Garbage Gameplay Preview – It’s actually a decent management sim

Yes the game is called Garbage; the jokes practically write themselves at this point. Almost every single person that dropped by my stream made a joke about the title. Jokes aside though, don’t let the game’s name and appearance fool you. Underneath that crusty exterior is a surprisingly fun and difficult management sim combined with a roguelike.

The game is pretty rough. The user interface could be improved and the game design is definitely obtuse at points. You don’t know exactly what is going on or why for some of the mechanics as it lacks clear feedback. There are definitely some bugs as well. Training doesn’t work sometimes and the game will hard crash frequently on my Windows 7 machine.

However, despite all of these problems, I found myself drawn to the game. I wouldn’t call Garbage a good game or even a well crafted one but there is definitely some fun to be had here. The game is a management sim at heart. You must train your army of hobos into strong, strapping fighters. It’s honestly more like running a mma gym than a homeless simulator.

You have to manage meters for your fighters such as hunger, sanitation, and warmth. The game gets progressively difficult as obtaining food becomes harder and life becomes more difficult during the colder months. It honestly brought to mind another fantastic management sim, Frostpunk. Garbage certainly isn’t on the same level of balance and polish but you do have to make some hard decisions on the fly or risk losing some people.

The core game play loop of balancing having to train your army of homeless warriors while going out to obtain resources and defending your base from constant attacks is fun. It’s a decent management sim at heart, although it does feel a bit unfairly difficult at times. I died fairly often and had to start a new game many times.

Overall, Garbage may look like garbage and run like garbage but it definitely doesn’t play like garbage. It could use some polish but I had fun playing the game.