Hands-On With My Little Universe

A lot of people may already be familiar with My Little Universe since it originally debuted on mobile devices as a free-to-play game last year. The game features a pretty simple gameplay loop that lends itself to mobile devices where the player collects resources, uses them to expand the world, and then continues that forever. The game was built to generate money through microtransactions and ad support, so there were options in the game to progress faster by paying or watching an ad. It was for this reason that when I saw this game listed as a demo in Steam Next Fest, it jumped to the top of my list to try out.

My question was relatively simple, how would the game function in an environment where key resources could be gained by watching an ad or paying. The obvious issue would lie within balance considering the gameplay loop is largely maintained. The problem is that even within the world of this demo, the scale of how many resources are needed to progress is not particularly well balanced. Very quickly this game becomes a grind, only mildly offset by the appearance of large deposits on the map that can be easily picked up. These deposits also exist in the mobile edition of the game, however, these are one of the points where the player can watch an ad to receive the resource in question. Their existence is a little baffling because they aren't hidden and really only exist to entice the player to pick them up. Unless there is going to be some form of microtransaction system for them in the main game, this makes very little sense.

Unlike the original mobile version (keeping in mind I was an early adopter and a lot of changes have been made since then) combat has a much larger role in the gameplay of the PC version. This does make sense since the PC version is a more active experience than the mobile, however the problem quickly becomes that there are upgrades available for your sword but not for your armor. Considering how much grinding there is in this game, the inability to upgrade your armor seems to be a decision that is based more in keeping the gameplay active than in making the gameplay fun. The veins of material are spread out too far and are too close to the area of attention for monsters so the player is basically forced to constantly fight enemies while trying to expand the  landmass.

All of that said, a representative from Say Games did confirm that the game would be available to purchase on release (not free to play as some of the other mobile ports on Steam are like Marvel Snap and Cookie Clicker) and that the game would no have microtransactions as the game has been rebuilt for PC and Switch with the difference in gameplay experience in mind.

My Little Universe is available to wishlist on Steam here and is slated to be released within 2023.