Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure Preview

 I got the opportunity to try out Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure; an automation game with Real Time Strategy elements developed by Massive Miniteam and published by HandyGames. This cute little game enticed me with its art style and design at first but intimidated me by presenting the challenge of creating a factory. I have played automation games before, but I never really got that far into them, preferring something more guided and simple. Still, I’ll give it a shot.

The story is that one day, in a peaceful village, your cloak-wearing player character finds their after-work relaxation interrupted by some sort of artefact crashing into their life. Because of this strange item, they're able to read a forgotten language, activate machines left behind by an ancient civilisation, and command these cute little workers called Sparks. In a world ripe for adventure, it's your quest to improve your village through the automation of crafting and material collection and answer questions left behind, which might be the key to preventing whatever happened from repeating to the current generation.

Now, in order to get anywhere, or at least do anything that won’t take days to do by yourself, you’ll need to automate the gathering and crafting of items through the use of machines and the aforementioned Sparks. They are essentially your worker minions that will press buttons, transport materials, and die for you should you choose. They come in all shapes and sizes and do certain things better than others, like breaking rocks or fighting.

If you've played Pikmin, you will find yourself in familiar territory in this game, down to throwing and recalling your Sparks. Even attacking creatures is like this, as you’ll just throw your Sparks at the problem and hope they have enough strength/defence to take down the enemy without them all dying. The difference is that instead of finding them and plucking them out of the ground, you'll be crafting them. Or, rather, having your Sparks craft them for you. If you've played Factorio, be prepared to lose your mind over every little thing, from optimising your production of items to figuring out how to best use your space. And just likeFactorio, you don’t have to go at it alone. There is co-op for those who want to automate together, although I didn’t have the chance to test it out myself.

In order to get more advanced machines and different Sparks, you need to complete quests. You’re mostly tasked with delivering a certain amount of items to them, and because of this, there's a lot of going back and forth between the woodlands and the village, which takes a quick but pace-interrupting loading screen every time. It's a little tedious, and there isn't anything you can do other than talk to NPCs about quests and visit the village’s monument to expand how much you can do. At least you have a clear path, even if it seems intimidating at first. When you’ve finally figured out how to make everything work and complete a longstanding quest, there’s no greater sense of satisfaction that comes from it.

During my time, I did find some odd design decisions, such as fast travel points needing a constant supply of logs in order to work, which can be a little annoying to deal with, especially if there aren’t any giant trees nearby to harvest the wood needed. It makes running around more of a chore than it should be. Still, that’s likely the point, and it’s just another puzzle to solve when you have the resources that you need.

I had a lot of fun with Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure. It is a good time for those who want to get into creating their own factories in a more understandable way. It’s easy to get into, but actually getting everything to perform at its maximum efficiency is the hardest part and can get even better with a few other players. Fans of Satisfactoryor Factorio should consider checking it out when it’s out of Early Access.