As well as sustenance, rest and health, visitors need entertainment. Spacebase expands where you'd expect a modern game to do so. And if that happens you'll have to build more med bays, and who needs that? But you also have to make sure you're placing enough robot bins and air filters, because the closer everyone is packed, and the busier it is, the more likely people are to get sick. Opening bulkhead doors for a new section costs more and more every time, so you naturally tend towards being conservative with your space. The management aspect is trying to keep everyone happy, within the constraints of a space station. They all have different animations for stuff like dancing and swimming, and when you hire one they put on a little uniform. They all have a distinct visual footprint, so if you're after (as I mentally categorise them) Tentacle Head In Jar, Breakdance Beetle, Trash Aardvark, Discoteque Acid Moth, etc., you can find them easily. Once I got to know them, I really appreciated the alien designs and details. Stations in Spacebase Startopia are split into three: the aforementioned bio deck on the top, the fun deck in the middle where you can build massive discos, and the bottom deck for basic needs like sleep and food, as well as more industrial stuff like your factory, security forces and research lab. There's a bit of a mental block to vault over to start with, but once you manage that, then you'll probably have a (extraterrestrial star-) whale of a time. And look, Chocolate Wheatoids are probably functionally indistinguishable from your branded breakfast of choice, but they're not what you ate as a kid, godammit, so it is with Starbase Startopia. So where, 20 years ago, the aliens who farmed plants on the top deck of your station were purple hippies with four arms, in 2021 they're graceful Poison Ivy types with big bulbous flower heads. You know, the Chocolate Wheatoids and the Rice Crunchies with mascots called Pow, Crinkle and Blammo. When you get to a very specific level, Spacebase Startopia has a bit of an unavoidable cereal-aisle-at-Lidl vibe.

It's sort of what you remember Startopia being like to play if you think of it now. Spacebase Startopia might be thought of as three small aliens stacked in a Startopia coat, I suppose? Or, to put it another way: it's a fun strategy-management game set in space, with jokes and fun scenarios and all that good stuff. Spacebase Startopia is not technically a sequel to - or indeed a remaster or remake of - the Startopia of 2001, and I'm not entirely sure what the deal is with the IP or how anyone is getting away with this. Any reboot, sequel or remake of Startopia has a lot of built-in good will, but also a lot of rose-tinted expectations to meet. Like a lot of people, I have almost pathologically fond memories of the original Startopia, a management sim about running a donut-shaped space station (so in this case, the nostalgia beast is some kind of tentacled monster that lives in a space bin and eats robots). Nostalgia is a dangerous beast, as I'm sure you all know already. A spiritual sequel to a much-loved space station management sim from the noughties, Spacebase Startopia does exactly what it needs to do - and well.

Spacebase startopia vermin