2019-03-01_PC_Gamer

Soon your colony will be humming
along, but it won’t take long before
you start wishing your Dupes were
soulless robots instead of human
clones. There’s no bigger wrench you
can throw into a smoothly running
machine than a human being, even a
cloned one.
See, your Dupes are
individualswith needs:
not only do they
require sleep, food and
clean air, but they also
need a degree of
comfort and happiness
or they’ll begin to get
stressed out. Something
as simple as a water
leak in a corridor making their socks
soggy can begin to put a strain on
their moods. A Duplicant in a bad
mood won’t work as efficiently, and
when the Dupes begin to break
down, so does everything else. It’s all

T

he best sim games don’t just make it satisfying to succeed but
also make it fun to fail, and Oxygen Not Included, from Don’t
Starve developer Klei Entertainment, does both extremely
well. Deep within an asteroid hurtling through space, you
activate a 3D printer and give birth to a handful of living
Duplicants: cloned workers you’ll use to carve the interior of the space
rock into a functioning colony. Your Dupes will dig tunnels, carve out
chambers, build structures and assemble machines to extract clean water,
oxygen and other resources from the asteroid.

adorable to witness – Klei’s typically

wonderful art and animations can

clue you into a Dupe’s mood with a

simple glance – but these cute little

tantrums can be the downfall of your

colony. More than once I’ve had a

Dupe not only refuse to work but

actually begin running around

smashing things in a

rage. Things like the

machinery keeping

everyone alive.

As you learn

manage your

Dupes and

keep them

happy enough

to not actively

sabotage your colony, you’ll a

more about the complexity ly

beneath the charming surface

sim. This isn’t just a matter o

up an oxygen diffuser and fill

chamber with air. Other gase

present in the rock: carbon dioxide,

chlorine, natural gas, helium,

phosphorus and others, each with

their own properties and density,

which determine how they spread

through an area. There’s a pretty

wicked learning curve in Oxygen Not

Included – it can quickly start to feel

like a chemistry class and plumbing

apprenticeship rolled into one – but

the failure of your colony always

arms you with some new knowledge

that helps make your next attempt

that much stronger.

DEEP IMPACT

You can even take your colony all the

way up to the surface of the asteroid,

where you’ll meet new challenges

like meteor showers (which, on the

plus side, can provide you with

s even as it destroys your

rk and kills some of your

The wonderful thing about

Not Included is that it’s

bly easy to grasp the basics of

management, so getting into

e is a snap. But it’s

ully complex as well, with

epth to its many systems.

with any great management

hether your colony thrives

eeds or crashes and burns,

asure to watch unfold.

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

A deceptive space

colony sim.

FIRST RELEASED

May 18, 2017

VERSION TESTED

QLM1

EXPECT TO PAY

£19

DEVELOPER

Klei Entertainment

PUBLISHER

In-house

LINK

http://www.klei.com

It’s remarkably

easy to grasp

the basics of

colony

management

“When the Dupes begin to break

down so does everything else”

OXYGEN NOT INCLUDED hides a challenging chemistry class. By Chris Livingston

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Sorry, friend, the oxygen is...

*looks to camera* not included.