No, I cannot recommend this game.

The learning curve is the steepest I have ever seen in any game - The tutorial barely teaches you how to sell stuff, and then you are left with figuring the rest out for yourself.

Getting started is extremely difficult - you never make enough scrap to do anything, and the game is quite literally rigged to be as difficult as possible unless you have a god of a character. You are barely scraping by, and any minor inconvenience is a near death sentence.

I have had to start over 4 times in the span of 1 hour because of irreversible mistakes I permanently made to my playthroughs, without being warned by the game (adding bad perks springs to mind. Who ever thought of that system, should not be in charge of game design decisions.)

Nothing is explained - I still don't know how the following works:

1. guns. Where to get them, craft them, research them?
2. scrap. How do I earn it consistently so I can keep 1 (one) character alive long enough to eat the next day?
3. random events - apparently there are no way to avoid them and you just have to get used to being raided by enemies at least 100 times my attack level?

And these are just from the top of my head. The game is just not good enough, however there is potential. It just seems that the developer has focused on making the game tedious to play, instead of actually, you know, fun? The reason most of us play games?

I almost did not start playing this gem of a game, because I saw negative reviews stating this game was "woke" and focused on SJW BS.

These statements are 100% NOT TRUE and are being made by players who have been primed to be triggered. This game is in no way is a "Sweet Baby Detected" situation. I fully support keeping overbearing woke-ness out of games, but this is a completely different situation:

This game does indeed allow you to pick gender and orientation, but it actually serves a point and is implemented in a way that actually serves the characters and relationship rolls. I'd like to point out that you can actually have character traits that penalize/reward you if you have crew-members of the same sex. You can literally choose a trait that makes you "homophobic" and gives you positive points for choosing so. Even by saying that, it opens the door to the SJW's to come in and bomb this game -- but that's exactly it kids ... you're all equally worthless in the apocalypse.

This game allows you to choose to be a woke SJW in the apocalypse, or a Male Mercenary Dictator, driving his war rig across the landscape with his harem of Femme Fatales (literally character choices in the game). I personally choose the Male Mercenary Dictator route, but that's because my art imitates life. I happen to be a sexual tyrannosaurus who wants to kill zombies and trade salted pork with some style. That's my truth and I'm brave for sharing that.

Overall, that game is awesome. Oregon Trail meets FTL with base building and side-missions. Yeah ... it needs some polish and it's in Early Access ... but it's $7.00. Absolutely worth the money in current state and it's getting an update in a week. One of the best games I've played in a few years and a great chill time-waster.

TLDR: My over-bearing masculinity commands you to play this amazing game for $7.00 ... no it's not woke and yes it is awesome.

The game is fun, interesting and engaging.

Can take sharp sudden turns. Some world building and still being developed.