By Chris Picone, 19July 2024

I've had my eye on CarbonFlesh for a long time now, primarily because the programmer is none other than James Spanos, the legend from Wormwood Studios who is also behind Until I Have You (and a bunch of other incredible games). I wasn't sure what to expect going in though:  The Steam page talks about resource management, hacking, base building, and even tower defence.  And I think this is the magic behind the game:  At its heart, CarbonFlesh is a clicker, which I am generally not a fan of because I think that - as a rule - clickers are brain-dead.  But between the story, the resource management, and all the other gameplay elements, CarbonFlesh has so much going on that it's easy to forget you're playing a clicker and it actually takes some thought to succeed.

The story is, you've just emerged from a coma onboard a prison train.  Your first task is to hack and gain control of the train, which you plan to ride to freedom.  However, before you can do that, you have to look toward your own survival.  You have six needs that must be fulfilled; hunger, hygiene, comfort, focus, fitness, and rest.  Each of these impact each other. Working on your fitness, for example, is tiring.  You can overcome some of your needs with food and drink; synth fish not only fills you up but also provides focus - but even food diminishes your hygiene. So step one is hacking into the black market to purchase blueprints because the train is, luckily, fitted with a "carbonflesh" printer which can produce food and other items. Actively addressing a need, however, lets you level up that need - so exercising makes you fitter, for example. This makes the need bar a little larger so in future it takes slightly longer to diminish, allowing you to spend more time on other tasks.  It's important to try to keep your needs high because doing so keeps your productivity high, which reduces your hacking time.  Hacking is where the clicker element comes in; each hack requires a specific amount of time, but every time you click you reduce it by x seconds. Hacking can be a risky affair because while you start hacking you kind of enter "the zone;" time speeds up and your needs can diminish very quickly.  However, for each successful hack you earn adaptation points which can be used to make your click more effective, or to add multipliers, auto-clickers, etc., making you a more efficient hacker.  That's the crux of this game - any time you invest in anything yields a reward. More time spent hacking makes you a better hacker.  And time is absolutely of the essence.  You only have a week to hack the train before it arrives at its destination, and that involves breaking through a series of seals, each more complex and time-consuming than the last.  If you fail to hack the train, it's game over. But you can't focus solely on that because in the meantime you need to improve your skills, build your strength, and either complete hacking contracts to earn infamy and money instantly or else slowly develop a passive income stream because freedom doesn't come cheap. But all of that is just the start. Once the train's hacked, the world opens right up and the real game begins. Once you control the train, you can travel to different stations. New opportunities, new threats.  You must arm your train and collect resources to build your defences to engage in tower defence-style combat.  

The verdict?  Honestly, I went into CarbonFlesh expecting a solid game, but I was still surprised at just how good it is. I suspect there may be too much going on for traditional clicker fans, and that's exactly what I found appealing about it.  CarbonFlesh had me hooked right from the start and I'm deeply looking forward to the full release.

 Links:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2191720/Carbonflesh/