Insomnia: Theater in the Head
Insomnia: Theater in the Head
Game
Game2018
INSOMNIA: The Ark
Developer Mono Studio
INSOMNIA is a dieselpunk sci-fi RPG about the slowly degrading remnants of human society attempting to survive on an abandoned space metropolis. Develop your character, explore lovingly handcrafted locations, interact with peculiar NPCs and factions and try to stay alive in this brutal world. From the Steam store page
234 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 1, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
39
Rotten
74 positive · 115 negative
95% range 32–46%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 74 | 115 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 1 | 1 | 40 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mixed
245 of 482 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
40% recommend · 76 yes, 114 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 190 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mixed (748 of 1,267 positive).
Players praise the game's atmosphere, story, and art design. [1][2][3] Many reviewers report bugs, crashes, and untranslated Russian text. [4][5][6] Some players find the game janky but still enjoyable. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [7]
Sure, get it. But it's janky. I mean it's real janky. Super-janky. I sometimes like me a bit of jank, but you gotta know this going in. Now, you may be wondering, "Ac... whatever-your-name-is, how janky is it?" That's a good question, I'm glad you asked that. I'm going to tell you why it's janky at length, and then hit a few good points. What set the tone for me was the prologue, which is how the game gives you a …
- [2]
Absolutely fantastic but slightly janky cross between Fallout and Stalker. You play as a jackbooted oppressor suffering from episodes of psychosis, stuck on a slowly decaying monolithic spacecraft/megacity, that has been drifting through space for that past 400 years. Your character fully expects to live out his short brutal life between the stars, in a grimy, neon-lit, dystopian struggle for survival. From that …
- [4]
An absolutely incredible game. I would love to recommend this, but there are just too many problems with it. While the story is well written, the atmosphere is perfect, and the environments are detailed and unique, this game suffers from a series of poor game mechanics and design choices made by the developers. Let me get into it: 1.) Bugs: They weren't that noticeable for the majority of my playthrough, but the …
- [6]
TLDR: Buggy, half-translated, unfinished. Shame, it was full of good ideas Oh man. I just finished putting in about 50 hours into this wreck of a game. I mean, I can sense the passion behind it. People who gave a ♥♥♥♥ were making this game. But being passionate doesn't get you off the hook from testing, testing and testing some more. A lot of the issues have to do with the fact that there was little testing done …
- [15]
INSOMNIA: The Ark looks amazing, has a cool post-apocalyptic world in space, and is an RPG, all things I want in games. The game is riddled with bugs and glitches. It's an unfinished buggy POS missing translations, item placeholders, and missing stats. I am so disappointed with this game, is could have been awesome. NOT recommended
Summarised from 34 of the 228 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 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
INSOMNIA: The Ark sits at 39% positive across 189 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Reactions
60 of 234 · most liked firstAn absolutely incredible game. I would love to recommend this, but there are just too many problems with it. While the story is well written, the atmosphere is perfect, and the environments are detailed and unique, this game suffers from a series of poor game mechanics and design choices made by the developers. Let me get into it: 1.) Bugs: They weren't that noticeable for the majority of my playthrough, but the one's that were noticeable really broke the game. At certain points the game…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I cannot sleep ugh but the moment I turn the game on or watch YouTube I'll be tired again #insomnia
neutral · AI labelView post →“SCP-9951 is a difficulty setting found within Touhou Fuminkyou ~ Echoes of Insomnia (不眠響), a 2018 fan-made video game based on the larger Touhou Project series.”
neutral · AI labelView post →I love the game as this has the potential to become a classic, so it pains me to give it a negative review but at its current state I cannot recommend it. This game is awesome and a pile of ♥♥♥♥ at the same time! The concept is excellent, the world is awesome, the story is interesting and it has everything you expect from an old school RPG but at the same time it's riddled with bugs and poor design choices. I've encountered many during my 38hrs of game time but all were mostly annoyances…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sure, get it. But it's janky. I mean it's real janky. Super-janky. I sometimes like me a bit of jank, but you gotta know this going in. Now, you may be wondering, "Ac... whatever-your-name-is, how janky is it?" That's a good question, I'm glad you asked that. I'm going to tell you why it's janky at length, and then hit a few good points. What set the tone for me was the prologue, which is how the game gives you a tutorial. I crept past a dude, I went to the exit in a stealthy crouch,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the invasion of Insomnia was like the ONE constant in every iteration of that project and it doesn't even fucking happen in the game, it happens in a dogshit tie-in movie they further ballooned their budget on by stunt-casting GoT actors
neutral · AI labelView post →I would have liked to give Insomnia a positive review as I did enjoy a good bit of the beginning of the game. I loved the atmosphere, music and style of the game. But the game play and bugs just totally killed it. By the end of the game the companions were broken and would only melee enemies. This meant they went down within the first 10 seconds of every fight and with perma-death after 60 seconds I would usually die trying to get them up again. My inventory had gotten messed up and caused my…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →🧵 Criterion Collection 41-50 41) Henry V (44) 42) Fishing with John (92) 43) Lord of the Flies (63) 44) Red Shoes (48) 45) Taste of Cherry (97) 46) Most Dangerous Game (32) 47) Insomnia (97) 48) Black Orpheus (59) 49) Nights of Cabiria (57) 50) And the Ship Sails On (83) #filmsky 📽
neutral · AI labelView post →I played only with version 1.7 - and it seems most of the complaints from earlier versions are fixed now. So this is a review of this patch level ! This is a rough little gem for the fans of Fallout 1&2. The good things first: - very athmospheric game that has a lot of the old Fallout games look - interesting, but sometimes strange and mysterious story about a giant drifting space ship - nice and weird NPC - good real-time combat system The not so great things are: - very rare game crashes -…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My wife said if this review gets 100 likes and 50 awards, she will let me play all week without seeing the sun or touching the grass.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun action RPG with very unique dieselpunk setting. I got myself quite immersed in the lore, until there's one too many bugs in-game and a few untranslated Russian texts... Very disappointing. Can't bring myself to finish the game after encountered a bug that negates any damage to my character. (Another user reported the same bug last year (July 2019), but still unfixed at the time of this review (April 2020)) EDIT REVIEW: Well, I started a new game on November 2020 and it's still riddled…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This could have been a decent game, but it has too many problems. It basically feels like an alpha build that needs a large amount of finetuning, balancing and polishing. That is unfortunate, because the setting and the story could have been interesting.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →From a team of software engineering school rejects comes a game that starts with an illegible GUI. And no options for improvement. This lot coded an elephant in a room, didn't see it, then were unable to fix it after at least 3 years of people pointing it out. So here we are, with tiny fonts squeezed in a tiny corner so that 95% of the screen can stay beautifully black. I would diagnose a bitmap font infection, hadn't bitmap fonts been eradicated in the 90s. The disease spreads to the loading…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Note: the review was written under the influence of frustration from having to replay the same section of the game over and over due to bugs. The concept of the game is great. The story is very engaging. But the impression of the game is marred by technical issues and a very clunky combat mechanics. It is very frustrating to have to try get through a certain part in the story by continuosly replaying it because the main character would not exit combat stance. And in combat stance you can not…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →cool game, has multiple bugs that prevent you from progressing through the game. It's not fully translated, so parts of the game will be in russian. It should never have come out of early access in this state. Don't buy it until these issues are fixed.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →INSOMNIA: The Ark looks amazing, has a cool post-apocalyptic world in space, and is an RPG, all things I want in games. The game is riddled with bugs and glitches. It's an unfinished buggy POS missing translations, item placeholders, and missing stats. I am so disappointed with this game, is could have been awesome. NOT recommended
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TLDR: Buggy, half-translated, unfinished. Shame, it was full of good ideas Oh man. I just finished putting in about 50 hours into this wreck of a game. I mean, I can sense the passion behind it. People who gave a ♥♥♥♥ were making this game. But being passionate doesn't get you off the hook from testing, testing and testing some more. A lot of the issues have to do with the fact that there was little testing done before this game shipped. A full third of all the text wasn't translated.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Postivie; - Unusual world - Fallout 3 vibes - Interesting art design Medicore: -Story - Gameplay Bad: -You can encounter bugs that prevent you from completing game * I give up on game because this -Other annoying small bags like one consumable kills your char instantly. - Poor AI Verdict game not worth of time due bugs, but if before play you willing search on forum how avoid game breaking bugs you can try I not willing to commit it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dont bother with this game, another example of half arsed development, you get so far and then everything goes to ♥♥♥♥ or the game just stops working correctly as in the character doesnt move. Levelling up is a joke, inventory is a joke, combat is even worse, the enemies are all crack marksmen while your shots will miss 4/5 times. The art work and story setting etc are great, but this is where the positives end. It takes for ever to earn one XP point, you cannot upgrade weapons and armour, and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Did I liked the game? Yes! Do I recommend it? By all means, No! The reason is simple. Areas can reset which is a bug. If that happens and you do not have a save prior to the area reset you can get in the situation where you are no longer able to progress the story. The only thing you can do against this is to check, after arriving in an area, if it had a reset or not. It happened to me 5 Times during a playthrough. The game can be finished but only if you are careful with checking for area…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Here's the rub, this game is really interesting, the premise is interesting, the combat is difficult and the art design is appealing. However, I simply can't recommend this game in it's current form: Pros: - combat is difficult, if you go off on your own with the basic armor you're going to be trying again and again. It's just really really hard because your defenses are paper thin, the resources you can use to heal don't heal for much, especially at the start because you don't get anything -…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →FINALLY A PROPER NIGHT OF SLEEP HECK YOU INSOMNIA IM GONNA PLAY RUNESCAPE twitch.tv/kiwo LIVE NOW BABY
neutral · AI labelView post →I recommend you buy this, then wait a year or two for additional patches to come out. As of version 1.7, I'd say this game still isn't finished. You can play through the plot from beginning to end, but some sidequests are difficult or impossible to complete due to implementation failures. Companion AI is almost unusably buggy. Not all of the Russian is translated - nothing important, but it's noteworthy when you start a conversation with some NPC and suddenly all the writing is in Cyrillic.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Insomnia again but this time from stupid game design thoughts. Which is better than worrying about friends. But two nights in a row is not good.
neutral · AI labelView post →Insomnia The Ark is yet another cautionary tale in how just because a RPG is old school doesn't mean that it is good or that by adding realistic immersive elements doesn't add enough benefits to outweigh the negatives. If you want to struggle through poor translations, both language based and gameplay, then try this on sale. While the game has an interesting take on the genre, this takes a nose dive as you realise how quickly the game devolves into fetch quests and hoarding items in a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →All the criticisms are valid. It's still amazing.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →'Technomancer' is $10 cheaper, but much better... Technomancer is a 'good bad' game, that I actually managed to finish and not regret the time I spent on it... THIS game however is just a 'bad bad' game. It tries to reach Technomancer's level in-between all of the bugs, jankyness and problems, but without any further development, this game will never even reach Technomancer's 'good bad' level and it will stay 'bad bad'. The devs haven't released an update in over 12months which is a clear sign…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Before update 1.7 this game was a real mess but it's getting better (little by little it is slowly being fixed by the developers), game's not totally fixed yet but it is now more then playable. I could never get tired of listening to the soundtrack I love it, plus the diesel-punk setting and the over-all atmosphere of the game are both pretty cool. The story-line is well written, the game takes place on a 400 year old massive space station (aka The Ark), with you traveling through space looking…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it's just not fun. Aiming feels awful and movement feels like a chore. Story and environment def seem interesting, but if it feels like a drag to play, what's the point?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I enjoyed it for what it was, wonky mechanics and bugs all over, but overall the setting was interesting. Translation to english is so-so. Some quests were not translated at all. Game has been abandoned by devs, you might not be able to finish it anymore. Can't recommend it (even on sale), unless someone somehow fixes the game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Do not buy this game, it is bugged to hell and it is abandonware. Stay clear or it, you are not giving money to the actual developers I guess, just the publisher, I don't know. xD
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Insomnia: The Ark has some amazing visuals and an interesting premise, but in terms of gameplay, it's seriously buggy (at version 1.7 no less), repetitive and uninspired. When I decided to play this game, I was thrilled with its interesting premise. Insomnia: The Ark is set on a giant dieselpunk space station/space ship which the last remnants of humanity use as a lifeboat after their planet has been all but destroyed due to a global apocalyptic war. Unfortunately, the game turned out to be…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →They released the game. They abandoned the game. The game is completely broken. Bloody mess of out of date gameplay and technical problems. You can come across bugs from the problems with starting it to the game breaking moments. Even achievements don't count. I don't want to play about 20 hrs and stuck somewhere forever. Do you? P.s. You can find all my short reviews [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/kiko_kitsune/recommended/]here.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Upped my water game with ripples and star reflections, applied on the sin wave based water plane I already had. Insomnia has its pluses I suppose #GameDev #IndieDev #SoloDev #BevyEngine
neutral · AI labelView post →Been playing a fun game this week of: am I getting sick? Is my body getting used to PrEP? Or is it just winter? Insomnia has been a bitch the last few nights <<
neutral · AI labelView post →In its current state its unplayable. Prone to freeze or crash. Conversations with characters or checking merchants inventory can and will cause the game to crash.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The development house of this game has basically ceased to exist. The lack of polish shows on a mechanical level in mine minigames that are insta-death and basically require save scumming to beat. there's one section with an unavoidable turret that can't be harmed by most guns you have at that point and there's no way around it. Not to mention the engine apparently isn't configured right for AMD processors and requires a config change or it eventually slows to a halt as the sound corrupts and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love these types of games, and I loved the story and premise of this game. However, it is rife with a minefield of broken quests. I have about 20+ hours on this game, had a lot of fun with it, until a main line quest broke. There was no way for me to fix it without starting a new game, which I was not willing to do. Shame, this game could have been great.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Absolutely fantastic but slightly janky cross between Fallout and Stalker. You play as a jackbooted oppressor suffering from episodes of psychosis, stuck on a slowly decaying monolithic spacecraft/megacity, that has been drifting through space for that past 400 years. Your character fully expects to live out his short brutal life between the stars, in a grimy, neon-lit, dystopian struggle for survival. From that grim start it soon gets even more grim and compelling.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Gamescom is over, but I think I've gained a lot of insight from watching people play our game. It's a very gratifying feeling and it makes me think, that all those years of development, it wasn't all for nothing 🙂 Big shout out to my team and the Indies United team (Insomnia Development)
neutral · AI labelView post →Insomnia: Chapter One Melon Polygons. Steam disclosure -y
neutral · AI labelView post →I gotta wonder if the bit at the end of FF15 where the wander the ruins of insomnia and reflect on how it used to be was something already locked in by the time they decided the to cut the part of the game where you see Insomnia before it gets destroyed
neutral · AI labelView post →Broken and abandoned.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Broken, never finished, abandoned, don't buy.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Could have been good, the story and setting are really cool, but it was abandoned while still full of gamebreaking bugs. Disappearing NPCs, broken quests, entire areas that regularly glitch out.....it's a shame that it's yet another kickstarter/early access failure.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Glad they've done good things with Logan's character, but you need more than that to justify a game purchase these days. The Spidey games are essential in so many ways, most of all the joy of traversing NYC as a web-slinger. I could never see how Insomnia was going to replicate that with Wolvie.
neutral · AI labelView post →every time you think you've adjusted to the wonk it finds another way to be less fun and more of a miserable grind. cool style and i wanted it to be good so much i just kept at it until it finally succeeded in sucking too completely.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Only on a the deepest of sales would I recommend this very flawed game. Like, $10 or less like I got it on the Steam Summer Sale. No crashes in the 17 hours played as of this review but plenty of reloads because of the harder than nails combat. You die in as little as two hits and enemies(though dumb) bumrush you with infinite stamina and infallible aim less you're crouched behind something. This isn't even getting into the other issues with the game; XP doesn't seem to trigger at times, hit…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So, there are a lot of recent negative reviews that describe a broken, unoptimized and incomplete product full of bugs but in my first run I haven't seen all these problems, perhaps it was the lucky run, I don't know. But it's also true that I met a potential game-breaking bug almost at the end of the main mission "Boiling Point" but I fixed it easily by reloading the last autosave. In addition, I must admit that this game is far from being perfect: the translation is so-so with some parts left…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Usually I try to finish every game despite of my opinion. However a gamebreaking bug just ended my playthrough. This was more of a redemption than an annoyance. This game should be a concept at the manager table, not a final product. Every aspect of the game are unpolished or unfinished. The story itself maybe the only part which can make the player to keep going. However I do not like when the "supernatural" part of the story is not clear after 10 hours ingame. The main problem is the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →44 hours of gameplay and unable to finish the game because of the usual mission impossible boss battle trash that spoils the ending of 50% of games that I play. I know gaming heroes will complain that they get bored when games are too easy but how many of these people actually finish a game? If you look at achievement stats it's usually about 10% of players. Finally figured out how to get past mission impossible - use a cheat code! Persevered and really tried hard to finish the game but…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Summary: It has its flaws, but it also has an incredible atmosphere. I enjoyed it. Disclaimer: I backed this game on Kickstarter (twice). Good: - Atmosphere, lore background. - Audiovisual design. It is dieselpunk/art deco at its best. - The combat and exploration were fun. - Story (the parts I understood, see below). It combines social and political threads (a divided society on the isolated station, rivalry between parts of its government) and some more metaphysical themes (Somnia). Bad: -…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A long time ago I wrote a massive review for the game but something happened with Steam and it refreshed or something and deleted it and i totally forgot to write another one. To people who like real time combat RPGs with a good story, I really couldn't give a stronger recommendation. Cons: Idk if it's still in the game, but there are a couple game breaking bugs i encountered like a necessary quest breaking and a few other things like sometimes you'll get stuck with a companion for a while…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Insomnia Cookies has the best snickerdoodle in the game. I love a medium rare cookie with crunchy edges!
neutral · AI labelView post →A real shame that this game is abandoned with incomplete translations and game-play features . wonderfully immersive world and built up environments with fairly unique game-play to match
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For your knowledge I have 30 hrs and I'm currently level 13. I love the game so far as it's very unique and captivating. It will remind you of fallout when you play it with how many dozens of quest there are and will surprise you with how open it feels despite the little amount of locations. Since its release it has been getting patches every few months that have been fixing bugs, adding new content, and adding more bugs. With this latest patch 1.7 Morty and Lashta who are two of the three…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great story but still unplayable and broken mess
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Insomnia is winning. Nearly 4AM is an excellent time to play the Paris Combo game of spot the allusions. “Morphée,” gives an insouciant nod to Verlaine, Baudelaire and Greek mythology (twice!). ✨ There’s a lot of literary mischief tucked into one breezy chanson. 🤷🏻♀️ youtu.be/4-xLP2wFgTM?... #chanson
neutral · AI labelView post →I want to like this game so much. The art and atmosphere is great and the story is very interesting. However, it is hands down one of the worst made games I have ever played. I don't understand how after all this time, this game still has so many serious issues. And not, funny small bugs, I'm talking about serious bugs that make you lose hours of progress. In addition to this even when the game is running "well" it still has so many issues. I have tried to make it through this game twice and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →nice game have bugs, not optimized abandoned
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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