Mobile game reviews

James Pinnell reviews the latest games for android & iOS smartphones & tablets.

Sandship: The Last Engineer

Free with IAP

The recent popularity of games like Satisfaction and Factorio that involve building large and complex factory systems has boomed on PC in the past few years but has not found its way to mobile... until now. In these games, players are encouraged to put their efficiency skills to the test to pump out the most products for the least cost and the most profit.

Sandship: TLE takes this concept and instead incorporates it into a deep and wide-ranging story involving a desolate future run by robots and an AI that finds this factory at the core of a much larger moving entity. As you produce items that reinforce and upgrade the mechanical beast you inhabit, it can gradually move across the landscape, picking up new resources to research and build more equipment.

The benefit of a game like this, produced purely for mobile, is that ensures that each area is limited to a single screen. There are many complex parts here, from research to exploration, factory build, item storage and unit upgrades. Each one is accessed by a simple menu and moving in and out of them is easy and quick. There is a great tutorial that gradually guides you through the ins and outs, as the learning curve is steep at first.

The game has a wonderful soundtrack, as well as fully-voiced acting and it is highly recommended you use headphones while you play. There is a paid currency in this game, but it largely exists to speed up upgrades or gameplay, rather than injecting any sort of paid advantage. It would have been handy to pay an outright cost (such as $8-$10) to remove the time gaps, but at the very least the game is generous in its freebies and should have enough on offer for most players.

If you are a fan of puzzles and assembly belts then Sandship is a fun, challenging, clever, and well-designed game that will keep you occupied for hours.★★★★★