Assembly Planter
After 25 hours here are my thoughts.
This is my first assembly automation style game I’ve played that I can remember. Initially I was drawn to the fact it had a loose similarity to farming style games (ie: Stardew Valley). I wasn’t sure I was going to like it, but ended up kinda of digging the experience. I’ve watched people play Factorio, Satisfacory and Astroneer and this reminded me of those games in many aspects as far as the automation went.
The interface is a bit awkward in the game was the first thing that struck me as far as mechanics go. Your hotbar is a bit of a mess sometimes because you can’t lock items in place that you commonly use. It was a bit of a frustration to me, but one I got used to after about 30 minutes of playing it. The mechanics are straight-forward; pick something, pick a spot, execute the action.
– Real player with 33.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Agriculture Strategy Games.
TL;DR: Simple enough, but ends up being a numbers game where you’re constantly just reorganizing farms you’ve already set up slowing your progress.
The only bug I’ve noticed is that Packed Sand is not included in the filter splitter options. Devs, please fix.
So basically, you start out “farming” on your own. Then you unlock machines that plant and harvest for you as well as collect all the drops. Then you get an area to design a new machine where you can put the planters and harvesters so the new machine automatically produces items for you. Then, you can expand that area to allow you to produce even more items! (the reorganizing farms idea from above) The machines and setting them up are not that complicated either. There’s really no “fancy” setups. It’s really simple, but it then turns into a numbers game of “this machine produces 5/s, but this machine needs 6/s so I can waste 1/s or build 3 of this one and 4 of this one and split this output into 3 and then 2 and then divert these over to this machine….” and it’s just unfun at that point. You pretty much progress towards a “re inserter collector” and then you redo your machines. Then, you get a transmutation table that turns dirt into wood or wood into copper or copper into iron, etc and you have to redo your machines again. In my honest opinion, they need to get rid of the transmutation table. I think if you are to play this game, do not use the transmutation table and you will have more fun. I’m just going to do that on my next run.
– Real player with 28.9 hrs in game
Staxel
I really want to like Staxel. I know I could love it. But, it’s an agonisingly frustrating experience to play. I don’t feel I’m exaggerating when I say most, if not all, of the game’s content is a good idea implemented in the worst possible way.
Every time I want to do something, I run into a frustration that doesn’t need to be there. There isn’t one major issue. Everything is wrapped up in so many minor issues it’s almost worse. I could deal with some singular huge flaw. But that’s not it. It’s just so universally flawed all over.
– Real player with 346.4 hrs in game
Let me start off by saying that Steam really needs to consider a 3rd option when recommending games to people. This game is fun, and I kind of enjoy playing it, but there are some major things (imo) that warrant a “do not recommend” review, or rather a “recommend this game unless…”
Pros:
Graphics: 9/10
The graphics are cute and colorful and the 3D pixel character designs are fun. Some blocks' graphics glitch through other blocks which can sometimes ruin a certain look the player is trying to achieve with his/her build. There’s quite a large selection of blocks to use in your builds, and I’m sure through modding there are vastly more blocks to pick from. You can also rotate some blocks.
– Real player with 160.3 hrs in game
Mendel’s Garden
I love this game. It’s cute, it’s funny, it’s relaxing, it’s a great idea. I want more games like this.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Agriculture Crafting Games.
It is a very fun game, I recommend it if you like Mendel and his study of pea’s…just without peas.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
North Modding Company: Bergsbruk
Yes, I know the game has some bugs that need to be fixed. But for the most part, it’s a really nice game. You can do whatever you want: Dig in the ground, build a giant house, mine ore, crush rocks, and whatever else you can think of. There’s a couple of bugs that need to be fixed, like how the vehicles tip over on a hill easily or the random lag you get sometimes. There could also be some more machines, but I’m sure that’s planned for the future. It’s a really good game, I recommend it.
– Real player with 15.0 hrs in game
I gave it another go when it was on sale and now I am really impressed. Definetly a lot of positive thing have happened and the game is really enjoyable now. If you’re a sucker for heavy eqiupment like me, I think you’ll like it
~~At 30€ I expected more. It is waay to overpriced compared to what you get. I want to support the developers but I wont let them steal my money which I felt they did.
I will probably come back in a few months and see what have been updated and give it another chance. But for now, dont waste your money on it~~
– Real player with 13.2 hrs in game
Desktop Farm
this game is great to just have running and check back in on from time to time. the plants are adorable, the animals are adorable, and you can do some pretty entertaining things here.
personally, i made a maze for a bunch of cows to meander around and get lost in. those that got out of the maze got the sweet reward of getting satiated. those that did not are now stuck in the fences, and it is a deserved fate for not escaping before they got fully grown.
however, that isn’t to say that the animal ai is particularly bad, but they get stuck on fences a lot. as in, they’ll be trapped and infinitely walking forward forever into a fence and their satiation will plummet.
– Real player with 236.2 hrs in game
Desktop Farm is fun and it works like a basic farming simulator should. It did get a little laggy near end game but I must have had 2k animals by then. I did not feel it was heavy on the PC but i felt like the game limited its self from using too much RAM and CPU. The game did crash once or twice but it was far from crashing the PC. Moving around the map was kind of annoying because the blue highlight square would show up when right clicking and dragging. Despite that it was still very playable and enjoyable for a few days. It gave me the urge to play more in depth and expensive farming games while satisfying my idle itch. Get it if you are in the mood for casual farming/idle play, a few achievements or you need something to do while waiting for loading screens or smelting metal frags.
– Real player with 146.4 hrs in game
Sigma World Online
Sigma World Online - is an online sandbox with a huge world from many star systems. Choose who to be: space explorer, miner, merchant, farmer, culinary specialist, scientist, builder or hunter, or build your empire.
Features of the project:
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Full interaction of players in the same game universe
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Generated star system: planets, satellites and asteroids
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Automatic creation of a starter star system for beginners every 3 in-game years (36 real days)
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Ecology of planets and satellites, pollution and contamination of planets
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Large tech tree and drawing table to speed up research
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Space flights, moving between different worlds
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Meteorites and gathering resources in space
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The construction of space stations with warp engine
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Primitive, solid propellant, ion and nuclear rocket engines
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Generation of properties of races of animals, development and life of animals in the environment, silicon life
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Character skills, genetics and abilities
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Combined cooking, product compatibility studies when creating dishes
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Crafting and various resources
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Various equipment: furnaces, crushers, refrigerators, etc.
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Research potions on the laboratory table. Buffs and debuffs
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Building
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Terraforming the map
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Farming and hydroponics
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Private territories
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Fully destructible environment
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Transport: cars, boats, amphibians and tanks
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Trading stations for offline trading between players
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Ratings
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Clans and friends
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Robotics
In the plans:
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New types of planets and space bodies
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New star clusters
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Construction of a collider to obtain antimatter
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Antimatter Quantum Engines
Woodfel
Woodfel is a very small game that shows some promise.
This game is very basic at its core. Combat is not overly complex, farming resources is very straight forward, and crafting is fun.
Combat
You have Devils and Elfs to pick from but you have to decide which one to attack. Attacking the devils will increase your woodelf rating but decreasing your devil rating and vice versa. Each mob has its own loot table so farming them is essential for items, recipes, gear, spells, and abilities.
Crafting
– Real player with 59.1 hrs in game
This game was awesome. My family and I thoroughly enjoyed the shanagens we got ourselves into. From killing goblins my dad calls “shreks” to fighting the big red demon boss. I also loved the crafting system where you need to find recipes that would then add those item to your crafting capabilities. Defiantly recommend this game to anyone who wants some good casual fun.
– Real player with 46.0 hrs in game
Timberborn
A really great game! I mainly play colony builders and this one hooked me immediately. You are essentially building a city of beavers with the goal of conquering the ebb/flow of wet seasons and drought. The water mechanics are really unique and there’s something tremendously satisfying about planning and building your dams and then seeing the consequences (crops live through the dry season! Oh shit I flooded everything!).
The current early access is extremely polished; I have played 70 hours and it hasn’t crashed a single time and I haven’t run into any frustrating bugs. It runs extremely well even when you push the engine. Because it’s early access the content still feels a little limited; you can reach a point where you can let the game run in the background for hours and know everything will be fine because you’ve solved the current ‘water + food for Population X to survive X days of drought’ problem. It would benefit from a broader tech tree and more map events (forest fire, disease, etc). The actual wet/dry seasons are far too predictable right now and it seems like the Early Access has everything in place to have actual weather and its consequences (ie. flooding that is due to weather and not my own terrible dam designs).
– Real player with 87.6 hrs in game
This is a really fun game. It does not yet have great depth (unlike the water reservoirs which you will greatly enjoy shaping), but I would say it’s worth every penny (bought it for some 25 Euros).
Playing with the water dynamics and building vertically is really neat. Yet - as in life, unfortunately - I feel I lack a bit of purpose. Hopefully this will be amended in future versions.
Improvement proposals:
- Please fix the leeve system. I don’t see the point of adding semi-realistic water dynamics if a 1m3 wood cubicle can withstand a 10m water column.
– Real player with 57.6 hrs in game