One of the most interesting approaches to a roguelite game I’ve ever played, Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop, as the name implies, is a roguelite where you are tasked with repairing various ships that choose to stop off at your waystation.
You play as a man with a fox head (or fox with a man’s body?) and the gameplay consists of a cycle where you begin your shift at work, work through the day, and then punch out and take care of any secondary tasks around the station.
And there are two modes that will affect how the game plays. There’s a more challenging mode where an eight minute timer is implemented, meaning you have to work a lot faster to actually complete jobs.But there is also a second mode that does away with that timer, instead limiting the number of jobs that can be completed in a day to three. On top of that, failing to complete tasks perfectly will also penalise you to a greater effect than in the timed mode.
Where Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop distinguishes itself is in the actual ship repair. Instead of little mini-games, like what would be expected in other games, there is an actual workbook that contains instructions for the various ship modules. Each ship module has a correct working state and a variety of things that can be broken. To repair a ship, the issue needs to be identified and repaired, and the only way to figure out what to do is by referencing your grimoire, navigating the step-by-step instructions for most of the issues you will come across.
‘Most’ is the key word there, because there are certain things that aren’t clearly explained. There are also slight differences in how the game refers to some systems and issues, so it isn’t always readily apparent what the actual issue is. For anyone who has ever worked in engine repair of any kind, or even parts look up, will recognise how the game is actually fairly true to life. Things aren’t always clearly stated and we really are spoiled with games spelling things out in a step-by-step way for us. After all, in real life, things aren’t usually that clean cut.
However, as much as I can appreciate what has been done with the puzzles and repair mechanics – which are really well done – there are a few issues that hold Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop back.
The chief among them is that this is not a game I want to play with a controller. When working free hand on a ship module, you have to slowly move the cursor around the screen with your thumbstick. There are also bolts, screws, etc. that need to be interacted with using a selection of tools that are in your inventory. When these tools are in use, the game will automatically cycle between the different objects on screen that can be interacted with by said too.
Some modules do a better job at this than others, and nothing is more frustrating when only thirty seconds are left on the clock and the game won’t cycle to the object you need to reattach.
Switching between the ship and your inventory is also toggled by a button press. Even trying to manually move the cursor between the two won’t allow you to actually swap over, it needs to be toggled and that makes playing with a controller frustrating, even tedious at certain times, which gets compounded when playing on the mode with a time limit. A slightly longer time limit would go a long way in addressing these issues.
The easy workaround to that is to play with no time limit, but that leads to the second big issue – the RNG. To elaborate, certain modules can only be repaired if you have specific terminals installed at the workshop. These modules need to be installed prior or after a shift, but are locked in during. This means even if you have the correct terminal, if you didn’t have space to install it and you select the wrong terminals to begin the day with, you can’t complete those jobs.
Now Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop does give a varied selection of jobs that will often tell you what you need to complete them. Which is great, until it decides not to tell you what you need or even give you options. Some jobs will come in as mysteries, where the repairs needed aren’t listed until the job is accepted. There are also jobs that can have a modifier that makes it so no other jobs are available. Get hit with one of these and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the tool, you won’t be able to complete the job and you need to accept it or end your shift.
The game is framed around earning rent within a set time limit, and failing to collect it will end the run. So on the day of rent collection, if you don’t have the funds to pay up, you either take the chance with the job or just give up and start again. When playing with a time limit, the penalties are usually manageable, but when playing without those time restrictions it feels downright impossible.
Three days of in-game work and pay, six jobs, can have all of their earnings deducted by a single task, depending on how RNG decides to hit. If a task can only be progressed by repairing a component that you are missing the terminal for, and there are another five things that need to be repaired once that component is fixed, then you can go from being just shy of affording rent to being hundreds of gold in the hole.
It’s incredibly punishing and can completely derail a run.
Things aren’t helped by the fact that any station upgrades take a day to get delivered or installed, so there’s no way to adapt on the fly. It’s either know what you need at the start of the day (before any jobs are populated), get lucky, or fail.
Roguelites pretty much always have an element of randomness that makes them fun, but Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop really doesn’t need it. The puzzle systems are varied and mechanically deep enough, where having a strict time limit and giving the tools to complete them is enough to make it satisfying to play. Again, there is literally an entire workbook that covers several different solutions for each module, keeping each puzzle open ended. The game also looks clean, the art style is fun, and there is a lot of personality, all of which are strong positives.
And it shouldn’t be understated how the open-ended nature of the puzzles is incredibly satisfying for anyone who is sick of boilerplate puzzles that always have the same solution. The more complex modules can literally be wired wrong, have broken components, and be missing items that all need to be addressed for full marks.
It’s just frustrating that a short run in Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop, which is still going to be 20-30 minutes long, can quickly come to an end because of poor RNG. The slightly clunky controls and awkwardness of certain solutions don’t help, and I really think it would be preferable to play on PC with a mouse and keyboard.
Yes, the puzzle systems are complex and deep, and it is genuinely satisfying to fully repair a messed up ship in Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop. But the roadblocks to get there are rougher than you may care for.
Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop: A Frantic Fix-’em-Up with a Cosmic Twist – https://www.thexboxhub.com/uncle-chops-rocket-shop-a-frantic-fix-em-up-with-a-cosmic-twist/
Take a trip to Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop, releasing on console and PC next year – https://www.thexboxhub.com/take-a-trip-to-uncle-chops-rocket-shop-releasing-on-console-and-pc-next-year/
Buy Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/uncle-chops-rocket-shop/9ns9jqhzz3lh
