Spies & Soldiers
Spies & Soldiers is a low fantasy strategy game with procedural content and simple mechanics, providing a hit of pure strategy gameplay without the overwhelming complexity often associated with the genre.
The game is a two-player, turn-based digital board game, based on simple mechanics from which complex strategies arise. Each match plays out across a uniquely generated world map, so every game is different.
Key features include:
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Online head-to-head multiplayer.
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Simple mechanics and complex strategies.
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Fast-paced gameplay.
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Simultaneous turns.
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Procedural maps.
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Single player skirmish mode.
Game Mechanics and Strategy
There are two primary systems: military strength and subterfuge. To grow an empire and win, players must carefully balance both elements. Because a fresh map is created for each game, players also need to adapt their strategies to each new world.
Military strength is represented by Soldiers. They are straightforward and effective, relying on strength of numbers, and are used to take control of the castles that are needed to win. Soldiers combine to form armies, and battles are won by the largest army in a region.
Subterfuge is the domain of Spies. They are more complex than Soldiers, dealing with hidden information, surprise and paranoia. Spies are used to take control of cities, which provide the action points needed to power all activities. They can also turn the tide of battle, assassinate other spies, sabotage castle defenses and more. A spy’s effectiveness is determined by its rank, with the most highly ranked spy in a region having the upper hand. Working from the shadows, spies are hidden and can only be seen by an enemy spy of superior rank.
Read More: Best Asynchronous Multiplayer Turn-Based Strategy Games.
GLADIABOTS - AI Combat Arena
This is a superb, unique game that deserves to be even more popular than it already is.
The concept of the game is that the player designs their own AI via customizable ‘nodes’ (colour-coded tiles that the player can arrange into a logic tree to determine their robots' behaviour) which then dictate how their team of 4-8 robots (from four different classes) perform in battle against ‘enemy’ AIs.
The logical array which the player creates (featured in several of the screenshots in the store page) can be anywhere from just a handful of tiles at first, to literally hundreds (arranged into named sub-AIs if the player wants) that function like a sort of flow diagram for each robot, governing their priorities and thus responses based on a seemingly endless combination of determining factors e.g. what friendly or enemy bots are doing at that particular moment, how far away they are, or hundreds of other parameters native to the ‘check-box’ like options that allow the player to refine what each tile actually ‘says’.
– Real player with 478.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Asynchronous Multiplayer Logic Games.
In Gladiabots you programm a platoon of robots that will then compete autonomously in a game arena against other platoons. You have to plan and consider carefully when creating your robots' AIs before actually hitting the arena as you can no longer interfere once the match has started: The robots are then on their own, equipped with nothing but your programmed instructions.
There are four different bot classes resembling a rock scissors paper scheme with an added tank and several different game modes (three for online ranked matches vs humans).
– Real player with 364.7 hrs in game
Musclecar Online
This game takes me back to Indy 500 for the Atari 2600. It was so simple, yet whenever there’s competition, there’s interest. The trick is to run the race as efficiently as you can. It requires some experience, some experimentation, and some mental toughness to do it well.
I haven’t played this long, but I love that I can spend 10-15 minutes on this when I’m bored. Depending on how tough the competition is, I might spend more, or less. It’s perfect for people who don’t have a lot of time throughout the day to play a game.
– Real player with 53.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Asynchronous Multiplayer Racing Games.
Fun keyboard racer
Lots of car variations and unlimited player made tracks.
You start out with a bit of coin and two cars. You can use your coins to purchase other cars and/or variations of each one. There are also several tire choices for the variable track conditions to spend your coin on.
You earn more coins buy simpy turning laps, but you earn more when setting fast laps. So if you are within a certain percentage of the top time for the day, you are rewarded with coin. This is all sorted and tracked via the easy to use, in-game leader board. That said, earning coin is a bit of a grind at the beginning…not overbearing, but it pays to make smart purchases…you don’t want to be short on cash when in need of some rain tires. :)
– Real player with 45.0 hrs in game
Torque Drift
I’ve played this game since the release on mobile, and have put 70 hours into the PC version so far and I love it.
Sure it has it’s bugs, but remember it’s still being ported over from mobile and is still in early access. In my opinion, its one of the best/intricate drifting games on the market! Updates and patches are fairly often, and the dev team seem super responsive to problems and ideas that players have about the game.
The crates are a feature where in alot of games are a pay to win can still make you feel like youre getting robbed due to rarely getting anything good.
– Real player with 130.3 hrs in game
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Reviewing this game is kinda hard and reading the reviews most players have submitted is a little bit painful.
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- What is my take on this game?
Most users have rated it P2W /Pay to win/ and I can’t qualify it as such a game. If you build a car from stock you will get a better car that money can buy pretty fast and by fast I mean you get cash and billions /the paid currency/ very easily. They are several levels of parts that when averaged also set the level of your car / I call them common, rare, epic, legendary and custom/. “Pay to win” cars are always “Epic” with the exception of 2 cars. You can already see why the game in my eyes at least is not “P2W”. Those paid for with real money cars can also not be setup to you preference as it goes to height, camber, caster and so on. What you paid for that’s all you get.
– Real player with 127.5 hrs in game
Frozen Synapse
I’ve bought this game three times now and I’d buy it again if I had more free time. I bought it first as a standalone Linux game. Later I picked up another copy in a bundle that gave me a Steam key for it (it was part of a bundle and there were other games in that bundle I liked, but having a copy of Frozen Synapse on Steam was the sweetener that sealed the deal for me) and I subsequently bought it for Android because I couldn’t get enough of it.
My biggest problem with this game is it plays to my own desire to optimize and speculate on what my opponent is going to do in a turn-based strategy game. The core mechanic tends to lead me to a decision-paralysis. And I love the game intensely for it.
– Real player with 601.6 hrs in game
I love it when a plan comes together, and Frozen Synapse is my favourite turn-based game.
It’s similar to ground operations of X-COM, for example, but in a purer, simpler form. There’s no base management, inventory, RPG elements. All units of the same type have identical stats. And, unlike X-COM, RNG does not make much of an impact on outcomes of firefights, if any. The typical ‘chance to hit’ mechanic is replaced with ‘time to hit’. If enemy unit is in cover, your unit will need more time to hit him; if enemy units runs into your stationary unit, your unit will shoot first because he had a bonus to this timer, and the enemy had a penalty for running. Thus, if you can predict what your opponent is about to do, you can be 100% sure what will happen when they encounter one of your units. If.
– Real player with 93.5 hrs in game
Warhammer 40,000: Regicide
‘The King is Dead. Long Live the King’
‘Warhammer: Regicide’ is a gloriously bloody reimagining of one of the world’s oldest turn-based strategy games - Chess - set against the violent backdrop of the Warhammer:40K universe. Gorgeous visuals, tactically diverse gameplay and unapologetic violence elevate a classic board game to quite something else entirely.
Campaign: Act 1 - consisting of 10 playable missions - is currently active in Early Access. Act’s 2 and 3 are to follow shortly. (This section will continue to be updated)
– Real player with 162.9 hrs in game
I bought Warhammer 40,000: Regicide last Summer when I was on a Games Workshop kick. It was my intention to go for a complete collection of all the Games Workshop licensed games, and Regicide had the added benefit of me having seen some coverage on it from TotalBiscuit. It looked more of an oddity than anything else, but I managed to see it through to the end.
The game is essentially Chess set in the 40K universe, using the Space Marines and Orks as chess pieces to simulate the battles. How Regicide differs from Chess is that once you have moved, you can use abilities of your pieces on an Initiative Points system to attack your opponent. This works on a percentile mechanic, and usually amounts to shooting them, or attacking them in close combat if you’re in an adjacent square. It takes longer to eliminate a piece using this method, but if you focus enough attacks in one place, you can take out entire armies without having to capture anything; the usual method for Chess. This is augmented by additional abilities from the various pieces: Devastators (Bishops) have the ability to focus their attacks to do more damage at the expense of being able to move, Assault Marines (Knights) have increased attack power after they move and can also throw Krak (anti-armour) grenades, and so on. This creates an additional strategic layer to the game and sets it apart from either Chess or 40K in a way that, for the most part, works reasonably well.
– Real player with 68.0 hrs in game
Button Soccer League
Use your skills and strategies to challenge your friends in local matches or online (via Steam Play Together), in this nostalgic game that brings the whole experience of button soccer to your PC.
8 Teams Available
There are eight teams for you and your opponent to choose, and each team has its own characteristics, such as speed, weight and rubber, making each team unique and suitable for certain strategies.
Strategy
Choose the appropriate formation for your game strategy.
Training
You will have to train hard to become a champion, and for that, you will have 8 training scenarios available.
Collectable Stickers
For every five rounds completed, you will get a new sticker for your album, and only persistents can have a complete album.
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2 Players local or online.
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8 Different teams.
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5 Types of training.
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Departures of 5 min, 10 min and 15 min.
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8 Training scenarios.
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8 Collectible stickers.
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Play from the keyboard or gamepad.
Clash of Chefs VR
12/22/18 EDIT: Live matchups were just released to the main build. Development is still going on and the Devs are very responsive on Discord. It’s early access and bugs are being worked out as the game develops. I now recommend to anyone who wants to support the games development. As of recent the average number of players on is 4-7 per day. I’m sure these numbers will grow with time.
12/16/18 EDIT: At this point I do not recomend buying this game for casual players. It is in early access for a reason. If you want to support the work sure, go ahead and buy it. The 20 single player missions might last you a few hours. The “multiplayer” against recordings of other players has rediculous load times right now. They just released a beta version with live multiplayer and some critical features of the game dont work in the current version. Will make sure to update my review as things change…
– Real player with 40.5 hrs in game
So to start off with, I understand that this game won’t appeal to everyone, but I figure if your someone who isn’t into this kind of thing you probably won’t be reading this. Probably.
Anyway, when I first got my Quest I picked up Job Simulator, largely because of how universally loved it seemed to be, but after about 45 minutes I submitted my first ever refund request. The only part I enjoyed was the kitchen, but I just found it clunky and lacking but it really made me want a good cooking game.
– Real player with 3.7 hrs in game
Through the Ages
Through the Ages : 2nd edition is a fantastic port of a physical board game to the digital space. A hit board game created by Vladimír Chvátil (Vlaada Chvátil) in 2006. The rules have changed slightly from the original version mainly with tactics cards being shared.
Gamelay-wise, a turn-based action point game. Each turn, you start with a political phase where you play an aggression card, event card or war card. Then, you have your action phase, where you get to use your civil actions (white) to build civil units, draw cards and place leaders. With military actions (red), you get to build military units and play tactic cards.
– Real player with 710.8 hrs in game
I’ve been holding off making a review for this game. Reason being, the developers had some server issues until recently. Something to do with the providers of the multiplatform system they used pulling out from supporting it. This happened at the same time they were upgrading compatibility from IPv5 from IPv6. With them being a small development team, this pulled all their resources to get stability back. For some months there was some frustrating server moments.
Now I won’t profess to understand exactly what was going on behind the scenes, BUT… they fixed it!! Through the Ages is now fully stable!!
– Real player with 489.1 hrs in game
Ticket to Ride
Ticket To Ride has been my favourite board game for about ten years now, and this addaptation is totally worth getting!
For those unfamiliar with the board game; the game has a perfect mix of luck and strategy, making each game challenging yet fun. Your goal is to finish destination tickets (e.g. New York to Los Angeles) by claiming routes on the board that eventually let you have a path going from one city to the other city on your ticket. To claim routes you need to collect train cards in the colours needed, picking your choice from the face up cards or the face down deck if no colours are available you could use. It’s pretty straight forward and you get the hang of it very fast.
– Real player with 386.8 hrs in game
The PC adaption (and iPad/iPhone versions too, for that matter) of Ticket to Ride is a very faithful recreation of the classic board game, where the only gameplay differences between it and the physical version are fast and accurate scoring and the fact that enraged board-flipping is no longer a possibility. (Not to mention the bonus of the game + DLC being cheaper than their physical counterparts, and is significantly easier to play with people on the other side of the world!) So, for people who have played the board game before, I think this should be a no-brainer.
– Real player with 142.6 hrs in game