The Last Caretaker by developer and publisher Chanel 37 Ltd.—PC (Steam) preview written by Valerie with a copy provided by
the publisher.
Estimated reading
time: 5 minutes
I am addicted to survival/crafting games and The Last Caretaker falls right into that category. You are a robot known as the last caretaker and you are tasked with 'saving the future of the human race.' Parts of this game remind me of Eden Crafters which I reviewed here, but instead of welcoming humans to the planet you are launching them from this planet.
I am amazed at the level of detail in everything from the junk around the station you start in to all parts of the station and the ship as you work toward getting it powered up for your exploration in the open world. The lighting in the station creates the urgency that is needed to get the power going so you can escape. Oh, and did I mention the wonderful environmental effects that plague or progress you through sections of your mission? And because you are a robot, you also have to keep yourself powered to do all those things needed to survive.
When I first started up the game I thoroughly enjoyed clunking around to equip myself, learn the basics of crafting, finding scrap and junk to make tools and parts needed. Plus the darkness that hid a lot of things you needed until you powered up the area you were in. I got a kick out of carrying a beam and it flopped around making me concentrate to get it placed the correct way to traverse an area. Needless to say it wasn't long enough for my proposed use of it, but awesome in the way of learning the keys to both navigate and rotate it. Oh! You are equipped with a torch that does a decent job of lighting your way.
The tentacles reminded me of the spiders in Empyrion Galactic Survival, but here I had to hit them several times with my repair tool whereas in EGS I had a weapon. In reference to a weapon though, you can craft one a little later in the game. The little robot creatures that spawned once I hit those tentacles attached to various power areas definitely damaged me. You can find the healing stations located in a room in the spawn area, the launch bay, and also the ship. There is also a station to make backups as you progress, and with The Last Caretaker still in early access I suggest you do so as often as you can!
Where you spawn in, your first quest pops up. When completed you can find tons of junk and scraps traversing the corridor to the next area. Upon further exploration, I lucked out in finding a fabricator and a recycler. Hooray! Now I can load up with stuff for my crafting and repairs that I will be doing as I explore the open world. Once I powered and fueled my ship, it was off to the next area to explore, repair, search, and defend myself.
In reference to collecting scrap and recycling it into stuff needed to build and repair items, you will find your power would deplete faster. Needless to say I did a bunch of supply drops on my ship and only went back to top up for the project I was currently repairing or building.
Once I left the launch bay it was open waters from there. Indeed I had some troubles in the game, and since it's still in early access I hope these get ironed out. When I was trying to fuel and power up the ship, my cursor didn't show the flow direction switch when I hovered over both the nozzle for the fuel and the connection for the electricity. It did show up when I had the extender on the electrical cable, but not on the ship connection itself. It kept saying, 'connect to self.' Another problem in the inventory, when I had ten of an item (the batteries where my cursor is in the image below) it only showed the number 1 instead of 10. My character also doesn't seem to have a key for 'crouch' which I found out when I crawled into an air duct and got stuck. Once I stood up at the end of the duct I couldn't get back out!
The Last Caretaker has a lot of things going for it with your own ship equipped with everything needed to help humankind. You'd think because you are a robot that you are too heavy and would sink to the bottom of the ocean. Not so, you have a pressure enhancement that allows you to swim on the surface, midway down, and full bottom dive. The amount of detail in everything down to smallest of monsters that attack you is amazing. I can almost smell the area I am in by the detailed graphics and lighting.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Chanel 37 Ltd. for allowing me early access. With my addiction to this game and others like it I spent a good deal of time doing a thorough test of the game while it's in these early stages, knowing that it's a period where changes often can and do happen. And for you readers and fellow gamers who love survival games, go get this one. Definitely well worth it!
Score: N/A
