Nom Nom Galaxy :: Noobreview (PC)

What is Nom Nom Galaxy? The answer to that question is complicated. Nom Nom Galaxy is a side scroller. It’s a 2-D side scroller. It’s a 2-D side scroller with exploration. It’s a 2-D side scroller with exploration and world building. It’s a 2-D side scroller with exploration and world building with a hint of Tower Defense.

What is Nom Nom Galaxy about? This one is more easily answered. Nom Nom Galaxy is about soup.

Should you be playing Nom Nom Galaxy? Let’s find out.

(-) Unstable Soup

I picked up Nom Nom Galaxy after hearing a lot of positive things about the game during its Early Access days in Steam. My first attempt to launch the game promptly failed, and the program never responded. A bit of searching (which is limited to the game’s support forums, since the game is not out yet, officially) and I found out that the game might not be optimized for the Nvidia graphic card. Bummer.

I decide to use my father’s laptop instead which uses Intel instead, since the game didn’t seem like a beast of the game anyway. Since then, I have been “Borrowing” my father’s laptop every evening from 11-1 (ok that’s not exactly evening) and been pouring hours into this basic concept, “Make Soup, Rule The World”. It has crashed a few times, but I guess that comes with the territory of playing an indie game (or any game, for that matter).

(+) Delicious Soup

As stated above, Nom Nom Galaxy is all about soup. You play as an astronaut/geologist/explorer/engineer/general/manager. You setup a soup factory, decide what ingredients your soup should have, then scour the planet and the galaxy for the afore mentioned ingredients, and finally IF your soup gets famous hold off other soup companies from invading your planet/soup factory.

Since your soup factory can only produce 1 kind of soup, the decision is paramount; do you pick ingredients which make the soup more delicious but are rarer and further in the galaxy, or do you pick ingredients which are less delicious but are abundantly available.

Once your soup factory is established, your main goal is to achieve 100% market share in your fictional galaxy. How do you do that? I am glad that you asked. You run around the planet gathering ingredients. Then use your trusty robots to setup a supply chain. Basic robots will be able to deliver ingredients into the factory, while more advanced ones would be able to create, store and send off soups themselves. How you manage them is totally upto you.

Running out of ingredients on your own planet, time to move onto others in the galaxy. Be careful during your exploration though, you run out of oxygen, you die (don’t we all). Don’t fret too much, though, the galaxy is littered with oxygen pockets which you can use to your advantage. Once you find a suitable planet, go on and collect those ever so important ingredients, and keep that soup pumping.

Finally, there is the defense of your very own soup factory. As other companies descend on your planet, and try to wrench off the resources. Setup turrets and other defenses, as you guard the most important thing in the world, SOUP, your SOUP.

(+) Small doses of Soup

Sounds simple? No. Cool it’s not supposed to be. Nom Nom Galaxy is a micro manager’s dream. There is a lot to do, and each process has its own subtleties and nuances. Its a good thing then, that each campaign or mission last a little more than 2 hours at a stretch. The game/mission ends when you reach 100% market share. Fortunately there is no endless mode in the game YET, or I am sure I would have stressed out too much (remember Clash Of the Clans, and Farmville, I had to delete my FB account so I won’t obsess over them).

Nom Nom Galaxy is not a relaxing game, it requires your attention, and plays a lot like a RTS for most of its duration. It needs your attention and luckily its charming enough to keep it, for a week or 2 at least.

(+) Different kinds of Soup

There are other modes in Nom Nom Galaxy. The multiplayer option lets you team up with 4 other players and reach 100% market share together. This mode lets you focus more on your individual task, and is a lot less stressful, but is also more prone to bugs, lags and crashes. Its fun though to shout at other player’s incompetence than to sulk in your own.

Then there are the daily(-ish) galaxy challenges. Which mix up the rules a little bit, and offer some refreshing change from the normal game. There not a lot of variants however, and if you play the game enough for a week or 2 you would definitely start cycling through them (atleast its a bigger cycle than Destiny)

(-) Soup in a Video Game

Apart from the mashup of various gaming genres, Nom Nom Galaxy does not do anything groundbreaking. The graphics are definitely a throwback to the 8 Bit era but not exactly pixel shaded. Think Terraria and Rogue Legacy. The sound too, is representative of the arcade generation of video games, and does nothing to inspire confidence or mystery or anything other than the feeling that you are playing a decidedly gameplay focused video game. After a while though the sounds, and the art would start fading into the background as your main focus will become the different bars on the screen which would be capturing your progress.

(+) Ultimate Soup

Nom Nom Galaxy is an amalgamation of various kinds of gameplay, with heavy focus on micro management. Its fun in small doses, not so much if you play it every day. There might be balance problem in balance and there are some compatibilty bugs out there for sure. Nom Nom Galaxy really shines when you play with other people though, and when you are exploring the galaxy to make the Ultimate Soup. So coming back to the question we asked at the start.

VERDICT