Little Rocket Lab

» Factory Builder | Life Sim | Wholesome

Transform your childhood home as you build brilliant factories and forge lifelong friendships, then reach for the skies and finally finish your family's dream - your mother's precious rocket ship. Roll up your sleeves, it turns out that saving this town really IS rocket science!

Review

Annie here!

Little Rocket Lab is my favourite game that I've ever played for the newsletter. FULL STOP.

I have owned this game for 10 days and I have almost 20 hours logged... and I'm employed.

I bought LRL with my own money and loved it so much that I just asked Sasha if I could write a review on it. 

Gameplay

The core loop in this game is SO. SATISFYING. If you like games with a checklist of things to do that has you waking up each virtual day with a sense of purpose, then this one's for you. 

The way you level up and unlock new machines is awesome, because it incentivizes you to build more machines so that you can build more machines. The constant expansion is mouth-watering. 

One of my favourite problems to solve is when the throughput on one of my machines is low. For example, I needed to deliver 200 heavy-duty motors, but my assembler was only pumping out 1 every 5 minutes. This would never do! I had to follow the chain all the way up to the beginning, where I found that I wasn't producing enough bearings to turn into stators to turn into small motors to make the heavy-duty motors faster. So I split one of my iron plate assembly lines to start turning half those iron plates into bearings to supplement my heavy-duty motor production. BOOM. 2 motors a minute. And yes, it was extremely satisfying.

Story

You may be thinking, "I like factory builders, but the constant expansion as a core tenet always turns them into industrial-hellscape simulators." And I'm pleased to tell you that's not the case here.

The designers have done a great job using narrative and gameplay limitations to maintain the wholesome Stardew Valley life sim vibes. For example, building over pedestrian crossings disturbs the operation of the town, which means being considerate of others becomes a core mechanic. Furthermore, every resident of St. Ambroise has a heartfelt story to work through. Their struggles are usually caused by some aspect of the town's failing industry, which means expanding your operation is a net positive for everyone!

Art & Music

The visuals and the soundscape here are nothing to sneeze at, either. I'm sure it wasn't easy to design these complex machines to have visual clarity on a busy screen, but the artists did a great job. The character designs, setting, and soundscapes are all wonderful, too. 

Final Thoughts

If you like life sims or factory builders or supply chain management or pixel art or cute sidekicks or heartwarming stories or wholesome games or ANYTHING... play Little Rocket Lab.

The developer is a friend of Prairie Interactive and I'm so glad they are because I otherwise might not have found this gem. 

PS: The banner image you see above is my actual factory! It just happened to be raining today, so it's usually much sunnier XD

Coming Up...

Sasha will have another game for you on Tuesday; hopefully it's not as tear-jerking as the last one :P

See you next week!

Annie