Wasted World

Review

The world has seen better days; pollution, war and disease has pushed the Earth and humanity to the brink. As a survivor in this post-apocalyptic world you must transform your land to its former glory. Craft tools, repair and build buildings, anything which will help improve your life in this Wasted World.

Upon starting a game you’ll find yourself standing outside of a doorway which goes back into the surrounding rocks. All around you lies rubble and rubbish; the land is barren with no leaves adorning the branches of the trees. Pollution, war and disease have taken their toll on the world; however, you have taken it upon yourself to bring your little corner of the world back to life. With your crude homemade pickaxe, you head off to start cleaning up the world.

In the top right corner are your current Goals, which will help you gain knowledge of the basics of the game.  There’s Movement, Gather Resources, Upgrading, Planting and a lot more to come as you complete the current goals. Along the bottom of the screen are ten inventory quick access slots. In the top left corner is where your Health and Energy are displayed.

All over your screen you’ll find various resources strewn around: logs, rubbish bags, steel sheets, large stones, old cars and trucks, plastic and glass bottle, aluminum cans and other junk. Everything laying around can be collected and turned into something which will help you greatly. You collect each of these resources using your makeshift pickaxe, striking each item until you collect the junk resources. These junk resources can then be used to combine into more important resources, which you can then use to build items.

You can create some items from the junk resources, such as Manual Crusher, Campfire, Seed Extractor etcetera, but to most things you’ll first have to turn your junk resources into something useable. You do this by taking your junk resources and putting them through a Manual Crusher. This will then allow you to crush the resource into smaller parts which can then be heated in the campfire to create a block of the crushed resource. It takes a while to crush resources and then put them in the campfire, but you can upgrade later to an Automatic Crusher and Oven which will increase the speed of transforming your resources into useable blocks. As you progress, you’ll be able to automate machines to help you process resources.

As you progress, you’ll have goals to build such things as a Workbench, Seed Extractor, Chemical Workbench, Analysing Station or Research Station. At the workbench you’ll be able to create Hammers, Spades, Pickaxes along with other items like Bandages and First Aid Kits. You also bring any Rubbish Bags you collect here, using the workbench to search the contents. You will find junk fabric, iron, glass and plastic bottles which can be used to create more resources.

You’ll gain more blueprints for buildings, workstations etcetera as you research them at the research station. To research something you’ll need to acquire either Organic Data or Mineral Data. Each research category requires a certain number of data points and it takes a varying amount of time to complete a research. To gain research data points you’ll need to firstly have an Analysing Station; once you have one you can then start to analyse resources and items. Items and resources that are analysed are consumed, but to replace them you’ll gain organic or mineral data chips. It’s these chips that you can then use to unlock research categories on the Research Station.

At the Gear Workbench you can build melee weapons like bats and machetes, rifles, pistols, shotguns and ammo. You can also create nail guns and nails, explosives, rocket launchers etcetera. At the Chemical Workbench you can create things like Printed Circuit boards, Electronic Components, Electronic Cards, Explosives, Acid and Water Buckets and other items.

Collecting Junk then using the crusher to create crushed wood can then be placed in a Composter T1. This will then turn the crushed wood into Fertiliser, which you can use to fertilise any plants you grow. Doing so will increase the growth speed of any seeds planted; you can also use the fertiliser on the land to turn into lush green grass.

In your part of the world there are plenty of resources laying around, but you may want to leave the safety of your little world to explore and see if you can find more resources to take advantage of. The outside world is about four or five times the size of your land, with each area having its own habitats and resources. However, the outside world can be a dangerous place to be alone; wolves and other survivors trying to stay alive won’t think twice about attacking you if you enter their realms. You have a pipe to help you fend of attacks to begin with, and you can create other weapons, guns and ammo.

Currently, the last goals are to rebuild the Greenhouse and the Foundation of the Manor.  Once completed, the greenhouse can be used to house and grow more plants, sort seeds etcetera. The Manor will take quite a bit more to fully complete but once done it’ll be somewhere you can sleep and store your stuff and live out this post-apocalyptic world. After completing the last goals, you can do whatever you want; the world is your oyster (albeit a post-apocalyptic one).

In the settings you’ll find options for General – Language (English, German and French), Show Goals On/Off and Display Recipe on Overlay, Graphics (Resolution, Full Screen, Ambient Occlusion, Frame Rate (30 to Unlimited), V-Sync, Anti-Aliasing and Shadow Quality),  Sound (Music and Effects Volume Sliders), Controls (where you can rebind the game’s controls should you wish too). 

Playing Wasted World is fun, although it does take a lot of grinding, so if you’re not into grinding and collecting resources then I doubt this game is for you. However, if like me you don’t mind grinding a game then this could be just up your street. The game is in Early Access currently so there are things that may be added to the game or even removed or tweaked. The developers are active with regular updates to the game for bug fixes and new content. Worth giving the game a bash!

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!