Taxinaut will grow on you if you give it a couple of hours. I played it in Early Access for 45+ hours (in summer of '24) and only quit then because I didn't want to spoil the story before 1.0. There's so much to see in it, and it's a labor of love. Once you've got the basic mechanics down you'll want to play a while.

It has an ironman option but I made sure it was off. There are other things which you can adjust to modify the difficulty and make your life easier, like letting you save early and often (recommended). Plays fine with an OG Steam controller if you have one of those, with a few tweaks. Haven't tried an Xbox one yet.

I'll say the game surprised me. It's not a graphics powerhouse so I went into it with some skepticism. Some of the mechanics are unique but easy to learn (so far -- I have yet to learn a couple of them). One unique thing is that you have to figure out where a fare's destination even is sometimes. You can buy the knowledge with vudu (money) at a central location (not available on every planet, and also the most expensive option) or learn it through rumors you pick up (also paying, but a minimal amount) in bars and other locations by talking to people. You can influence the price of info and goods/services by telling jokes or anecdotes etc. depending on what the person you're talking to is interested in. The best policy is to not take a fare till you know the place they want to go to, at least at the beginning. Some destinations have environmental hazards or are in otherwise dangerous areas.

The galaxy is huge, and there's a lot to see. The game is generally a very chill experience (but not always--you can get mugged or stopped by cops!). Some of the planetside art is really nice, and some have a parallax effect as you fly over the landscape.

Overall, for the price, I highly recommend it!

The gameplay is by turns: boring, obtuse or downright maddening.

It is not chill. I don't know what the other reviewers are smoking, or if they're playing some different game to me, but my experience has not been chill at all.

Expect to crash into other craft constantly, making your already bad situation worse. Expect to pick up fares to be dropped off on a backwater with absolutely nothing worthwhile on it for less money than it'll cost you to take off again. Expect to find yourself on a heavily populated planet where suddenly it's illegal to land in a no-landing zone, or to fly in a no-flying zone, and even if you do attempt to fly in the designated flying lane you'll simply get rear-ended, even when going top speed.

This is obviously a labour of love, and has a ton of moving parts. It is a simulation, out of which gameplay emerges. It's just that it's not very good gameplay, unless you're the type that enjoys failure and learning from your mistakes.

Because it's so heavily dependent on its systems and simulations rather than game design, it's rather easy to exploit. You can easily make tons of money on a starbase because they're tiny, and there are only one or two desinations anyone will want to go to, and you can make a lot of trips in a short amount of time. What, then, is the point in taking a fare for some planet you've never been to, which might cost you more in resources to take off from again than the fee totals to, plus the time you waste flying all the way back? You're effectively punished for exploring the game.

And the interface is just a clutter of icons. Everything is an icon. What's important? What's not important? It'll take you a while just to figure that out.

Meanwhile, you're going to fail and get yelled at repeatedly. You'll have your weapons taken off you (nobody even told me they were illegal). After enough maddeningly slow space transits you'll finally decide that when the tutorial told you to get drunk to speed up time that it's a bit silly but hey it's a game why not; you'll then get arrested for drunk flying.

Bottom line: if you enjoy wrestling with an obtuse interface and learning only from failing repeatedly: this is the game for you. If you enjoy knowing what you're doing and doing a good job in the first place: this is not the game for you. It is not a chill experience at all.

And, look, I say this as someone whose favourite game is Dwarf Fortress.

But DF you can get through by using the extensive wiki. Here, the documentation available is tediously dense and verbose. For instance:

"The galaxy-map can be panned and zoomed by dragging the mouse and using the mouse-wheel. Clicking on a star will set that system as your destination (e.g. for warp). If the system is known to you then it will also show an "INFO" button which you can click to open up System details for that system. System details will show you the name of the system with some icons indicating general information about the system (e.g. whether there is traffic control in operation in that system). It will also show all planets and / or stations in that system. If the planet or station is known then it will show in more detail and you will be able to click it to open up Zone details for that planet or station. Zone details will show information for that planet or station similar to what would be shown in the information-panel if you where in that zone. It will also show the possible types of sites and vessels (or other large moving things) you might encounter there. If such a type of site or vessel is known to you (even if on another planet) then it will show an image of that site or vessel and you can hover over it to see some more information about it. Clicking a known site type will set your destination to the nearest known site of that type (if any) in that zone."

All of which is either blindingly self-evident from using the UI, or at least totally meaningless without using it as a frame of reference.

By contrast, what is lacking is a concise list of what things will get you arrested, or how traffic and laws work in the game, what things are illegal to posess, or, really any basic survival info at all. Some of this is indeed in the manual, but it's scattered between the mind-numbing descriptions of the mind-numbing UI.

Aggravating.

I really want to like this game. Maybe there's a good game buried in here somewhere. But, charming as they are, these long term labour-of-love projects can lead to developers just losing touch with what it's like to play the game without already knowing everything about it. In this case, I find the result frustrating.

e: I'm probably going to come back to this at some stage. Maybe see what tutorials I can scare up. There is something compelling about it. I do still actually want to placidly ferry people across the galaxy, as advertised, and maybe that's actually available at some stage of the game. Maybe once you get your feet under you it's not so bad?

ee: tried looking up tutorials. There aren't any, besides a veeeeery basic video by the author of the game.

I've just gone to try the basic quest at Xenis again, with the traffic grid. Landed in the day this time (apparently the traffic is only at run-you-over speeds at night, according to a forum post. Again, this info is not in the game). Tried to stick to the traffic lanes, because crawling through the suburbs you just get hit by birds.

So I ended up having to veer off the road to avoid danger, and INSTANTLY the traffic cops show up to arrest me for speeding. Then it happened a second time, and he executed me on the spot.

That's not fun. That ****ing sucks. To hell with this.