Game: Trappist
Genre: Simulation, Strategy
System: Steam (also available on macOS & Linux)
Developers | Publishers: Sirrah
Controller Support: Partial Support
Price: US $14.99 | UK £12.79 | EU € 15,00
Release Date: March 1st, 2024
A review code was used, and many thanks to Sirrah.
Trappist, by solo developer Sirrah, is a story-driven colony builder set in space, giving you access to a whole solar system to travel around and colonise multiple planets and moons.
Trappist: A Journey in Colony Building
In Trappist, the story goes that humanity has launched a colony mission on the Ark to the nearby star system Trappist-1, 40.7 light-years from Earth. So, you will build up to six distinct colonies in various planet locations, each with unique resources and supply needs. You do this to ensure your colony and citizens thrive; you’ll need to establish trade routes between the planets to manage the demands effectively.
The game begins with colonists on the Ark in cryo pods. The Ark, the large ship that brings the colonists to Trappist-1, is a colony ship that can also double as an orbital manufacturing platform. The pods on the Ark can also temporarily store the population during supply shortages in your moon-based colonies. You must unfreeze the colonists and despatch them to the planet to work and live.
Resource Management is Key
Health Drinks and potatoes are the main food for space colonies, so you will need to build potato farms and algae farms on the planet to make sure your colonists are fed and watered. You’ll also construct a power supply in the form of wind turbines, a water supply, and other resource buildings.
Resource management is a key aspect of the game, and you will also need to expand to other colony sites for necessary materials such as oil and steel. In order to do so, you’ll need new cargo ships and set up trade routes to other planets.
As you navigate through the solar system, you’ll survey planets and moons to find prime locations for your colonies. You’ll also discover hidden alien artefacts that will help you unravel the true purpose of Trappist-1. In all, you’ll manage six distinct colony sites, including the Ark, two planets, and two moons, utilising different buildings and managing construction and consumption resources.
Grids or Gridless
Trappist eliminates unnecessary distractions by forgoing money and road placement costs, focusing purely on base building. The game allows for flexibility in building placement, as you can choose to build without girds and place the buildings wherever you like. You also don’t construct buildings as they come ready-built; you just place them on the planet.
However, while you can choose to build without grids, I found that as I went to place a building on the planet, the building would jiggle momentarily on screen before I placed it down; it’s hard to explain what was happening, but it was really odd to watch.
The game’s tutorial and storyline are text-based and shown on the screen as you play the game. However, I don’t like the way it is displayed to the player; in some instances, depending on the colour of the text and the background, it can be hard to read.
You can refresh your memory of the tutorial by checking out the readme file in the games menu, where all the previous storyline and tutorial text are stored. Additionally, the game mechanics are not always described in detail to the player, and this can lead to confusion about how things should be done properly in the game.
Visuals and Controls
Visually, Trappist gets the point across well that you are in space on empty and desolate planets; the planets are colourful and mostly barren.
For the most part the game performed reasonably well on my gaming laptop using mouse and keyboard controls. I’ve already mentioned the buildings jiggling, but the camera also has a life of its own at times and moving without my input.
I tried playing Trappist on the Steam Deck, but that was impossible. Even after I tried out different control systems, the game’s camera would constantly move to the left of the screen. Furthermore, some of the mechanics aren’t user-friendly on the Deck or even on a PC, and the UI could be improved. Particularly the control of the ships, as trying to keep track of where your two starter ships are in space can be a challenging task of its own making.
Trappist is fully playable from beginning to end, and there is even a New Game+ mode where you can start a new game and continue with your customised Ark from a previously completed game.
Conclusion
Trappist is playable as it is, and the developer is continuing to update the game and has plans for more colonisable planets and research. But I can’t help thinking that it should have been released on Early Access first while the dev improves the game through the EA phases. It has the promise of developing into a great game; Trappist has not quite reached that stage just yet, so I’d hold off on buying it for a while until it has had further development; instead, add it to your wishlist.
Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure 
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