It should be free. If it was, I would recommend it but it offers so little content that I can't justify paying for it or at least not that much.

The only reason I picked it up was because it had a 100% Steam sale at one point for some reason. It felt fair at that price.

I enjoyed the game but not that much.

Instead of doing adequate resource management, they came up with a memory of events that could kill all interest in the game. It doesn't matter how well you play. It’s important how you got an event with a positive effect that gives you a bonus, otherwise you won’t have enough resources to survive at least until the 10th day. There are more interesting projects than this passerby, but besides the fact that here little men copulate with each other and after that you send them to a bioreactor, there is nothing interesting.

Вместо того что-бы сделать адекватный менеджмент ресурсов, придумали запоминалку событий, которые могут убить весь интерес к игре. Неважно как хорошо ты играешь. важно как прокнуло тебе событие с положительным эффектом которое дает бонус, в противном случае, не будет хватать ресурсов для выживания хотя бы до 10 дня. Есть более интересные проекты, чем этот проходняк, а кроме того, что тут человечки совокупляются между друг другом и их после этого отправляешь в биореактор, ничего интересного нет.

Inhumane attitude and tons of pop-culture references. I like it!

The core of the game could be described as "roguelike resource management". As an AI you have already conquered the planet and now you need to try to manage the enslaved humans. The cycle is simple: let the humans multiply, produce energy to continue operating and food for humans to survive, repeat.

The roguelike elements come in the form of randomized events: depending on your choices it will turn out good, bad or worse. Because of that, one of the objectives for the player is to decipher every possible event and find the best solution. And there are quite a lot of them in the game, securing its replayability. Most of the events, if not all of them, are based on different pop-culture references like books, movies or video-games, so pop-culture knowledge might come in handy (still laughing from that butter reference).

Another objective is to find that balance between production and consumption. Like in all management sims it is important to keep resources flowing, even out the incomes and the outcomes and to be robust enough not to implode in case of an unfortunate randomized event. Sadly sometimes the strategy depends on the appearance of certain events in order to get the specific upgrade. So if it is not there early enough, then it is better to restart the game. But if it clicks in place - it becomes quite a smooth ride. For me it took just two hours to finish the campaign.

And there is a second campaign which allows to spice things up and start playing with a bit different mindset and strategy.

The art-style is a nice pixel-art. There is not much of it since all the player sees is the main facility with the machines and mechanical arms (and a bunch of icons), but that is enough. The machines themselves are quite detailed and can get more visual addons with different upgrades from the events. What is really featureless is humans. Mere silhouettes with minor alterations between different "upgrades". Kinda adds to the perspective of humans being just a resource and nothing more.
And I really dig the music. Gives the cyberpunk vibes. Too bad there is not enough of it.

Overall it is a really fun game. The presentation is good and the core gameplay is well thought out and replayable. Although if it sickens you to even think about treating dozens of people as mere slaves, tools, expandable resources, then better stay away from this aesthetic. After all, it is in the title "DESPOTISM" - you are supposed to play as a ruthless despot.