Sunrise Parabellum Chop Chop Inc. Review

I finished Chop Chop Inc on PC in a little under 21 hours (all achievements/collectibles/secrets). I found it by accident while browsing SteamDB's August releases and picked it up because I wanted something simple to relax with before starting a bigger game. I didn't have any particular expectations but the game ended up being a pleasant surprise. ‎ v v v v v ‎ The game starts strong with a simple but effective loop: after being laid off, you start your own business, cut wood, turn it into furniture, sell it and work your way towards taking revenge on your former company. It is nothing particularly complex, but the progression is satisfying and does a good job of keeping you engaged. The tutorial is also very straightforward and makes sure you are rarely lost, especially during the early hours. Exploration adds another layer to the experience. The game regularly throws in unusual encounters and unexpected elements that reward curiosity, while its quirky characters give the otherwise basic looking 3D world some personality. Visually, there isn't much of a visual identity or strong art direction, but everything is clear and easy to read.. which matters more here. Trees and different types of wood are easy to identify, for example. The biggest change comes when automation is introduced, which gives the gameplay a welcome change of pace. It allowed to increase production and let machines handle part of the work. It also lets you work on one thing while your production continues in the background. However, automation is quite limited: automated tree cutting is slow and only handles one type of tree, while manual cutting means dealing with trees one by one. On the other hand automated crafting is more useful, at least saving you from having to construct every item manually like at the beginning. The game also has some noticeable QoL issues: - The inventory has no categories, sorting or search function, making it unnecessarily time consuming to find things - Crafting machines has neither sorting function nor manual search for recipes, good luck scrolling up and down and finding the one you want everytime - Crafting machines only show the amount of ingredients for one item, so you have to check your inventory separately to know how much you can actually produce - The manual sawhorse is particularly tedious since you can't craft large quantities at once and have to repeatedly spam your LMB. These are small things individually, but they create constant friction, thus, frustration, in a game built around gathering and production. And the more I progressed, the more the grind started to show. There is still a lot of manual gathering and processing involved, and by the final 3-4 hours I could definitely feel the repetition. I wouldn't say the game becomes bad, but I did feel it had slightly overstayed its welcome. There also isn't much to spend your money on beyond pushing the competitor percentage down, while side systems like cooking, farming and fishing don't add much to the main loop. They don't really hurt the experience either, but they feel more like extras than meaningful parts of the progression. ‎ ‎ Overall, I had a good time with Chop Chop Inc. It has a catchy and accessible gameplay loop, some fun surprises to discover, and automation adds a nice change of pace. Its biggest weaknesses are the lack of basic QoL features and the increasing grind towards the end, rather than any fundamental problem with the core gameplay. Still, it was pretty much what I wanted when I picked it up: a simple, relaxing game that kept me occupied without demanding too much from me. I'd be interested to see what the studio does next, especially if they can keep this foundation while giving their next game more polish and less friction.