Right. Sit the fuck down Lobotomy Corporation, we need to have a talk. I'm a big fan of SCP-like settings such as this (I even managed to get one accepted to the official SCP canon back in the day) and, while these settings can quickly devolve into edgy and cringey, Lobotomy Corporation does not. Honestly the writing, setting and premise in this game are awesome; the actual entities you need to manage are fantastically well-realised, bizarre, terrifying and most of all varied. I was constantly surprised by the weirdness of the effects and conditions attached to the monsters in this game, and it was absolutely engrossing getting to know them individually, how to work with them and how to deal with them if things go wrong. Basically, I love this game. But it's also utterly unplayable.
The thing is, the elements that make up the moment-to-moment gameplay in Lobotomy are mostly solid on paper. One of the main challenges to the player is to work out what the hell each anomaly even is; working with each one gives a currency that can be used to unlock information in the anomaly's profile. In practice this results in having to use trial and error a lot of the time, and some of the anomalies are borderline impossible to guess what you need to do to get any significant amount of that currency in the first place. But honestly, I'm fine with this... it really helps the SCP vibes of the game, and you can reset a day at any time so even the biggest fuck ups can be undone (...mostly). Nor do I have any issue with how quickly things can spiral out of control as soon as something does go wrong; this is very much a one-issue-leads-to-another house-of-cards kind of game, but all that does is incentivise you to be extra vigilant that the first domino never has a chance to fall. I don't even mind how inherently unfair this game is at times; I think a bit of unfairness actually helps with the vibe here, and goes well with the theme and setting of the game. After all, this is a game about unknowable entities that some chucklefucks are trying to harvest for electricity, why would any of them see fit to play by the rules?
But despite all this, and the genuinely great time I had playing this game and the many hours at work or in bed where I'd be thinking about this instead, I only got about halfway through this game before I could take no more. I suspect this will be the kind of thing I will pick up again every once in a while, play a day, rediscover what I hate about it and then kick it down the road for another week or two. So I'm not fully calling this 'abandoned' per se, but my opinions of it have definitely crystallised by this point. And my issues with this game fall into three broad categories: terrible UI, lack of player agency and an overwhelming lack of respect for the player or their time.
Let's start with the UI. It is an absolute nightmare to find some of the information you need access to in order to play this game. There are at least 3 ways you can view the stats of a given employee, for example, but they all show different subsets of their current condition information, and there just isn't a single unified employee profile anywhere to be found. Some information is just nowhere to be found at all as far as I can tell (e.g. the range of an employee's currently equipped weapon), and in some cases the actual visual design of the UI gets in the way (like when the textboxes that appear when an employee works with an anomaly straight up cover up the HP bar so you can't see it at all). There is a good chance that some of these UI difficulties get resolved later on, because the game makes you unlock some of the most basic things you can imagine (why the fuck did I have to play through 4 days before I could even see employee HP!?). Considering the game is about unknown entities that you have very little information about, making the information on your own employees and facility just as awkward and opaque feels like a major mis-step.
Even worse than the UI though is some of the things that you really should be able to do as a manager, but just can't for some reason. This issue is probably best explained with examples, which I will keep as spoiler-free as possible. One of the anomalies I had to manage had a habit of breaking out pretty often, and when it did this it would place a trap in a random spot on the map that would instantly kill anything that went over it until you had your employees go clean it up. And more than once, I had this trap spawn directly on top of the door to one of the containment chambers, while an employee was working in that chamber. What this meant is that employee would finish their work, leave the chamber and immediately die, and there was absolutely dick all I could do about it (the trap takes far longer to disarm than any work cycle). Why can I not instruct the employee to just remain in the chamber for a bit? By all means give them some sanity damage or something for staying longer than necessary, but why isn't this an option? Another time I had the same anomaly spawn a trap in a random corridor near one of the wing hubs... only for all of the clerks (expendable non-controllable employees you get for free each day) in the wing to suddenly decide they needed to walk that way. This wasn't a power that the anomaly had or anything like that, just part of the clerks' random walks around the facility. So I watched an absolute torrent of clerks just march directly to their death, even while my own agents were desperately shooting at the trap to try and disarm it. No big deal right, they're just clerks, they aren't important... apart from the fact I had another much worse anomaly that would breach if 10 people died, which happened almost immediately and fucked up the entire facility. Why couldn't I place that corridor on lockdown? Or confine the clerks to the hub room? Or... just fucking do anything about the situation rather than just hopelessly watch my own employees bring forth the fucking apocalypse while I could do nothing to dissuade them. Again, the anomalies are supposed to be the hazards here, not my own employees, so being unable to do simple and obvious things to prevent an unfolding calamity always just made me feel helpless in a bad way.
But whatever. I've played games with bad UI before and enjoyed them, and like I said a bit of unfairness feels almost right for a game in this setting. And this would all be well and good if not for the fact each day took something like 30-40 minutes to complete. It is absolutely soul-crushing to play 20 minutes of a day perfectly, then roll badly for one of the ordeals (combat encounters you get at set points in the day) and have everything immediately go to shit right before your eyes. I feel like I could forgive almost all the problems with this game if each day lasted more like 5 minutes. But as it stands, the vast majority of days consist of going through the motions for 20 minutes, followed by a frustrated sigh and a hit of the reset button. I pushed through it for this for the sake of the world and the writing... but as the game goes on the days get longer, the routine start of each day becomes more mundane, the number of points of failure in the system goes up and your ability to meaningfully interact with them just cannot keep pace.
That three star rating should be testament to the fact that, despite the fucking torture this game put me through, I do like it, love it even. But I don't enjoy it... at all. I really, really wish this game was implemented better, because with a few minor tweaks I think this could easily be my favourite management game of all time. But as it is now, I'm not even sure I can recommend Lobotomy Corporation, and that honestly makes me pretty sad. There is so much promise and potential here, and so many aspects of its production are absolutely top-tier, but it all ends up being one of the most frustrating experiences I've had in all of gaming.
The thing is, the elements that make up the moment-to-moment gameplay in Lobotomy are mostly solid on paper. One of the main challenges to the player is to work out what the hell each anomaly even is; working with each one gives a currency that can be used to unlock information in the anomaly's profile. In practice this results in having to use trial and error a lot of the time, and some of the anomalies are borderline impossible to guess what you need to do to get any significant amount of that currency in the first place. But honestly, I'm fine with this... it really helps the SCP vibes of the game, and you can reset a day at any time so even the biggest fuck ups can be undone (...mostly). Nor do I have any issue with how quickly things can spiral out of control as soon as something does go wrong; this is very much a one-issue-leads-to-another house-of-cards kind of game, but all that does is incentivise you to be extra vigilant that the first domino never has a chance to fall. I don't even mind how inherently unfair this game is at times; I think a bit of unfairness actually helps with the vibe here, and goes well with the theme and setting of the game. After all, this is a game about unknowable entities that some chucklefucks are trying to harvest for electricity, why would any of them see fit to play by the rules?
But despite all this, and the genuinely great time I had playing this game and the many hours at work or in bed where I'd be thinking about this instead, I only got about halfway through this game before I could take no more. I suspect this will be the kind of thing I will pick up again every once in a while, play a day, rediscover what I hate about it and then kick it down the road for another week or two. So I'm not fully calling this 'abandoned' per se, but my opinions of it have definitely crystallised by this point. And my issues with this game fall into three broad categories: terrible UI, lack of player agency and an overwhelming lack of respect for the player or their time.
Let's start with the UI. It is an absolute nightmare to find some of the information you need access to in order to play this game. There are at least 3 ways you can view the stats of a given employee, for example, but they all show different subsets of their current condition information, and there just isn't a single unified employee profile anywhere to be found. Some information is just nowhere to be found at all as far as I can tell (e.g. the range of an employee's currently equipped weapon), and in some cases the actual visual design of the UI gets in the way (like when the textboxes that appear when an employee works with an anomaly straight up cover up the HP bar so you can't see it at all). There is a good chance that some of these UI difficulties get resolved later on, because the game makes you unlock some of the most basic things you can imagine (why the fuck did I have to play through 4 days before I could even see employee HP!?). Considering the game is about unknown entities that you have very little information about, making the information on your own employees and facility just as awkward and opaque feels like a major mis-step.
Even worse than the UI though is some of the things that you really should be able to do as a manager, but just can't for some reason. This issue is probably best explained with examples, which I will keep as spoiler-free as possible. One of the anomalies I had to manage had a habit of breaking out pretty often, and when it did this it would place a trap in a random spot on the map that would instantly kill anything that went over it until you had your employees go clean it up. And more than once, I had this trap spawn directly on top of the door to one of the containment chambers, while an employee was working in that chamber. What this meant is that employee would finish their work, leave the chamber and immediately die, and there was absolutely dick all I could do about it (the trap takes far longer to disarm than any work cycle). Why can I not instruct the employee to just remain in the chamber for a bit? By all means give them some sanity damage or something for staying longer than necessary, but why isn't this an option? Another time I had the same anomaly spawn a trap in a random corridor near one of the wing hubs... only for all of the clerks (expendable non-controllable employees you get for free each day) in the wing to suddenly decide they needed to walk that way. This wasn't a power that the anomaly had or anything like that, just part of the clerks' random walks around the facility. So I watched an absolute torrent of clerks just march directly to their death, even while my own agents were desperately shooting at the trap to try and disarm it. No big deal right, they're just clerks, they aren't important... apart from the fact I had another much worse anomaly that would breach if 10 people died, which happened almost immediately and fucked up the entire facility. Why couldn't I place that corridor on lockdown? Or confine the clerks to the hub room? Or... just fucking do anything about the situation rather than just hopelessly watch my own employees bring forth the fucking apocalypse while I could do nothing to dissuade them. Again, the anomalies are supposed to be the hazards here, not my own employees, so being unable to do simple and obvious things to prevent an unfolding calamity always just made me feel helpless in a bad way.
But whatever. I've played games with bad UI before and enjoyed them, and like I said a bit of unfairness feels almost right for a game in this setting. And this would all be well and good if not for the fact each day took something like 30-40 minutes to complete. It is absolutely soul-crushing to play 20 minutes of a day perfectly, then roll badly for one of the ordeals (combat encounters you get at set points in the day) and have everything immediately go to shit right before your eyes. I feel like I could forgive almost all the problems with this game if each day lasted more like 5 minutes. But as it stands, the vast majority of days consist of going through the motions for 20 minutes, followed by a frustrated sigh and a hit of the reset button. I pushed through it for this for the sake of the world and the writing... but as the game goes on the days get longer, the routine start of each day becomes more mundane, the number of points of failure in the system goes up and your ability to meaningfully interact with them just cannot keep pace.
That three star rating should be testament to the fact that, despite the fucking torture this game put me through, I do like it, love it even. But I don't enjoy it... at all. I really, really wish this game was implemented better, because with a few minor tweaks I think this could easily be my favourite management game of all time. But as it is now, I'm not even sure I can recommend Lobotomy Corporation, and that honestly makes me pretty sad. There is so much promise and potential here, and so many aspects of its production are absolutely top-tier, but it all ends up being one of the most frustrating experiences I've had in all of gaming.