It’s time to make money!
Prosperous Universe came out in 2022, but I think after four years of it being around, people can finally start to review it. Created by developer simulogics, this “game” is more of a giant spreadsheet where you build a business in space with thousands of other players. Somehow, it actually works.
It works for a very specific form of person, which so happens to be me. Suffering from an extreme form of autism that means I enjoy looking at shipping lanes, calculating profits, and building an industry focused around selling coffee. Everything in this game (except for some very core products) needs to be made by other players.
For example, you might start your business venture as a “Carbon Farmer”. You buy agricultural products (that another player farmed), and burn them to turn into carbon. You then sell that carbon to industrialists who need it to fuel their smelters. It’s very simple and very complicated all at once.
It starts off very slow, but starts to snowball after a couple months or so. What? You thought you’d fly by quickly? Pffft. Come on, this is a game made by a bunch of guys suffering from ecotism. The strong desire to create an economic “eco-system” where everything is connected.
There are four factions in the game, but they don’t really matter. Each one has a small blurb of lore (which is just fluff), and you can leave your faction’s space and build in another faction’s space. There isn’t really an issue with that.
The core gameplay loop is basically this: You buy materials (workforce materials, production materials, etc.) and you ship them to your base. You then make new products (or in the case of resource extraction, extract products), and then take those products back to a market to sell.
If you want, you can get involved in the politics of the game. Trade leagues, corporations, and co-op banks have formed. The players of the game are relatively helpful to newer players, as long as you understand that you’re the little guy.
I have three bases currently, and I’m getting set up in a place called “New Benten” to build refineries. These refineries create starship fuel that everyone needs. Unfortunately, fuel is one of the products that the NPC corporations sell, so I’ll never “corner” the market on it. But it’s fun to pretend to be a space gas station!
The UI is overwhelming at first, but since I play games like Victoria 3, Stellaris, and other menu-heavy games, I’m fairly used to it. I definitely don’t think this game is for “everyone”, but it’s VERY good at the niche it’s catering towards.
There is a monetization system in the game. Free, Basic, and Pro. Free is the free-to-play section. You can play this game entirely free-to-play and not really miss out on much. Pro is when you subscribe or pay for a supporter package (which I did). It makes it so you can do private contracts with players, do foreign exchange, and other things like that. If you stop paying, you get kicked down to “Basic”, which means you can accept local market ads (but can’t create them).
Occasionally, big drama happens in the game. I’ll preface this by saying that players on each planet can set what the planet industry is. One planet might specialize in electronics, or resource extraction, or manufacturing. For New Benten, a group of players moved here and wanted to turn that specialization from Refinery to something else. It caused a massive crisis as the biggest fuel producer began to withhold fuel, which was desperately needed by people.
So, an actual treaty was signed. That sort of social MMO story doesn’t help much in other games. Maybe Eve Online and Mortal Online 2, but that’s all I can think of. A player named “boom_badda_boom” is an infamous example of people not working together. He has done “trade blockades” on certain communities and trade hubs, much to my enjoyment.
Is the game for everyone? Absolutely not. I doubt people wanting high-octane action will enjoy loading this game up and staring at resource inputs, shipping lanes, and how to better optimize your production cycles. It does appeal to a very specific person, though. If you’re reading my website? That specific person is probably you.
Review:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – Core Gameplay
I’m ranking this solely based on if a person who likes these kinds of games will enjoy the gameplay. It’s sophisticated and simple, which strikes that great balance that many economic simulator games are missing. You can be casual or a hardcore player and still enjoy it.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⬛ – Replayability
It’s a very replayable game. We love when we see numbers go up. That could be your wallet, your resource pile, or the amount of bases you have. It’s also rewarding to hear the little “BEEP” noise that happens when a ship lands. Could it be more replayable? I did get bored after a couple months, but I ended up coming back. I think that means it has to at least be a four out of five.
⭐⬛⬛⬛⬛ – Atmosphere
The worst part of the game, unfortunately. There are plans to add music and a soundtrack to the game, but right now it hasn’t been added. I think once it is added, it can knock the score up from a one to at least a two or three. We’ll see.
Overall Score: 6.7 out of 10
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