PQ

AGES ago when I was talking about Party House, I mentioned that it was one of two games that feels less of its time and more like a modern game backdated, cause it’s a genre that didn’t exist until the 2000s. That is, deck builders. This is the other one of those, and this genre is even newer. Y’all like clicker games? Because wowee zowee, this is one of those.

PQ

At some point, it’s never actually stated when, the LX2 was updated to the LX3. The new LX3 had some new features, but key of those was an internal clock. Now you could make games that are ALWAYS running in real time! How to take advantage of that, though? Well, in Pilot Quest, Pilot once again crashes on Zoldath, and must get the pieces of his ship together and gather resources to escape. He has to do this by building up resources slowly, by hitting the Moon Crystal.

PQ

You trade Moon Crystals in to the Gumma Tree, who plants seeds and those seeds naturally give you moon crystals. You can also turn those crystals into ingots, and as you play any other game in UFO 50, the plants will generate crystals. You can build houses for villagers, who can use work benches you make to craft ingots naturally. You can befriend a spider who makes silk, you can assign villagers to a research station. All of this will generate resources over time.

This game is half cookie clicker, but the other half is an updated take on Zoldath. I didn’t like Zoldath, and way back when I reviewed it, I said that its ideas would be done much better later. Uh, this is later. The other half of this game is a Zelda-like. You can buy meat from a trader, and that meat will add time to your timer as you enter The Wild Zone. You then have a big open area to explore in the alloted time. It’s prolly a good idea to try and get at least like, 10-15 meat before you explore, so you have like 15 minutes. Damage takes off time, and if you die, you lose everything you find in the wild zone. The wild zone has semi-randomized features, like some paths are open in some playthroughs but not in others. Cave entrances are all randomized. Some caves contain dungeons, others contain NPCs and things.

PQ

The music is charming, the graphics re-use old Zoldath assets but I don’t mind, and the idea is super creative. But while it’s really cool, and I enjoyed my first playthrough immensely, it tries to kind of make it a replayable thing by having a mechanic to boost production with subsequent playthroughs. Also if you beat the game without getting the cherry requirement you have to play it ALL again. Luckily I was warned beforehand, most are blindsided. And the game IS fun, but I don’t feel it’s multiple playthroughs fun. Absolutely worth cracking into early in your UFO Quest though, so you can rake in all those moon crystals!

7.5/10