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Squirrel's Pick Squirrel's PickThe best game on this page. If you only try one, try this. Closest Match Closest MatchThe most similar game to the anchor, by what players say.
City BuilderColony SimAgriculture
$19.99 ~19.3 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 79.4% of 2k
The Squirrel's verdictHavendock trades the open sea for a fixed colony to build and expand, keeping the same crafting-heavy loop and hands-off progression rhythm. At $19.99 with a 19.3-hour median playtime, it's a shorter, land-locked commitment. Co-op was cut entirely, so anyone chasing Caretaker's sense of solo command over open water will find similar craft-and-build stakes without the ship or the sailing.
Not for you if you want the ship-sailing, open-water exploration or the multiplayer co-op that Havendock dropped before 1.0
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Sci-fiSurvivalColony Sim
$9.99 ~37.2 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 78.5% of 316
The Squirrel's verdictMercury Fallen centers on digging out and expanding an underground colony on an alien planet, with research progression and Rimworld-style base logistics replacing hunger-clock pressure. Multiple survivors and robots assist, but you're rooted to one site — there's no travel or open-world movement. At $9.99 with a 78.5% Steam rating and 37.2-hour median playtime, it rewards players who want a deep base-building puzzle over exploration.
Not for you if you want to move freely through an open world rather than expand outward from a single fixed underground site.
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Open World Survival CraftCraftingSpace
$7.99 ~7.6 hr median no co-op 75.2% of 319
The Squirrel's verdictRemains shares the survival-crafting spine: salvage a debris field, build a base, manage resources solo. Unlike Last Caretaker's power-only robot, you're human here, tracking both food and oxygen through confusing 3D zero-g movement. At $7.99 with a 7.6-hour median playtime, it's a shorter, harder-edged take on the same premise.
Not for you if you liked skipping food and water management as a robot — Remains makes you juggle food and oxygen, with confusing 3D movement and no key rebinding.
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SurvivalOpen World Survival CraftCrafting
$14.99 ~18.9 hr median co-op 71.6% of 894
The Squirrel's verdictSolace Crafting's defining appeal is an infinite procedural world with no forced end point, where a single crafting-tier decision — how much to build before advancing — drives the core loop. Co-op is supported, controls are rough, and animation sync is unreliable, but no reviewers report the kind of performance collapse that hit The Last Caretaker. At $14.99 with a 71.6% Steam rating and 18.9-hour median playtime, it suits players who want endless crafting progression over a shaped narrative arc.
Not for you if you need polished animations, tight multiplayer sync, or a world with defined edges and story structure.
How the Squirrel matches games
Not tag overlap. We compare what players actually say across hundreds of
thousands of reviews about how each game feels to play, then break
the comparison into the mechanics you can see in each card. The mark on
every bar is The Last Caretaker's own score, so you can read where a match runs
hotter or cooler than the anchor.
Verdicts are written against a fixed editorial standard, machine-audited,
and human spot-checked. Which games make the cut is a human call. Prices
and review data refresh automatically. Full method & AI disclosure →