Common’hood PC Preview

Common’hood is a first-person colony survival game from Plethora Project. Players will find themselves in the shoes of Nikki, and apprentice woodworker taught by her professional parents. When Nikki’s mother and father passed away, she packs up and leaves home for good. However, Nikki is still drawn to the old factory where her parents worked. There she discovers she’s not the only one interested in the place and finds a group of squatters already encamped. Now it is up to the player to turn this small hovel into a thriving community.

Besides Nikki, players will soon be introduced to the other current inhabitants. The brisk Rhett is the first person Nikki encounters hanging by the entrance and brings players up to speed. The friendlier Mo is eager to work with Nikki. The timid Ash has already started to give up on society and feels like living in the factory is her last hope. The crafty Alcott is willing to sell scraps and machines to Nikki for a fair price. Cedric is a farmer with plenty of seeds but lacks the space to plant them. Finally, the masked Ant Farmer was the former head of the factory but failed to keep everyone employed when a natural sinkhole tore the foundation apart.

At first, most everyone is too dejected to contribute much, simply pacing about or sleeping in their tents. Players will need to be the initial driving force to get everyone motivated to improve their situation. As a woodworker, Nikki has brought along a table saw that can cut logs into lumber, make wooden furniture, and simple tools like shovels and pickaxes. The only problem is that it also requires a generator and gasoline to stay running.

This is where the Common’hood’s economy and systems first come into play. Nikki will need to trade goods and resources for that first bit of gasoline. Once acquired from someone like Alcott, players will need to assign each individual part to their hot bar and then find room in the cramped factory to set everything up. Stations like the table saw constantly drain power while plugged in, so one must separate appliances from generators when done crafting to avoid excess waste of energy.

Controls can be a bit clucky during this first process. First, one needs to enter their backpack to find every component, place it into a specific hotbar slot, and rotate and align the pieces with the R key (which slowly rotates clockwise only). There are no reminders or quality of life to assist in quickly completing a craft; if one leaves something at a station or inside their bag, they will need to go back in and adequately assign it to the hotbar. What would have made the controls feel more natural would be alternate hotkeys or fluid menus when mousing over items. Additionally, there is never any pause in time, so these cumbersome actions will cause the day to progress and resources to deplete.

As the hours go on, Nikki will become tired and hungry and be unable to work on anything else until she recuperates. Players will need to clear out some extra space from the rubble and set up a basic small tent. Additionally, the whole community shares food despite players making most of the effort. This begins with canned food placed in a cellar, but with time and guidance from Cedric will soon lead to planting fresh fruits and vegetables among the dirt patches.

At first, only a tiny section of the factory will be accessible. More of the area is uncovered by making or finding a specific tool to clear a path or unlock an entrance. This creates a clear goal when one might otherwise be wandering about each day. As the community grows in size, even more people will be attracted to the factory. With them may come new technology, raw materials, and survival methods. Some will bring along blueprints to design complete homes with bedrooms, hydroponic greenhouses, and even automated robotics to help with labor loads.

Common’hood’s art direction and graphics are simple, using extremely flat shaders without much detail. The vibrant colors of each person’s hair and outfit help them stand out, as individual silhouettes don’t have much difference. At times players may get community members confused at a glance. One should consider slowly stopping and checking nameplates to identify the right character.  

Outside of the primary campaign, Plethora Project has plans to add two other modes to Common’hood in the form of the sandbox and multiplayer. The first one may plop players into a fully opened up factory with possibly all of the characters and technology at their disposal. It is unclear whether players would still be restricted to just Nikki or if other characters (including custom ones) could be the main protagonist. 

Multiplayer is a bit hard to imagine in the game’s current state. One potential is for it to be coupled with sandbox mode and fully open and online similar to other building games like Minecraft or Terraria. As the current build of the Common’hood has no online features, it is impossible to say how responsive and enjoyable such a mode would be. There would likely need to be specific balance or progression changes required to account for several people gathering and building simultaneously.

 

Common’hood starts slow and is a bit frustrating. The game wants to hammer in the point of repetitive tasks and the need for conservation. But after a few hours, with more members and technology, it begins to show how in-depth the creation and planning can become. The future sandbox mode will probably help this awkward pacing and allow Common’hood to put its best foot forward. There is currently a free demo available on Steam, and anyone interested should give it at least a try. But with the March 2022 release date pushed back indefinitely, it is unclear what timeframe Plethora Project is now working with.
 

Kurtis Seid, NoobFeed
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