GUN JAM
GUN JAM
Game
Game2021
Before We Leave
Developer Balancing Monkey Games
Before We Leave is a city-building video game developed by Balancing Monkey Games and released by Team 17. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
197 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Oct 22, 2026 · last updated Nov 4, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
70
Fresh
129 positive · 55 negative
95% range 63–76%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 129 | 55 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
743 of 985 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
70% recommend · 129 yes, 54 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 183 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (1,353 of 1,732 positive).
Players find the game relaxing and visually appealing, but note it can become tedious. [1][2][3] Some players appreciate the logistics and automation, while others find them frustrating. [2][4][5]
Liked
Representative posts
- [10]
I wanted to like this game but it really suffers from do the exact same thing over and over again. Build up your city and production so you can go settle on a new island so you can continue up your tech tree. But you can't import all of your higher end materials to your new island till you build up enough to have a port. So you basically start over from scratch on this new island while having to take care of your …
- [1]
Before We Leave is overall an okay city builder, but suffers from a couple of significant issues. 1: The game appears to be horribly unoptimized and requires a significantly better computer than it should need to run. It straight up did not run on my old computer and causes excessive heating on my current one, which is a gaming laptop. 2: The game is very repetitive, forcing you to build up the exact same …
- [2]
Seeing how many negative reviews there is recently, I feel like I should share my experience... Yes, the game is chill, don't buy it if you want to sweat (although if you choose some hardcore settings, it can become really challenging) Yes, some technologies seem useless, I don't use all of them, but I guess they can suit other gameplays. Yes, there are only 6 different biomes, you won't be surprised when you …
- [3]
I bought Before We Leave expecting a cozy city builder, and while there is city building, it often feels more like a peaceful industry/transport tycoon in disguise. You start on a tiny island, grow a settlement, ship goods back and forth, hop to new islands, fix a mysterious spaceship, and eventually spread across the solar system. Rinse. Repeat. Colonize up to several planets. Endgame unlocked. The vibe is calm, …
- [4]
Pretty decent city builder. Fairly easy and forgiving compared to other titles, it's quite difficult to "lose" this game. Heavy focus on logistics between islands and later on planets, with fairly powerful automation tools.
Summarised from 34 of the 194 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
70% of the 183 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Before We Leave. The complaint that keeps coming up: repetitive gameplay with little variation. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Before We Leave received mixed reviews on Metacritic. Ian Evenden of PC Gamer called it a "cute little city-builder with big ambitions". Nicole Carpenter of Polygon said the game was initially relaxing and fun but became increasingly stressful, for both her and the Peeps, as expansion caused pollution and unhappiness in the Peeps' society.
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 197 · most liked firstI wanted to like this game but it really suffers from do the exact same thing over and over again. Build up your city and production so you can go settle on a new island so you can continue up your tech tree. But you can't import all of your higher end materials to your new island till you build up enough to have a port. So you basically start over from scratch on this new island while having to take care of your original island. Finally you can go settle on another planet so you can continue…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Before We Leave is overall an okay city builder, but suffers from a couple of significant issues. 1: The game appears to be horribly unoptimized and requires a significantly better computer than it should need to run. It straight up did not run on my old computer and causes excessive heating on my current one, which is a gaming laptop. 2: The game is very repetitive, forcing you to build up the exact same infrastructure on every planet you visit with no variation besides the different biomes.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Before We Leave is cute and seems like a casual Anno at first glance. I like how the Hex tiles planet reveals itself when you explore and move around, but that's sadly about it. I've read other reviews point to the same issues I perceive, the main one being that it feels less like a city builder/colony sim than a claustrophobic puzzle, where the space the tiles use are gigantic compared to the available space on the islands. More than anything, the fact that every building needs a road to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Seeing how many negative reviews there is recently, I feel like I should share my experience... Yes, the game is chill, don't buy it if you want to sweat (although if you choose some hardcore settings, it can become really challenging) Yes, some technologies seem useless, I don't use all of them, but I guess they can suit other gameplays. Yes, there are only 6 different biomes, you won't be surprised when you discover a new one, that's not the point of the game... The point of the game is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cute, but rather shallow. Replay value is pretty low as the development is the same every time. The worlds are random, but not random enough. Always the same order of land types to discover and industies to build, and tech tree to discover, etc. Just not enough varaety to remain interesting for more than a few hours.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I adore this game and have sunk many hours into it, however there are some bugs and other issues with space shipping that make this game frustrating to play in the long run. There has been a bug I have been experiencing for years where the amount ships will attempt to load will increase infinitely for as long as I have the ship selected, this allows me to have ships load 1000 milk for example. This makes shipping between planets extremely difficult to deal with. When said bug doesn't occur,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's just really amateurish. I like the core concept, but it needs a ton of UI work and AI work. It is too easy to land into a death spiral in a game that is supposed to be somewhat chill.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hello friends, Today i will review the game Before We Leave. This game is a strategy city builder. Spaces are limited on the places you can build stuff, so some spatial strategy is needed. Also, there are technologies to unlock to make the game easier. Be warned though, there are many challenges and you may encounter massive monsters from outer space. To most action adventure players, they may find this game too boring or too slow as it has a chill vibe in it. As this city builder comparing…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've been on a city builder kick lately and for anyone that is interested in that genre, I'd like to call your attention to a game called Before We Leave. I picked it up in the summer sale partly because it was 75% off. It's a city builder\lite puzzle game (aka cozy city builders I think). You start with a small number of "peeps" emerging from a bunker. From there, it's got the typical citybuilder traits and it does those very well. You have research, resource generation, resource conversion,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →City builders and colony sims are my bread and butter games, and I can easily spend hundreds of hours on a good one. This is not one of those good ones. I can not stand the hexagonal tiles on a small diameter globe this game uses. I want to be able to visualize my colony at a quick glance, and having to rotate the world to see it's entirety is was an instant turn off. Requiring every building be on the side of a road with hexagonal tiles severely cramps the colony layout. I prefer colony games…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TLDR: A peaceful colony management game that doesn’t put its best foot forward, seeming tedious, but improves in the mid and late game. General Thoughts/Overview: Before We Leave (BWL) is an extremely gentle colony management game. You lead your ‘peeps’ as you emerge from an underground shelter used to hide from an unspecified disaster on the planet’s surface. Rebuild society, rediscover technology, and reclaim the stars as you learn from the past and try to do better than the ancients…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Starts off pretty fun, but after colonising a few islands the game devolves into a very poor and extremely tedious logistics simulator. The pollution mechanic is also extremely poorly implemented. Put simply: industrial buildings produce pollution. If pollution gets bad enough, it causes the surrounding area to become covered in toxic sludge. Toxic tiles cannot be entered unless you build an airlock, which requires a fair amount of tools and metals. In other words, the regions most likely…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a very mid city builder. I wouldn't say it's necessarily bad, but I think you'd be better off spending your time playing other city building games. Before We Leave presents itself as a relaxing city builder, where you build beautiful cities on an inviting, friendly atmosphere. After 2 or 3 hours of playing, you'll realize that this is far from the case. There are many (over 30) different resources to balance between multiple islands, and eventually, multiple planets. This is not a bad…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't know. Looks like a good game but as others have said: "something is missing". Tiles are so big compared to the world size that it almost feel claustrophobic. Roads take so much space and hex tiles make placement weird. even at the beginning space is so constrained that it starts to feel like a puzzle rather than a city builder. Additionally it heavily stressed the GPU despite being a 4 years old game with simple graphics. Why?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's not a bad game, but it has some very unusual choices that make for a difficult fun experience; for example, 60% of your islands will be road due to them taking up an entire tile, or most buildings requiring a road before being able to be placed, or warehouses being tiny. Once you get into space too, it becomes a whole different form of micro-managing that's just not enjoyable. It's also a very slow game to play and less "City Builder" compared to most titles in this genre, rather tedious,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played a whopping 13 minutes...Before I left...forever!!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought Before We Leave expecting a cozy city builder, and while there is city building, it often feels more like a peaceful industry/transport tycoon in disguise. You start on a tiny island, grow a settlement, ship goods back and forth, hop to new islands, fix a mysterious spaceship, and eventually spread across the solar system. Rinse. Repeat. Colonize up to several planets. Endgame unlocked. The vibe is calm, colorful, and completely non-violent (great for kids), but also… a bit too calm.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Had a lot of fun on this game till I did not, it starts out good and nothing wrong with it I just lost total interest in the game and that's not common for me. the difficulty does not scale but the amount of work you have to put in for the same result, you don't really get anything worth more for more work and its not really fun work.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TL;DR: This is a good game with a rough start. It can be relaxing and fun, but it can be hell until you understand how to properly configure transport, what features of the game are worth investing in, and which features you simply need to ignore because they simply aren't worth it. Overall, I recommend it, but if you are expecting a cozy and relaxing game, just play the tutorial to the point where you leave your first planet and then create a new game with custom settings. Long version:…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I know I said I was done posting about the game, but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's downloaded it! One Final Wish, Before We Leave is currently the most popular game in the Minimalist TTRPG Jam! Thank you all! #ttrpg #ttrpgdev #indiegame #indiedev
positive · AI labelView post →The Good: Before We Leave is like if a cosmic squirrel designed a city-builder! Your Peeps are adorable weirdos, planting taters and vibing to space banjo tunes. Hex grids make you cackle like a mad bee overlord, and the visuals? So lush you’ll wanna smooch your monitor. The Bad: Tutorials are gibberish, like a space squid barfed riddles—trade routes? I’d rather herd cats on Jupiter. esources pile up like cosmic laundry, and the pace? Slower than a turtle racing molasses. Devs, toss in a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Before We Leave sounds and looks like an interesting concept, but in reality it's not really a fun game. It's missing "something" and I just couldn't get hooked despite liking the genre. There are some minor bugs and the optimisation is poor, but in all this game is just quite boring experience.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I find the concept interesting, but the interface doesn't make it very easy to tell how it's all fitting together. I find myself colonizing most of the first world, then having a hard time figuring out what I need to do next. Hopping between islands trying to figure out where there are shortages. Managing warehouse storage, setting shipping targets. It's so tedious, and not fun at all.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is good for what it is, and has a few interesting mechanics like the automatic trading between cities and even planets. It doesn't redefine the genre, but it is good for what it is. I had intended to leave a Thumbs Up review, but I experienced several game-breaking bugs towards the end of the game (mostly pathfinding that broke, and would not reset even when some buildings were destroyed). This led to a Thumbs Down.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not the best of city builders, its got a neat style and progression. The main issues is that placement is annoying as you have to fill up so much space with roads and you need up at a road block so many times in this game. For some reason even though I have so much wood and warehouses right next to the wood generators and such, my people never resupply it resulting in no power and happiness drop which makes them want to work less. Would love to play this game and get to the space part but i…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It is a cute and fun game at the start. The issue I have with it is once you get more than one planet the auto shipping system seems to break down. It can not handle shipping things from the second planets, second island for shipment back to the first planet. If they could fix that I would be happy to try, but until then, I am stuck with a clunky system.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is no fun or at least I was not able to find any while progressing through it. After 10 hours of playing I don't think it's gonna pop at any time.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty decent city builder. Fairly easy and forgiving compared to other titles, it's quite difficult to "lose" this game. Heavy focus on logistics between islands and later on planets, with fairly powerful automation tools.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I tried this game some time ago and decided to give it a chance some other time. So now I come back and I cannot go to tutorial in any simple way. Great, I have no idea how to play it
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's definitely a casual builder, but the resource management between islands/planets can be a lot to manage. Overall I played a lot when it was on game pass, and just picked it up for 5 bucks on sale, and it's easily worth the sale price.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've not had much time to work on 'One Final Wish, Before We Leave' today, but I did get a chance to make a start on the gameplay aspect of the game. I'm quite happy with the way I'm writing this - it's obvious I'm real tired but I think it's fun. #ttrpg #ttrpgdev #indiegame #indiedev
positive · AI labelView post →Before we leave is a cool city building game with many differens systems, but compared to other games it's really basic. I've tried getting into the game twice now, at first right after the game came out and then I waited further development that could maybe create something interesting. The premise is great, it's really a cozy game, but that's it. After 2 to 3 hours the starting planet has been fully developed (as in, all island have been explored) and I start to understand where the game is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I’d say Before We Leave, because that was our first game and it came out in 2020 😅🤘 The historic year I suddenly became a game developer store.steampowered.com/app/1073910/...
positive · AI labelView post →This sale not only includes some Yarn Spinner greats like Button City and Frog Detective(s), but also game from studios/devs who switched to Yarn for their next games: 🚀 Before We Leave (whose next title Beyond These Stars is coming out these year) ☕️ Coffee Talk (who just released After Love EP)
neutral · AI labelView post →Leave as soon as you can | KAMGUSTA's MINI REVIEW I noticed games by these developers are often mediocre, this one is no different. It's a civ-building with some resource management. Featuring hexagonal tiles and spherical worlds. Gameplay is repetitive. Spaces avalable for building are tight. Roads aren't an asset, but a nuisance. There is no campaign mode. Poor replayability. For me it's a pass. Best played with mouse & keyboard Recommended buy price: 3$ Score: 5/10
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Even after playing for hours I still do not understand a lot of things, like how are my peeps keep consuming clothes too fast. Are they eating them?
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Verdict 👍 Recommended (for the right crowd) Not a game for me. After about 0.1 hours I got bored and stopped, and I will not be coming back — but I can still see why some players would enjoy this kind of chill strategy/management game. Quick signals 💸 Value: ✅ "That'll do, pig. That'll do." 🖥️ Requirements: ✅ Minimum 🎨 Graphics: ✅ Acceptable ⏱️ Length: ✅ 15–30 hours 📖 Story: ✅ Good 🎮 Difficulty: ✅ Easy to learn, hard to master 🐛 Bugs: ✅ Perfect Why it is not for me - The gameplay loop…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Biggest complaint about this game is that it fails on properly designing a shipping system. It is a game literally about colonizing all of the islands on the planet, moving onto the next planet, colonizing more islands via trade ships basically. But it fails on letting the player fully customize the trade route. Your options for the trade route are. You can manually select what port on the export island is used, but aside from that, you cant really manually select where the import island…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Looks lovely, but the hexes are clunky. It's not fun to compromise between placing buildings and roads. Instead of optimising for yield, you've got to also think of access and the resolution is too big to allow decent flexibility. I just didn't find it that enjoyable.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Graphics are 👍 Gameplay is 👍 Difficulty is 👍 if you don't want to think to hard 👍 is 👍 espacially when 👍 and 👍 And the overall game is just 👍 and that's just cool However it may be too easy for certain people wich is kind of 👎 but otherwise the game is just 👍 👍👍👍
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well, this game is definitely worth the money. I played it right away on hard mode (as far as I understand, this is the second-to-last difficulty level). It's very light and doesn't tire you out with micromanagement (until you run out of resources). Here are a few spoiler-free tips: * I recommend looking at the bonuses that combine on buildings. For example, I recommend placing residential buildings so that everyone has at least two neighboring buildings. Don't place them on the edge, as…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The concept looks interesting, but after the seconds settlement it just repeats itself. the concept of whales is okayish but lacks the grip to keep repeating the same stuff over and over again (colonizing new islands/planets/islands).
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game filled with bugs, stuck on game startup.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I suggest this game if you have played, Frostpunk, Northgaard and RimWorld. It resembled me those kinds of mechanics a bit. Maybe I'm wrong but I'm definetly recommand it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It took me way too much time to find out why trading between islands wasn't happening (had to click the auto button that didn't look like a button) but other than that it's a lovely little game for a sunday afternoon or two.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty to look at, the hex tile layout to build up the planet feels unique, and interesting weave of resource building, tech tree, balancing peep needs, pollution control and shipping routes. Very easy to get lost for hours and hours. The only thing I would change so far is to add an extra tab to the island management screen so you could compare warehouse capacity with warehouse contents with what settings are on shipping management. I ended up making a spreadsheet once I got to my third…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Giving a recommendation, but there's definitely some flaws with the game that reveal themselves as you go. The biggest one is that if your people become unhappy, they work slower, but in order to make them happy you have to make better items or clean up pollution, which takes work. The result is a cycle of a failure. The more you try to combat unhappiness, the worse things are because less gets done which leads to things getting worse. The only surefire solution is to abandon that island…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can understand people liking it but not for me. I played till a bit after getting to the second island and I felt like I kept getting thrown mechanics that didn't seem fun. Examples: you can collect wood, but for many things you need planks of wood (not sure what they are called). So if you need planks you have to first wait to collect wood and then wait for them to make planks and wait for them to bring the planks to where you need them. The art is nice and I can understand someone…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun game, but it has no point at all. Is a World Sand Box, where you colonize planets but FOR WHAT? Build the space Ship and launch to the next planet. After 2022 there is 0 news on the game. Disapointed, they abandoned the game...
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the graphics are really the only thing decent about this game..
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a pretty good city builder which has you establish and manage multiple colonies, but isnt really the kind of game that would be good for repeated playthroughs. You start off on a single island on a planet, setting up your first city before you push out and colonise more islands to which opens up access to new resources and the technology to go with it. Eventually you'll move out into space and set up colonies and other planets and repeat the process. As you set up colonies the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The closest thing I can compare this to is an Anno game, but instead of just building cities on islands on one planet, you are building cities on islands across multiple planets. Also, since different islands and planets have different fertilities/resources, you will have to colonize multiple islands and planets to have access to all resources. There are no real enemies in this game for the most part, except for a few things like gremlins and space whales. However, you won't have to worry…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A Great, Relaxing Strategy Game with a Smooth 100% Completion ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Before We Leave is an absolute joy to play. It stands out in the city-building and 4X genres by focusing entirely on a non-violent, cozy experience. The mechanics are beautifully straightforward and less complex than traditional strategy games, making it incredibly accessible and easy to pick up for anyone looking to unwind. For completionists, the game is a wonderfully smooth experience. The vast majority of the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Would give 3 out of 5. I had fun playing this game. With that being said, the whales are the most annoying game mechanic ever. To the point that "I woke up and chose violence" was my strongest sentiment towards them. I was really disappointed that unlocking "Laser" technology did not include some sort of death ray or electric whale zapper. This game is supposed to be non violent but it would be 100% more satisfying to at least be able to give the whales a good electric shock or somehow do…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is my fourth-most-played game to date, and for good reason. It's cozy and just strategic enough to be a nice relaxing that does not require constant activity. The scenarios add plenty of replayability. Definitely snap this up!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the game is just not interesting enough to buy it full price.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Different scenarios and the ability to change difficulty levels keeps the replay high.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sim suggestions, depending on what types you like: Before We Leave Endless Sky Planet Zoo Banished Game Dev Tycoon Surviving Mars Railway Empire Do Not Feed The Monkeys
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is amazing. I originally discovered it on a sale on PlayStation + on my PS5. I got almost every trophy there but the PS version doesn't have the Toxic Wasteland update or other additions that the PC version does. It's worth getting this game just for that and playing it again. Replayability is high as there's different worlds with different biomes that you won't encounter in just one playthrough. Some planets will not have the same resources as another, so you have to figure out…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"From ashes, civilizations rise." - Positive points: • Beautiful artwork and atmosphere • Challenging gameplay with resource management and logistics • Unique mechanics like smart shipping and island specialization • Relaxing and peaceful gameplay experience - Negative points: • Repetitive gameplay in the mid to late stages • Lack of space on islands leading to restrictions in city planning • Some buildings and advances in the tech tree feel…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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