Having now cooperatively controlled space ships, prepared a variety of foods, moved furniture, and serviced race cars, I was curious to see what developers would come up with next to test the patience and communication skills of players in the same room. In the case of Servonauts, the answer is apparently the dispensing of specific types of fuel, and while that may sound simple, the developers have quickly come up with a variety of ways to make it a challenge.

Starting with what works well, once my family got the hang of what we needed to do, we were able to do a reasonably-good job of falling into general roles and coordinating. Granted, 3 players does feel like it makes for an imbalance (I think even player numbers would be more optimum), but as long as you’re communicating and being patient it can work. The key is really learning how best to position your differently-colored pump stations so that you’re able to connect them easily a few different ways. Static pipelines that are usually towards the middle of the screen can be critical to your success, but learning which placements are the best, and how to creatively network your fuel, can take some time. We had great success criss-crossing further into the game than you’d have expected on paper, and that did make for an enjoyable degree of creativity in places.

In terms of the not-so-great, everyone agreed the game’s first initial problem was doing a very poor job of getting players up to speed. We are able to work things out within the first few minutes, but it would have been nice to have a demo stage or two more clearly explaining concepts, especially since not everyone may be used to these sorts of games, and I could see them being discouraged quickly if everything simply felt out of control. We also had mixed feelings about the ability to summon different equipment wherever you’re standing, opening the menu, scrolling to what you want, and then having it drop next to you in a crate. On the one hand, this was great, as we didn’t need to go running off to a workbench or dispenser off to the side somewhere, but the mechanics of it also felt a little clumsy and slower than they should have been. Last, while all of these co-op games are repetitive in terms of their tasks, with new stages more typically changing up the layout, it also felt like a layer of added complexity or two more than the game had would have been nice. Even if the layouts changed, and stages could be tougher, it got to the point where the comment “Is this it?” was commonly said, so a little more depth in variety could have helped quell that concern.

In the end I can’t say that Servonauts feels like any sort of revolution, but it is at least well-implemented overall and feels distinct enough that it isn’t copying off of the competition too much. Working out how to be strategic, and then adapt quickly to varying needs of different end stations efficiently does take some doing, and that element was fun to see play out. Ultimately, these sorts of titles do live and die based on the people you’re playing with though, where their skill level is at, and whether everyone is able to get in the groove. I think there are more casual-friendly co-op titles out there, but this at least does well in the middle of the pack in terms of both quality and skill level required.