After spending several years in early access and 10 full years of development, The Universim 1.0 is finally out. Is the game worth playing now?
Well, the short answer is a big YES! Universim is one of the best world-building games where you get to play god and have fun with it.
This game has been making me laugh ever since I started playing it. And, thanks to all the updates and the refinement the game received over the years, it’s been a smooth and fun ride from the beginning.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into the game.
What Is The Universim About?
The Universim is a God simulation game where you get to take control of an entire planet and build a world from the ground up.
In the game, you manage a civilization, which starts in the stone and evolves through different ages, all the way up to space age. And you get to play god and control how the civilization progress.
Unlike most other God games, The Universim takes a much lighter and fun approach. Rather than taking itself seriously and making you stress about every decision, the game makes things more fun and relaxing.
While I’m still progressing in my playthrough, I got to experience some creative and unexpected things in this game.
My Experience
In the beginning, I got to choose the size of the planet I wanted to build. And then customize the looks of my minions. And I loved how these things had fun names.
At first glance, the game looked stunning. I was able to run the game at max settings even on my laptop with 2060 GPU and it performed smoothly at 60FPS.
I was able to move the world around, zoom in, and perform actions without any lag. Even after the world got populated with more buildings and other civilizations, the experience was buttery smooth.
Universim has a beginner-friendly tutorial that walked me through the gameplay mechanics in the beginning. It only took me a few minutes to understand all the mechanics and how the game works.
It also has a narrator, who often gives me suggestions on how to proceed. While the narrator can be annoying at times, it was fun to have him around. It kind of feels nice to know that someone watching and helping me. And I think it’s part of the reason why I didn’t feel bored playing the game at all (which usually happens to me when playing life sim games).
That also made me question whether I’m playing god or the God’s assistant because if I’m playing god then how come there’s someone there narrating and giving me advice?
Anyway, some funny and interesting things happen all the time to make the game more interesting and made me surprised as well.
For example, early on in the game, you are tasked with making your minions fall in love. And then you see them making love in their shack. When I zoomed in to sneak a peek, the narrator caught me in the act.
And then there was an alien spaceship that started terrorizing the world.
And then a giant tendril-like creature spawned in the middle of my city and started attacking my minions. I had to use my lightning powers to take it down.
The Gameplay Loop
The main gameplay loop is about helping the civilization survive and evolve. You do this by unlocking the massive skill tree.
This is where you unlock the things your civilization needs to progress. It starts from the Stone Age and goes up to the Space Age.
There’s also a quest-like system where you get to complete certain tasks. This adds a missions-type system to the simulation to make you feel like completing a story campaign. But those are optional.
The Universim is a simulation so you get to do things on your own terms. As you progress in the game, other civilizations will start to spawn and they will sometimes attack your city. You get to choose how to deal with these things. Whether to take matters into your own hands or let the people deal with it.
As a god, you will have some cool powers to make it rain, kill stuff with lightning or fire, make tornadoes, or even give a helping hand to your people.
The fun part is the freedom you have with each playthrough. You can make different worlds and experiment with different play styles. Be an evil god in one world and a giving god in another. It’s totally up to you.
And all of this is just the beginning. After unlocking the space map, you get to explore other planets and colonize them to have your own empire across the galaxies. That’s right! This game is much bigger than it seems.
There are many more cool things about this game that I could go on and on about. But I think you should discover them on your own.
Content Roadmap
There haven’t been any announcements regarding post-launch content for The Universim. After spending 10 years making the game bigger and better, it’s understandable if the developers want to move on to other projects.
However, it would be cool to have some expansions or DLCs down the road, hopefully.
Should You Buy The Universim?
There’s no question that The Universim is a fun planet management/god simulation game that will keep you entertained for many playthroughs. It’s definitely worth buying.
At just $29, the game brings so much gameplay value, especially compared to some of the triple-A $70-dollar games these days.
If you enjoy games like Sims or city builders like Frostpunk, The Universim will offer a refreshing change of pace to experience something similar but in an entirely more casual and fun way.