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CAMPAIGN called: STRANDED IN SPACE
Played: March 2023
I have completed this game twice now. And Trailmakers does have an actual ending to strive for by collecting the necessary parts to build an escape Spaceship rocket. I love having an end game type scenario to shoot for in a game of this type!
Not knowing what to expect, I was pleased to play a game with no enemies in this vehicle builder game. I had just previously played TerraTech that I liked a lot, but was ready for a similar game with no fighting.
You start out on a central island with very few parts to use to build a vehicle. But the game gives you some basic vehicle templates to use, provided you have found the necessary parts to build it. So the search for vehicle parts begins...
As you drive, boat (or later fly) around and find rocks which contain a single unique building part, you need to initially push them into the Recovery Drone's beam. These recovery drones are stationary beam-up locations around the map to gain a building part from the rock-looking objects scattered throughout the map. Interestingly, and differently from TerraTech, once you gain that part you can use as many of them as you want in your vehicle builds.
The pieces snap together like Lego(TM) parts but have a strong number of configurations that can be tweaked. For example, red lights can be placed on the back of a vehicle and configured to only light up when pressing reverse making them brake lights instead of always on. You can tweak the speed of pivot parts that are attached to wheels if you find yourself turning to quickly and rolling your vehicle too easily. Stability can also be accomplished by just making your vehicle wider. Further configurations of control parts include a Toggle checkbox and Speed setting which you wouldn't want on your car's turning wheels, but would want on an attached Tractor Beam to hold up red collored explosive volatile rocks so they don't drag on the ground as you make your way to a Recovery Drone to turn it in.
Now, these rocks come in different sizes and shapes. In fact, some are simply huge for anything other than a very large truck with weights in the front or back to counter the weight of a Tractor beam with a large rock attached. Furthermore, some rocks are volatile meaning they will explode if you jostle them too much, and in turn, blowing up your vehicle. If destroyed, or flipped upside down from carelessness, a simple button press will not only right your vehicle but fully rebuild it too. It is very easy to just test things and see what happens, resetting your vehicle immediately if things go wrong.
As for the default vehicles, I disliked half of them. The first one is fine but you should put some blocks on the front's sides to "gather" rocks more easily on the starter island. The only other default vehicles I really liked were the "Hovercraft", "Gimble Car" and "Monster Truck". The Monster Truck needs to be extended though in the back to have six total wheels and counter weights in the front to take the weight of the largest rocks in the back. All the others needed small to large tweaks, especially "The Sub". The in-games default submarine was a nighmare to control for me. I ended up downloading a yellow submarine from the Steam Workshop, but still had to make it bigger for the large underwater rocks and changed the control scheme to match the button presses I wanted to use with the Xbox controller.
This is the first game that I've ever played where my use of gamepad vs keyboard/mouse was about 50%/50%. The Gamepad was used to drive all vehicles, but the keyboard turned on/off control points and the mouse was used in build mode.
Great vehicle builder game with low stress. I highly recommend it.