Kentum Review

Have you ever overslept so much that the world kind of… came to an end? Well, if you want to experience what that might be like, then Tlön Industries' latest game, Kentum, could hold the key. The question we’re here to answer today is whether this is a game worth waking up for, or if you're better off catching another 10 minutes. 

Kentum follows the story of Kent, a wage slave who is awoken every few centuries from his cryosleep to press a button. Now, Kent is an industrious sort who decides he can skip a few thousand years by fiddling with his small ship’s software. It… doesn’t go well, and instead leads to Kent’s ship crashing in the year 10,000. From there, he’ll need to find a way to survive and possibly even rebuild the human race thanks to the mysterious machine. 

As a narrative, Kentum’s plot does what it needs to do, and some of the interactions between Kent and his robot companion are pretty funny. I also appreciate the fact that the game provides an explanation for why Kent has to do what he does; he’s still on company time, after all. It might not be novel-worthy, but the plot is entertaining enough for you to keep going to see what happens next. 

The main focus of Kentum is to gather materials, build up your base, and survive the harsh world that you find yourself in. The game is a mix of a side-scrolling metroidvania game, with you slowly unlocking new abilities to help you get past certain blockages. There are several different biomes, numerous creatures and all you have to start with is a stick. However, you also have a cloning pod, so dying isn’t the biggest issue in the world. And you will die a lot, either by being eaten or simply not having enough to eat. 

The actual exploration is fine, but in the initial stages, the running back and forth can be a bit tedious. However, you will slowly unlock teleporters that mitigate this somewhat. The materials you need to gather are also season-dependent, which is a nice touch, but it can get annoying at times. To collect said materials, you just need to hit them with your stick and throw them in your pack. It’s not really complicated; instead, the real game is turning your base into an automated super-house. 

See, you’ll eventually be able to build farm plots that you can use to grow plants, and rocks for some reason. While you could gather all these yourselves and take them to the many different machines that turn them into something else, you don’t have to. Instead, you can build robot arms, conveyor belts and more to automate the entire process. Now, this might seem a bit complicated, but the actual process is surprisingly easy, and there’s a certain amount of pride that comes from getting everything working seamlessly. 

The biggest shame is that, while the automation process is great, once it’s all working well, the game starts to lose steam. As I said, the actual materials you need to gather require you to find them, and walking around isn’t all that fun after a while. The combat is simple to do and rarely ever a challenge, to the degree that it becomes more tedious by the end. On top of that, you need to scan things to find new recipes, and the scanner requires you to keep close to the subject while also holding the buttons. On PC, this can be a bit of a pain while they’re trying to murder you, and it doesn’t help that you can’t scan them when they’re deceased. 

Graphically, Kentum has a cartoony style, with the characters appearing completely 2D while the world appears more in the third dimension. One thing I do like is that Kent changes with the seasons, depending on how long his clone has been around. It’s a nice bit of visual storytelling that didn’t need to be there, but is appreciated. I also like the design of a lot of the animals and materials, although the game is very dark at times, even in areas where you’re not meant to need the torch. 

So, is this the game for you if you’re looking for your next Terrariafix? Certainly, there is a lot that’s done well here, and the world is entertaining, as are parts of the gameplay. However, it takes a while to get going, and once it does, you suddenly find it becomes a lot less interesting. With that being said, the writing is solid and even funny at times, whether it’s good enough to keep pushing you to search for hours for one particular piece of rock out of season is up for debate.