Starvester is a short incremental video game that wants you to believe that you are building an interstellar empire from the ground up through smart automation and incremental processes. For the beginning of its runtime, it delivers on the promise, but shortly, it starts to show its flaws and frustrating design choices. Starvester aims to harvest the power of the stars, but never really reaches escape velocity to do so.
The Good: Atmosphere and Early Hooks
When you start a run in Starvester, you are provided with a small planet in a wide space and are asked to build an interstellar empire. The idea is there, and it is extremely interesting. It is also well complemented by its beautiful soundtrack, which delves deep into the astronomical and interstellar vibe. The swells, rhythms, and distant pulses make you feel like you are drifting through space.
The atmosphere and mood carry over in the early gameplay loop, which is fun and satisfying. A player gets to see how the game actually works and gets a sense of momentum in the first hour as they unlock basic systems and see the numbers go up. Starvester introduces progression in the game through a skill tree and prestige system that layers in some roguelite DNA. Unfortunately, this is where the promise goes downhill.
The Bad: Pacing Problems and Tedium
The skill tree and prestige system is a very cool concept, but it is executed poorly. There is a lack of any meaningful upgrades, and the upgrades that are worth picking are extremely basic and lackluster. The pacing of the game is also extremely inconsistent. In the first hour, the pacing seems totally fine, but as soon as you prestige and start a new run, you start to see how much of a stretch this game is.
For a game that is supposed to feel engaging through its automation and incremental processes, it feels more like a game that you would be better off running in the background. You just keep waiting for your resources to grow enough so that you have enough points that your prestige is worth it. The game recommends that every prestige should be accompanied by 4-5 points, but in the early game, getting to that point is a crawl.
This directly ties into the lackluster upgrades, where the most meaningful upgrades are those that increase your resource gain. So while with your prestige restarts, the progression does feel a bit faster, it is the same process that you have to repeat all over again. The lack of meaningful upgrades deprives players of any buildcrafting opportunities to play the game in a different way or experiment with something else.
For every system, the early part is paced well, but the later part, where you are trying to expand and unlock new systems, you are constantly tempted to keep the game running in the background while you go and do something else. Starvester is an idle game, and instead of helping you optimize your economy and resources, the game hides the numbers that a player would need to optimize their processes. As a result, the gameplay loop boils down to selecting one option and hoping that it is the correct one.
The challenges in the game that reward players with progression points are also tedious, and players are left wondering why they are actually present in the game built around the concept of automation. The challenges in Starvester should have encouraged players to play the game in a unique way or explore different options. Instead, it tells you to do some mind-numbing task that adds to the tedious personality of the game. Starvester is also, unfortunately, not safe from bugs and technical issues. There is also a noticeable input lag or delay: actions deplete your currency before the action actually happens in-game. This can be confusing and frustrating, especially in a game that is all about optimizing resources and processes. For a game that is supposed to be satisfying and have a snappy feedback loop, this is a jarring problem.
Final Verdict
Starvester has the foundation of being a good incremental game that allows players to live their fantasy of building an intergalactic empire, thanks to its amazing atmosphere and soundtrack. Unfortunately, the game is plagued with serious pacing issues, a lack of automation and optimization processes, technical issues, and a lackluster prestige system and upgrades. The game is constantly being updated, but it will take a complete overhaul for Starvester to deliver on its original promise.
