Software:Stormworks: Build and Rescue

Short description: First person life simulation video game

Stormworks: Build And Rescue
Developer(s)	Geometa
Platform(s)	Windows macOS
Release	September 17, 2020 (v1.0)
Genre(s)	Simulation
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Stormworks: Build And Rescue is a simulation video game developed and published by British studio Geometa (Formerly known as Sunfire Software). The game was released as an early access title in February 2018 for Windows and Mac and is receiving frequent updates through Steam. It left early access on September 17, 2020.

Gameplay

World creation menu with a randomly generated world seed, and the game mode drop down menu.

The game is played in a randomly generated open world physics playground, composed mostly of ocean and small islands. The game centers around the theme of running a coastguard rescue service with a variety of vehicles, which the player can build on a ‘Workbench’ with an assortment of blocks, engines, sensors and special equipment. As the player explores the world, the in-game map is created, in which they can fast travel to locations they've discovered. These vehicles, ranging from airplanes and helicopters to boats, terrestrial vehicles, and trains can be used by the player to complete various diverse missions to earn in-game currency. It currently has three modes: Career, Creative, and Classic career in which players can choose from an array of settings.

Career mode

Career mode is the most educational part of this game. Players are given control of a starting island that contains a small boatyard, a simple boat and a small house. Players will need to complete missions to earn money and new components to build new vehicles. The player can travel to other islands and buy them when they have enough in-game currency. These purchasable islands usually provide a larger building space or specialized building space (e.g. Camodo Island has an exclusive railyard where trains can be built). Within career mode there is a lot of variables including enabling first-person play only and having limited fuel, or adjusting changing daylight hours. A small challenge within career is that crude oil can be bought to later be refined to then be sold for money. Control over features such as the component research tree and fuel limitations have been temporarily removed in 1.0 Update, but the original career mode can still be played.

Creative mode

Creative is a sandbox gamemode where players are not limited by resources; they can create vehicles using the editor and are granted access to an island with a large shipyard and large hangar allowing for very large vehicles to be built. After recent updates, it has been made possible for players to choose their default bases, including a Heliport, Mainland (Airport or Harbor base) Island with a small boatyard among other bases. The game also supports the Steam Workshop to download and upload community-made vehicles and loads them directly into the game. In the 1.0 Update, the mode was renamed to Custom mode.

Conquest mode

Conquest mode was added with the addition of the first paid DLC. This mode can be activated in the creation menu, and can be combined with career or creative mode. This adds the ability to weaponize vehicles, and a more combat oriented experience, alongside the rescue missions. The DLC added both player held and vehicle mounted weapons, like cannons, machine guns. The release of DLC gave Stormworks a small surge of activity.

Missions

There are a variety of missions, ranging from delivery missions to rescue and firefighting missions. The missions are generated over time and will expire when their time limit has been reached; if a player has no active missions they can return to their house and sleep until new missions appear. A ‘bed’ component is also available which can be mounted on vehicles (usually large ships with huge spaces) where the player can go to sleep.

Some missions will require either specific components or vehicles to complete them. Firefighting missions will require a vehicle that can tackle the blaze, and large evacuation missions will require vehicles with a large enough capacity to escort all the stranded characters to safety.

Within the 1.0 Update, missions were changed to be procedurally generated and the mission editor used for player made missions was changed from a simple system, to a system utilizing Lua for spawning vehicles, objects, and items in the mission.

Building

A screenshot of the microcontroller editor in-game, with a small logic circuit inside.

The building in Stormworks works on a voxel-based building system. Players will create vehicles by placing (mainly) cube and wedge shaped parts to form the structure of a vehicle with buoyancy being calculated by the size and shape of the hull, fuselage, or body. Once a player has created the structure of their vehicle they will need to add components such as engines, rudders and pilot seats and program them using a system of logic gates. The game has support for land, sea, air and vehicles along with submarines and trains, with specific components such as aerofoils and gyro to support the different types of vehicles. These vehicles can be created on Workbenches, which are usually found on either the default island or other special islands which can be bought using in-game currency. The other random islands (e.g. Hospital Island or NPC oil rigs) do not have a workbench. In addition to vehicle workbenches, some islands have workbenches that spawns in vehicles and make them static, meaning they have no buoyancy physics and cannot move. This allows players to create custom bases.

Reception

Stormworks: Build and Rescue Beta and Early access has received some positive attention largely comparing it to similar titles such as Kerbal Space Program, “Yes, as it turns out. Stormworks: Build & Rescue doesn’t just want to take the Space Engineers/Kerbal Space Program idea and throw it somewhere in the North Sea – it demands precision in all things.”

Stormworks: Build and Rescue has also been covered by Rock Paper Shotgun and PCGamer.