DR4X
The Game
DR4X is a fast paced dark fantasy turn based strategy game with horror elements In a world with many…dimensions to uncover!
The game has simple, fun, fast paced, dynamic gameplay where each type of faction uses different resources and completely unique playstyles.
Play in an evolving world, filling up with horrors and monsters if you don’t try to stop their spread, unique events and so on.
It also has a very reactive world map and an in depth skirmish creator. With multiple possible win conditions to choose from based on your skirmish choices.
Research powerful stacking technologies to dominate your enemies, or let the other factions and even the nearby gremlin horde learn how to cause more trouble for you with their own technologies.
Do you want to fight other empires? Or perhaps just defeat the monsters infesting the realm. Or maybe even be the monsters infesting the realm! It is your choice!
Read More: Best 4X Strategy Games.
Burned Land
Burned Land is a niche game, and a little gem to me.
At first sight it might seem a little bit empty and obscure. Then it will seem very hard, even unfair. But if you push forward, you will discover a game with a very original approach, very rich and permissive in the ways you want to shape your kingdom and face the gods.
In this game, you not only build units and facilities, you will also “monitor” your population (literacy, devotion, nobility, sedentary, etc.), so they will provide you what you need and when you need it.
– Real player with 31.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Indie Games.
It is a pretty rough game, both in terms of UI and difficulty. The UI will hopefully get some polish from this one-man dev team, and perhaps the difficulty as well, but the difficulty certainly needs the polish a lot less. The dev is still pushing out regular updates, thus my recommendation for this Early Access game.
I made it to Turn 194, after narrowly dodging a very early game defeat. The early game near-defeat came about as my village almost starved due to a famine brought on by the gods. The entire point of this game is that the larger you grow, the more interest the gods have in stopping you from growing.
– Real player with 24.6 hrs in game
Thea 2: The Shattering
I played the first Thea and loved it so of course I had to grab this Thea. I also am loving it but being that it is in Early Access still it is not without its flaws and bugs and crashes. I will mostly talk about the issues I see currently because I think that is what people really want to see when they read a review BUT please understand there is a lot to also love about Thea 2 and it has a lot of heart. So while I talk about some of my issues, understand overall I love this game and how it is progressing.
– Real player with 478.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Strategy Games.
Thea 2 is mixture of 4X, RPG, card game and rogue-like - it’s one of its kind no game is quite like it. If you like some or even all of those you should definitely check it out.
Thea 2 has amazing replayability - if I could only play one game for the rest of my life this would be it. It greatly improves and expands on the concepts of Thea 1.
For me it’s one of the best games I ever played - hence a happy 9/10
Quick gameplay summary
In Thea you start us with a small group of characters (determined by your choice of gods and which traits you choose) - you need to survive, battle monsters, face random events, gather resources to craft new things, research new materials and recipes or just not starve. You want to find out why the world has been shattered and restore the power of your god. To do this you roam the lands, eventually found a village and recruit more characters/make babies.
– Real player with 180.8 hrs in game
Paths & Danger
FIRST comment I will last for eternity!
Well thoughtful game.
There’s plenty of potential to this, I really hoped some features were unlocked, but I guess they are still under development.
I loved the combos we can do with different characters, my fav so far to use are the Half -Vampire and the Paladin.
The game’s becomes intense when your chars start to have low health and stamina, and the atmosphere the game really nails it.
Loved the art in the game, kinda a mixture of battle brothers and darkest dungeon, but original enough to be distinct.
– Real player with 12.5 hrs in game
With around an hour play, i would like to give constructive criticism for the devs.
The genre is popular, im sure there are a lot of people including me who are willing to play Darkest Dungeon type of games out there. But there are a few things that need to be addressed i believe.
I started the game with Ice Mage, so no tutorial. I dont see the reason, why there is tutorial with Warrior and not with another hero? Doesnt make sense.
Thats why at times i felt i had lack of info of what to do. I had to stop my run with Ice mage because my Vampire buddy had died, i spent most of my gold on health potiıns, but stamina potions seem much more important. Because your stamina doesnt regen. This again is a flaw in game design i believe. There should be another way to regen your stamina besides spending money for it. (Maybe there is but i just got stuck and couldnt play further due to this. And it was the easy mode.)
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Thea: The Awakening
About time I wrote a review for Thea. I have played the game for 900 hours now and I still don’t see myself getting bored with it anytime soon. More on the replayability later but first a quick overview.
Thea: The Awakening is a turn-based survival strategy game on a procedurally generated hexagonal world. It plays a lot like the early exploration phase in Civilization. The main difference is that the game is about survival instead of expansion. You won’t build an empire with a large army, instead you have to defend your only village from evergrowing threats while also finding the time to go out and gather materials and do quests so you can become stronger. If you don’t keep up with the enemies in terms of power they will overwhelm you but don’t worry, there are many difficulty modifications. You can play on 50% (very easy), 350% (very hard), and anything in between. The game has a lot of RPG elements, an excellent crafting system, and a card game to resolve various types of conflicts. The game combines regular fantasy creatures such as orcs and elves with slavic mythology. If you don’t know anything about that you’ll meet a lot of new creatures here such as Stryga’s and Baba Yaga’s.
– Real player with 1201.0 hrs in game
A Review of: “THEA: The Awakening”
A Single-player, 4X Dark Fantasy, Hex-Grid, Turn-Based Strategy-RPG, Card Battler, Resource Management Survival Game where Choices Matter with Crafting and Replay Value.
I’m usually either a fan of Grand Strategy games or RPGs, turn-based War-games and War-sims. I had this game in my library a couple years before getting around to trying it out. Now that I’m playing it; it’s great or certainly could have been with a few GUI and QOL improvements.
It’s very RPG-like, with lore and Slavic-based mythos. I love deep lore games that tell a storey (BG / Planescape). I also like games that base their lore on “real world” mythos (Inquisitor) and this game makes tons of references to eastern European folklore.
– Real player with 177.2 hrs in game
Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars
If I were to describe this game in one sentence it would be as follows: A game with strong foundation, but a lot of underutilized or wasted potential. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and look at its strengths and weaknesses.
STRENGHTS:
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ART. Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars features very high quality art that is best represented on Cards. I can’t praise art of this game enough. Everything is very detailed, atmospheric, diverse and just a pleasure to look at.
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ATMOSPHERE. This one is a bit subtle but at its core this game makes you feel like a vampire ruler who is playing a deadly game of influence and warfare. The fact that game represents quite a few things with cards certainly adds to this feeling.
– Real player with 149.0 hrs in game
After playing for 100 hours, completing the campaign, and finishing +16 sandbox with all factions, i can say that this game is, for the better parts :
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Stable/Playable (I encountered no game crash, nor errors, with the “worst” bug being solved by simply surrendering the fighting in which i was stuck.) (Played on an Acer Nitro N50-600, I5-8400 CPU 2.8GHz, NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB, 8G RAM)
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Enjoyable (Some part of the campaign may be more difficult than others but taken on the right angle, they become easier.)
– Real player with 137.6 hrs in game
Fantasy General II
The game is very challenging with each scenario akin to solving a puzzle as the best way to take down enemy forces. There is a rock, paper, scissors feel to the game where each unit is equipped to counter at least one other unit type.
Hero ‘skill’ trees are interesting and offer a variety of ways to develop various heroes that have an impact on game play.
There is an overall story that connects a series of individual scenario missions. Each dialog choice can have a significant impact on how further scenarios play out. However, in general, the consequences are inconsistent in results and severity. It is counter-intuitive and requires you to save, load, reload… try again… etc.
– Real player with 1633.7 hrs in game
Made by fans of the original, this sequel builds upon the core of the 1996 Fantasy General game while expanding and improving it in many ways. Among the improvements are useful tooltips and the fact your units no longer get pushed around (which used to be able to force a surrender on them), or a system that rewards you with gold if you can get through the mission quickly, instead of punishing you with a loss if you don’t beat it within a certain number of turns (as in the original).
The different units available to you each have different roles and due to interesting traits can be used to solve problems in a variety of ways while needing support from other units in other situations - after a couple of maps you will most likely already find yourself with a nice mix of them, as there is no simple ‘two unit winning combo’.
– Real player with 477.4 hrs in game
Dead of Winter
Lead your villagers in a battle for survival against relentless hordes of undead as you gather, build and explore in a post-apocalyptic medieval fantasy world plunged into a seemingly endless winter
Gather what resources you can find before your supplies dwindle and your people starve
Build shelter against the elements and worker buildings to assign tasks to your villagers
Explore your surroundings to find the most defensible locations to build and gather resources in safety
Survive a lack of resources, the unending winter and the relentless hordes of undead
We Are The Caretakers
This game is a great concept, and the Afro-futurist aesthetic adds a layer of depth I did not expect. Yes, it is early access/beta, so there’s bugs, but the dev team is available nearly 24/7 to discuss problems and hear feedback. This is indie game development done right, and what is already a good game will be an outstanding final product as a result. Think of the early access purchase as a long term investment that is going to pay off soon!
tldr: buy this. support indie games, and immerse yourself in Afro-futurist sci-fi!
– Real player with 30.1 hrs in game
One of my friends said this game is sci-fi super soldier park rangers and that is spot-on.
The combat is a blast. The game is still buggy in early access but that doesn’t block it from being a beautiful and fun experience. Also - that music, man. So. Good.
Check it out if you like: Final Fantasy-esque combat and graphics and music, Divinity Original Sim’s combat, rhinos, park rangers
Main word that comes to mind when I play this game: protector
– Real player with 5.6 hrs in game