masters and The Ai Games. Each game was also published by One Man Media.

Core Mechanics: How Surviving Ceres Works

In this Surviving Ceres review, you'll be able to learn the general concept and maybe a few tips. This single-player Steam game starts off in a rocket with the task of making the planet habitable for you and your soon-to-be crew. You have to be careful of not only your oxygen, but also your food and hunger. You'll start with a few things in your inventory, like water, MRE packs, a pickaxe, a HUD, and some oxygen tanks. I would suggest you keep running back to the rocket to regain your oxygen and save the tanks for emergencies. 

There are a bunch of rocks all around you, including ice, iron, and some others, for later on. Some of those are nodes that you'll be able to mine later. The first task is to find a flat place to build. Now the map isn't very big and there is only one flat area, so it is easy to find where to build. 

Building is easy, you just place the building in your hot bar, and boom, you are good to go once you select it. Rotate it and get it placed where you want. I would suggest somewhere close to the edge and in the middle, as you will need a lot of space to build for your colony. 

The next steps would be getting power and building an oxygen unit. You'll be able to build more things once you make the Basic Base Constructor, which is a small machine to make other basic building segments, and the machine constructor, where you will be able to make more machines that each do various things. Building a tool and a power constructor was the first task. Making that I could make solar panels so that the base could have power. The great thing was that there were a few drop pods with supplies in them. I was able to get a workshop on building an oxygen unit and some other things. 

There is a wide range of other things you will get to build, both machines and building parts. After getting the power going, my focus was on getting water and food, as my supplies were running low. After that, collecting resources for a farm and a water filtration machine was the priority. 

You will then be able to take care of yourself and your people. As you continue to unlock things, you will be able to invite colonists to your site. It's important to keep them happy and well, keep them alive. They will make your higher-tier buildings work, while you still have to take the resources to there, which is a pain depending on how you build your layout.  There are also dangers in continued unlocking, as there will be waves of creatures that will try to attack your different buildings. As long as you don't start to terraform the planet, you won't have to worry about that too much. The aliens like to attack the drills, power, and the terraform building itself. You'll need both ground and air machines to attack.  

Nearing the end of the game, you will have to go fight the alien nest, which pretty much means crafting turrets or robots to take with you. As you never get a gun or a way to fight yourself. Fully terraform the planet and get added to a leaderboard of how well you did. Can you do it faster next time and get higher? 

Final Thoughts: Is Surviving Ceres for You?

There were quite a few things I liked about the game and a few that I didn't.

I liked how it wasn't until you reached a certain point that the monsters would attack, so it gave you time to build and do things kind of at your own pace. I wish that I could assign people to move things from place to place. Like, grab the stuff out of the drills, and put them in machines, to kind of automate things. Instead of me running around with my head cut off half the time. 

I also wish the map were much bigger; there isn't much space, and the area you have to build in is pretty much designated. The placements of some of the buildings drove me crazy, and I wasn't able to make a loop between everything. But I kind of understood it as they had it set up where everything further out had to be disconnected to take out a middle part. It was just that I'm not liking the building. 

Other than that, I liked the concept of the game. 

Steam has very positive reviews on the game, but the few comments that were negative were a line with what I said. Building is frustrating, automation is running around a lot, and it feels very early access-like, like there should be more to it. 

The game is only $10 and also has a demo you can try before you buy. There are 40 achievements, and of course, I have gotten them all!

Watch Me Brave the Depths – Full Gameplay + Commentary

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