GOSH DARN IT I LOST ALL OF MY PILOTS AGAIN. I need to be better at keeping track of which pilots are actually alive so I know which units to keep alive when things are getting iffy (when a pilot dies you get the unit back next battle, but with an AI in it.)

As far as I can tell when all of your pilots die and you lose you basically start from scratch. Though you do unlock new unit types sometimes, which I imagine are a bit better than the default ones? And those stay unlocked no matter what, so you can always start a run with the newest units that you have.

I've been playing on easy, which is hard enough. Though I did get to the final battle after a few failed runs. But it destroyed me.

The weird thing is you can go to the final battle after completing 2, 3 or 4 islands... but it says it scales, so there is really no benefit in doing more than 2 islands other than a high score. Well... that's not totally true, because the more islands you do the more upgrades you can get, which wouldn't help if it scales, but would help if you lose and start over with all of those upgrades. Maybe? Unless it scales based on how many upgrades you have and how many runs you have done and such, but it doesn't say anything like that, just that it scales based on how many islands you did. HMMMMMMMMMM. I'm not totally sure how scoring works considering you can keep looping through things but build your upgrades up more and more, which would presumably make it easier to get the higher scores.

Also it just dawned on me that in some cases it might actually be smart to take out the power grid yourself and lose before all of your pilots die, so you get to keep the upgrades...

I have 28 hors of it on PC and played with a lot of the different crews. The game is really fun but lacks variety after a certain point. And I wouldn't call it much of a roguelite, its more of a puzzle game where the puzzles are randomish every time. Its also fairly forgiving with the fact that once you beat an island you unlock that island and the next to start from when you die.

I'm a little confused about what unlocking the islands really does for the player. Is it just to add some variety, or would there be any real strategy to choosing any island besides doing the easiest one first? I guess it helps you practice the harder islands to just be able to go to them right away.

I'd definitely say it is a rogue of a sort, it's pretty tough (though probably not impossible) to beat it without losing and doing the time loop thing while keeping your upgrades for the next run. Add in the procedurally generated content and that fits.

Finally won one! On easy mode but hey I did it.

Still not really sure how the end scaling with how many islands you do actually plays out (like, is it easier to do less or more islands?!), but I did all 4 islands and the final spot.

I'm not sure why but for some reason I was under the impression that this game saved scores and had leaderboards but I guess not?! It saves scores but I sure don't see any leaderboards.

I actually really like this game but I'm not sure what to do next... try a harder difficulty I guess? That sounds intimidating though...