IndieGo #28: Autonauts vs. Piratebots and Sweet Transit

According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “flow” is the mental state a person reaches when they are fully immersed in a task. Commonly known as being ‘in the zone’, Csikszentmihalyi isolated nine elements that occur when people flow. Among them are a distorted sense of time, distinct goals, and a clear sense of reward. Two recent indie releases, Autonauts vs. Piratebots and Sweet Transit are poised to put players in this kind of Zen-like state. Prepare to lose track of hours and maybe even days as you immerse yourself in these two titles.

Autonauts vs. Piratebots, Denki, $19.99 ($9.99 for Autonauts owners)

Crafting games are habitually devious efforts, coaxing players into gathering and processing in-game resources. it’s all too easy to lose hours tackling the simple tasks that work toward a larger objective. Often these aims feed into even bigger goals, resulting in the feeling that there is always some kind of task to complete.

2019’s Autonauts builds on basic crafting game framework by adding programmable bots. Any task, such as planting seedlings, cutting trees, or even turning longs into functional wooden planks could be assigned to automated assistants. Teaching them to perform tasks involved little more than demonstrating the different tasks. The cute little bots would watch, learn, and then let loose, endless repeating the chore that grew monotonous.

But what was truly fascinating was how the game approached automation with visible scripts that resembled a computer programming language. The only issue was the ultimate objective; you were automating your village because you could.

Autonauts vs. Piratebots adds that motivation by offering randomly generated maps where groups of bad-bot buccaneers lingered. For better or worse, most of the steps toward creating an automated village are replicated. But once you’ve amassed a multitude of worker bots, the ability to generate a battalion of army-bots allows you to push back at the persistent tide of pirate attacks.

Expectedly, the reward for doing this are additional recipes that can help you overthrow The Dread Pirate Robot, a boss character who lives in a heavily fortified stronghold. Imagine a real-time strategy game where your soldiers could be intricately programmed instead of relying on micro-managing and you’ll have an idea of what the title offers.

Some might wonder why Autonauts vs. Piratebots is a standalone title rather than a DLC offering since much is carried over from the original game. But this is more than just an addition. Wisely, AvP makes some decisions that streamline the game’s systems. Here, you won’t have to worry about recharging your autonauts and when programming them, there’s a larger memory capacity allowing for more complex tasks. Additionally, the method for unlocking new technologies is linked with your goals a bit better here.

Recommended for: Players looking for a cognitive workout that provides the gratification of learning a programming language.

Sweet Transit, Ernestas Norvaišas, $19.79

Sweet Transit envisions a world where the automobile was never invented. Here, the steam train is the dominant method to move everything from workers to resources around the world. But before building rail lines you’ll need to cultivate cities across the game’s maps.

In execution, this feels like a city builder without worries about zoning or power grids. Instead, workers in Sweet Transits steam-age need little more than basic lodging, accessibility to clean water, and a place to work. Here, you’ll want to follow the advice of the game’s tutorial. If you don’t lay the foundations for a village near water, you won’t be able to build a fishery that provides nourishment and work for your growing population.

Eventually, your town will reach critical mass and need resources like coal or wood to build train lines to ship that coal. And it’s here that Sweet Transit delights, with a remarkable sense of scale. Sure, you can follow your locomotives with a close-up perspective, but you can also zoom out for a perspective that reveals an entire continent. As such, you’re able to build some remarkable rail networks that mimic the span of their real-world counterparts.

It’s here that Sweet Transit grows a bit spicy. Laying down junctions that allow for the single-track tracks to loop around depots and stations is easy enough, especially if you’ve seen overhead maps of real-world railways. Pleasingly, setting up a destination and itineraries is easy with the game’s UI and you can even customize the name and engineer behavior for your routes. But things get more complicated when you’re tasked with creating junctions to regulate the traffic of intersecting trains. It’s not impossible, of course. But even after many hours with Sweet Transit, setting up safe and efficient routes will give your brain a good workout.

As an Early Access title, there are still a few underdeveloped rudiments. For one, there is not enough variation between cities. Although forced zoning conditions prohibit constructing things like warehouses and coal mines too close to cities, towns all feel homogeneous.

Given that solo developer, Ernestas Norvaišas was part of Factorio’s development team, traits such as factoring for future growth and mastering the complexities of chain and request signals are imperative for success. While the current build has a multitude of ways to figuratively paint yourself into a corner, earning enough money for your ambitions is rarely an issue.

Recommended for: Train fans who find fulfillment in the creation of a complex rail system.