Flotsam is a city-builder game where you are in control of a small group of ‘drifters’. You will need to oversee your little floating haven, manage your essential resources, and rescue other people you find along the way. One thing to bear in mind is that Flotsam has only just entered early access so may change over the coming weeks and months. On the surface, this game is much the same as any other city builder/management game.
You need to collect resources from your environment, in this case, wood and plastic from the oceans and metal from islands, and use these materials to build more structures such as homes for your drifters or places to process raw materials into more useful things. The major difference of course is that in Flotsam your town can move so you won’t be staying in one place for too long. There isn’t much of a tutorial at the start of the game, it throws you in the deep end but it doesn’t take too long to get to grips with the basics. There are some short guidebook pages that pop up to show you the ropes so hopefully it won’t leave you feeling too adrift.
Flotsam’s gameplay is very well-balanced. It puts you under just the right amount of
pressure so that very rarely do you feel like you can just sit back and let the game run
itself. You always have something that needs your attention, but most problems can be rectified with little stress. As you play your ears will be treated to a beautiful score. The marimba sounds are very relaxing and build up those nautical vibes.
Flotsam has a vibrant, cell-shaded visual style that I really enjoyed, and I love the haphazard, build-it-out-of-whatever-we-have style for the buildings in your town. It’s really colorful and fun and just makes me happy. The designs of the drifters themselves are also really cute. I love their bouncy run animation. Even when they’re sleepy they’re still having a great time. Also, it looks like we’ve got another game breaching the Geneva Convention.
My main issue with Flotsam is the drifters’ AI. Most of the time it works great, but occasionally
something goes wrong and no one will use a certain structure or they will become stuck in an action. The game is still in early access so I always expect a few bugs, but it can be incredibly frustrating when you are out of food and there is raw fish and firewood sitting in the Fish Kabob and none of the drifters are doing anything about it.
Usually, these issues can be fixed by reloading your save but it is a bit annoying. As the game is still in early access I imagine that a few aspects of the game will be altered over time and new features added. Currently, there is no end to the game, when you reach the end of the map you are looped back around to the start again. Hopefully, a little more story will be added with time.
Some minor things that I hope will be addressed are that if you place a structure in the wrong place you have to wait for one of your drifters to start building it before you can deconstruct it. It would also be helpful to set a certain task, such as a building’s construction, to a high priority so that the drifters who are set to construction drop everything and deal with that. Though perhaps if the AI issues were rectified this would be less of a problem.
Overall I found Flotsam to be a very enjoyable game that really caught my attention and reeled me in. I hope that the minor bugs are worked out during the early access period because it is otherwise a really fun and addictive experience.
