Stormworks: Build and Rescue Preview

If, like me, you grew up playing with LEGO, eventually making boats out of it and trying to make them float in the bath, then Stormworks: Build and Rescue is a game at which you should take a closer look. Visually, it's simple enough, Low polygon geometric bricks put together to build things. The people and scenery are equally low polygon, giving it a strong and consistent visual style that appeals to the six year old in me.

Unlike childhood forays into navigating the ocean's waves, the craft you build in Stormworks: Build and Rescue won't end up smelling funny when the water doesn't run out of the bricks completely, nor are you restricted to boats! Take a quick look into the Steam workshop and you'll find everything you can think of from helicopters to ships to a runabout from Star Trek.

The aim of the game is simple enough, as tends to be the case with open world building games. Run your own sea rescue service and “release your inner hero” as it says in the Steam description. This is laudable and the game starts the tutorial nice and simple. You get yourself out of bed, are presented with a gentle step by step tutorial that walks you through the UI and onwards to a couple of missions. You’re provided with a broken boat that you must repair before sailing off to deliver some supplies, move some scientists from one place to another and transport some oil rig workers, the basic fare of the game.

I don't think it's supposed to be this way up

As you progress, you can get a little lost, but this is an early access game and the developers are releasing updates for Stormworks: Build and Rescue on a weekly basis (which is making writing the preview a right pain in the arse). With each update introducing things like gearboxes, a survival mode, a dozen fixes and tweaks and as a result almost certainly breaking anything you've built. Once the update schedule eases off a bit, this particular issue will no doubt go away.

There have been over 180 updates to this game as I write this, so by the time you're reading this, you can bet there will have been a couple more in the meantime. In fact, I just checked and another bloody update is waiting for me right now!

Just, check this game out. It's well worth the money, it's only £10.99 and you can spend more than that buying a pizza!