In "The Crust" I colonise the moon and the game puts me to sleep

For what feels like the hundredth time, I tear down my conveyor belts and factories and rebuild them a few metres further on. This makes the routing more efficient and symmetrical - after all, the eye plays a part. Then I open the order overview and check whether one of the 15 or so NPC factions is currently offering a lucrative order that I could grab. In passing, I take a look at the clock and am startled: it's half past one in the morning. I should be asleep by now. But first I have to check whether everything is organised in the research department. And whether the dining table for my colonists is finally ready. I already know: tomorrow I'll have dark circles under my eyes again.

In "The Crust", the aim is to build a functioning lunar colony and save humanity in the story campaign. But I don't have time for the latter: I'm concentrating on my own colony for now.

The game borrows from various other indie games and twists the inspirations into something I really enjoy. And keeps me glued to the computer late into the night. The scurrying transport and construction drones are reminiscent of "Surviving Mars", while the machines and conveyor belts are clearly inspired by "Factorio". The colonists and their premises were modelled on "Space Haven" and its spiritual father "Rimworld". And when it came to lunar exploration, the developers may have had a little nod to "Frostpunk".

The humble beginnings

The tutorial is short and shows the absolute basics. At the beginning, there's just the dull surface of the moon and me. And a lift into the rocky lunar underground. I instruct the construction of two solar panels and a battery to generate energy and store some of it for the long lunar night. Drones grab the necessary materials and assemble the parts. I lay cables so that electricity can flow.

After that, it's time to go underground. This is where the majority of the first few hours of the game take place, because this is where I extract resources and process them into building materials. But first I need space: I reconfigure five of my ten drones into mining drones and order them to expand the cave. Little by little, they turn the rock faces into small piles of stones.

Everything revolves around the regolith

Here comes an innovation in "The Crust": Unlike other games, mining doesn't give me pure ore that I can process further. No, I get regolith, i.e. moon rock. The composition of the regolith changes depending on where I mine it. Each rock contains traces of the four basic raw materials iron, titanium, aluminium and silicon. These are only small quantities in the drill remnants from my mining drones. In regolith from special deposits, the proportions of a single raw material are significantly higher.

Now it's time to get hold of the raw materials. To do this, I build a refinery: it filters iron oxide out of the regolith, for example. In turn, I turn iron oxide into steel ingots in a smelting furnace. And I need masses of these. Soon I'll be able to place automated mining extractors on raw material deposits. Conveyor belts relieve my drones of a lot of transport work.

Things get really interesting as soon as I have researched the multi-regolith refinery. This refinery filters not just one raw material from the regolith, but all four. This large building has a conveyor belt input for regolith, four outputs for the four types of raw material and an output for the waste product slag. In front of the machine, I collect the regolith from all my different extractors and let it all run in together.

Automation is not the main thing

I quickly realise: "The Crust" is not a pure automation game. Yes, conveyor belts make life easier. But in theory, you can do without them, because they are extremely expensive, especially at the beginning. And by expensive, I mean wickedly expensive: a new conveyor belt between a melting furnace and the warehouse can cost the majority of my earnings from the last order. A luxury that I have to earn first.

However, that only bothers me in the short term. If I tear something down, I usually get money and materials back. So I can optimise everything on an ongoing basis. In addition, the search for lucrative delivery orders is part of the game and I'm happy when I can have the last titanium bar carried to the customer's transport ship after a strenuous production phase. As a reward, I then treat myself to a fancy new conveyor belt.

"Sushi belts", i.e. different products on a conveyor belt, are no problem in "The Crust". My "Satisfactory" training actually makes me gasp, but here it's not only possible, but in some cases unavoidable. Certain buildings don't allow filtering at their conveyor belt outlets, at least not yet, so everything ends up on the belt in an uncontrolled manner. I then have to do the filtering myself with the help of conveyor belt splitters.

Orders are my lifeblood

Everything in "The Crust" depends on successfully completed delivery orders. Not only do they provide me with the constant cash injections I need, but - just as importantly - they also give me a temporary boost in research points.

Most research projects are interdisciplinary and require input from the three research fields of basic research, engineering and social sciences. In the game, this is expressed by blue, yellow and green research points. If I need more green research points for a research project, I look for contracts that will earn me as many green points as possible and, ideally, also money.

Many orders are difficult to fulfil, especially at the beginning, because the amount of products required is too high. Many orders also offer a hefty bonus if they are fulfilled quickly - this increases the pressure on me. Often enough, I switch my entire production to the required products and hope that I can produce them quickly enough and that my drones can get them to the transport ship in time.

Transferring hundreds of parts from my warehouses to the ship can be a pain. Research progress makes it better. And it helps a lot to put the warehouses near the lift so the drones have shorter distances to travel.

In addition to orders, there is also an open market. Orders are usually more advantageous for a high return, but if I need a few credits or special materials very quickly, the market is a good place to go. And it's always worth taking a look at the price history, because prices fluctuate. I can also buy research points - but that gets more expensive every time.

The moon is there to be discovered

At the beginning, there are two larger vehicles available that I can send out to explore the moon - if I can afford them. I start with the rover. This is an exploration vehicle that I use to find and investigate interesting places on the moon. The rover often discovers large quantities of valuable materials - which I then have to collect with the second vehicle, the transporter. On the "normal" difficulty level, however, it took me many hours before I could afford the transporter.

Some interesting places don't let me get to the treasure directly. Here I first have to send materials, drones and/or colonists to repair or set something in motion. Sometimes I can also make decisions, such as whether we should proceed carefully when opening a buried entrance or throw dynamite at it straight away. People can also be injured or even die during such missions. At least that's what the game description says. Because I'm not that advanced yet, I haven't been able to test this with people yet.

About exploring: Later on, I can also survey the moon geologically. I find interesting deposits of raw materials outside my own base and can send a huge, mobile drilling rig to mine them. I already have the drilling rig, but I don't yet have the technology for the geological measurements. I'm currently drilling in the dark - accompanied by the synthpop soundtrack playing in the background.

Last but not least: The colonists

There's a reason why I'm talking about the human colonists last. Only after about ten hours of play did I do enough research to be able to maintain colonists. That would certainly be quicker, but the colonists are always a bit of a wait.

Every item of equipment must first be researched. Not only the machines for water and oxygen, no, even beds are completely unknown in my base until they are researched. That all takes time.

Once I have researched and built a base and basic life-support modules, I take a look at the applicant pool. The people interested in the moon have different skills and characteristics that make them more or less suitable for the tasks at hand. As soon as the colonists arrive, they immediately take on open jobs.

On the one hand, these are more advanced machines in my factory: they also work without colonists, but as soon as a colonist takes over the supervision, the work goes much faster. Engineers are best suited for this. Scientists carry out research so that I am less dependent on orders for research progress. Biologists garden and doctors and cooks take care of the rest.

I can't yet estimate how important the (character) attributes of the colonists will be. If the studio follows the example of "Space Haven", illness and mental health could lead to serious difficulties.

Early Access: fine-tuning is necessary

"The Crust" was released in Early Access on 15 July and is therefore still in development. I have not experienced any show-stopper bugs. Once a customer's ship stopped taking off from the platform, I had to cancel his order and pay a small fine. The German translation is sometimes lacking, not all texts are translated. And the rules are not always completely clear to me, there is no or only very limited information on how to handle some buildings and the game mechanics.

The development team still has a lot of work to do on the colonists, at least that's my subjective impression. As things stand, they play more of a supporting role. Nevertheless, "The Crust" is already very playable and offers content for many hours of play even in sandbox mode. And that's not even including the campaign.

My (first) conclusion on "The Crust"

Overall, I found "The Crust" quite difficult on "normal" difficulty. I quickly have to stand on my own two feet and see how I can get money, materials and research points. There is also a hard and very hard mode. But I think that's okay - without constantly navigating around bottlenecks, I would get bored.

Rarely do new games keep me glued to the computer like "The Crust" does. The game has many aspects that I can concentrate on. I pay a lot of attention to production optimisation - but I don't have to. Instead, I can also specialise in exploration and contracts and make rapid progress through research and profits. I can also go all out with colonists and build beautiful premises - or not.

"The Crust" is not a game that only has one clear focus, such as automation or colonisation. It is broader and, compared to its role models, perhaps also more superficial. Nevertheless, "The Crust" manages to be good.

After more than 20 hours of play, the end of the research trees is not yet in sight. But I do know one thing: "The Crust" will cost me a few more sleepless nights - in a positive sense.

The game was provided to me for testing purposes by the publisher Crytivo.