Nova Core Chaos is a game well on its way to being something great. It has some cool mechanics, a fun concept, and some ridiculously cute art. As it stands though, it doesn’t give you a reason to play.
The title describes itself as a chaotic co-op cooking game for one to five players. You must create energy cores and provide them to your very impatient customers before time runs out. This includes creating a core base, then based on the customer requirement, crafting a primary and secondary energy source. Deliver this and it’s one customer done.
This is easier said than done though. There are 5 different energy sources, and they are all locked behind interconnected doors. As the saying goes, when one opens, the other closes (don’t quote me). Additionally, each energy type (fire, water, air, earth, and star matter) all have to be prepared differently, before it can be put into the core.
For instance, you have to pound down and combine two different types of ores for Earth, and you have to boost the power of the star matter. It is solid gameplay that requires some amount of prep work, decent speed, and a lot of communication.
A Well-Oiled Machine
Communication: therein lies this game’s strength as a coop. Thanks to the amount of moving pieces and interdependent elements, you need to stay in contact with your team continuously. You need to ensure you don’t lock a teammate away for too long while creating the cores you need so you don’t lose a customer. And you need to do all of this, really quickly. The customers are really, incredibly impatient.
Despite the chaos, it is fairly easy to navigate the level. Nova Core Chaos has a really cute art style with well-designed recognizable elements. Every elemental color and character/item shape is distinct, so you always know exactly where your character is and what you are doing. When you have a full team in play, this is incredibly important. Navigation and tasks all come with clear sound effects, so you know without looking when the doors are in play when someone emotes, etc.
Nova Core also succeeds with its roster of characters. Each has one key ability that helps the team create the best Nova Core factory. From the ability to sprint, use special tunnels, or even carry multiple items, they can all help the players get around the hurdles of the game. It is smart design that encourages you to find a team to play with, as you only get stronger with each member.
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When you have your team and you have picked your character, it is easy to jump into this game almost immediately. All you need is a little prep. The main menu comes with a well-designed ‘crash course’ that tells you about the world and your goal.
When you hit start, the level initially loads as a ‘prep’ phase where you can refer to various ‘recipes.’ These are specific tutorials on how to prep each element into an energy core. During this phase, you can also test your abilities and prep the level to your advantage to get a head start. When everyone is set, they can ready-up to receive the onslaught of customers.
There just exists one key question: Why?
The Pointlessness Of It All
Nova Core Chaos has two major problems right now. They have no win condition or any difficulty ramp. So it starts off great and you are kept engaged while you figure out how to dominate the game. Then, the challenge of trying to see how many customers you can serve is fun, till it gets boring fast. You can’t help but wonder why you are even playing the game.
No game can work without a goal to work towards. Neither can it survive without a change in the conditions because once things stop changing, it gets boring.
Right off the bat, the customers you try to serve come in at a pretty high difficulty with really tight timers. The simplest way to make the game engaging here is by simply ramping up the timers. Starting with generous, patient customers and having them get more impatient as we go along would have been great.
That is what more endurance games, like Tetris, do. However, despite picking away at this game for over 2 hours, I have yet to see any change with this.
These base settings don’t even change to account for different numbers of players. Any groups lower than 4 already start at a disadvantage. As a solo player, you hit that hurdle even sooner and, as a result, are bound to serve fewer customers than you would as a team.
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Another thing that prevents the replayability of this game is that there is only one level. Once you master it and the order of operations you need to get through, there is no change or challenge in the game. You just keep plugging away at it until you fail 3 customers.
Of course, since this is a small title, there are some other problems with the game. Our team encountered 2 repeating glitches that impacted our ability to play efficiently. At times, certain assets wouldn’t load for one player but were still active in the game.
For instance, my teammate couldn’t see when they had successfully grabbed an air unit and so couldn’t do anything else. I had to guide them through the action since the asset had loaded for me. A bug I hit often was getting locked into an action. When I would interact with something to prep it, I got caught in that animation cycle and couldn’t exit it for a few seconds. Neither bug was good as the timer kept progressing.
Another minor issue we noticed is that it was very difficult to see the lower doors on the level. You can’t tell if the door is open or closed, and that was an unnecessary hurdle within a timed space.
A Sad End For So Much Potential
The thing is… this is a promising concept. There is so much that can be done here. Just the act of adding a Win Condition, or timed goals of some kind, could completely change this game. It could go from something with promise to something like Overcooked.
Trust me, with my group, that is the best compliment I could give a game. Of course, if they added in other levels and a difficulty ramp, this would become an amazing game.
For now, Nova Core Chaos is amazing for a short play-through. For 15 minutes of distraction with your friends. After that, there is no reason to keep at it.
GamesHorizon Recieved a review copy of Nova Core Chaos for Steam.
A game with great mechanics and fun art that is defeated by some core gameplay elements (or lack thereof).
The Good
- Requires a lot of clear communication, a great element for a team-based coop game
- Cute graphics
- Reasonably formed lists of tasks with a lot of challenge
- Really good tutorial with a small learning curve
- Fun set of characters with distinct advantages
The Bad
- No Win Condition and thus no goal to play towards
- No difficulty ramp or change in the game over time
- Only one level
- Small glitches repeating bugs that impacted our ability to play
- It was difficult to see the lower doors on the level
