Nocked! True Tales of Robin Hood
The game Nocked! has you taking on the role of Robin Hood set in a world where myth and magic still has a foothold. You start out as a runaway who takes to Sherwood forest to claim their future.
The game itself contains elements of interactive fiction (think choose your own adventure) as well as resource management. In fact, this was the stand out portion for me.
The first thing you will notice is that you can choose the gender of your Robin, and even some limited background choices which will have some game affects. Additionally, the character of Maid Marian even has some variation which can affect play.
– Real player with 324.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Base Building Multiple Endings Games.
A really nice CYOA game. It actually reminded me of Mass Effect 2, in that you have a base and companions, and your choices have long-term impact (otherwise it’s entirely dissimilar to ME2; see any screenshot).
There are healthy doses of whimsy in the setting and humour in the writing, and it mixes classic Robin Hood story beats in with more fantastical stuff. It’s comfy and tense, and perfectly paced. The music is also wonderful.
My only gripes are minor (despite this being the biggest paragraph): some of the art is quite bad (the character silhouettes work well, but some of the other stuff looks like programmer art) and the overall graphic design could use work. This is all just window dressing though and doesn’t really matter*. A bigger annoyance is that the checkpoints are a bit far apart for more my liking–I appreciate it discouraging save scumming, but there were a couple of times when I misunderstood an option so badly that I felt unfairly shafted by choosing it, in which case I rolled back and lost lots of progress. The last thing that left a bad taste was the ending: it felt like I had no way of knowing the implications of some of the choices.
– Real player with 32.6 hrs in game
Astrobase Command
Salvage the remnants of your civilization by starting anew in uncharted space, with a small crew and the beginnings of an Astrobase. Grow your base by constructing modules on all three axes, put out fires both literal and metaphorical, and send characters with real personalities and emotions on non-linear text-based adventures across a procedural galaxy.
The only mode is ironman and every section, module, deck and crew member added to your Astrobase comes with implicit risks and reward, so choices matter. How long can you keep from succumbing to the dangers of space?
-
Grow - Expand your Astrobase in all three directions.
-
Nurture - Build a home for your crew and their daily lives
-
Design - Layout the Astrobase to counter crises such conduit leaks, compartment failures, explosions, fires, personnel issues, and more
The Astrobase can be constructed along three axes. Your crew can expand the base by building modules or contract it by salvaging them. They can add or remove functionality by building up or tearing down sections in the modules. They can even build ships that lets you explore the galaxy.
You choose what to build and when to build it. The crew needs to rest and they need to breathe, do you rush the construction of the Enlisted Quarters or the Air Pump first? What’s the optimal placement of the new module? Is it better to have the Plasma Reactor closer to storage or to the crew’s quarters? Keep the station well maintained and stocked with supplies or disastrous consequences may result.
-
Characters - Your crew make their own decisions as they interact with each other and the world around them.
-
Full AI lifecycle - They work, eat, sleep, use the bathroom, relax, and socialize all as part of their daily lives.
-
Morale - Your crew can get exhausted, or suffer from low morale which affects the quality of their lives and how they perform tasks.
-
Relationships - Your crew form personal, professional, and romantic relationships. The relationships can be either positive or negative based on how their personalities and actions align.
Your crew live their own lives on the Astrobase. They have things to do and people to meet. Exactly how well they perform depends on how good they fit into their job, what adventures they’ve had, and what horrors they have survived; even how well matched they are with their peers matters, some will become romantic partners while others become bitter work rivals.
You will run into stumbling blocks, maybe your crew is exhausted because you’ve pushed them too hard, or low morale makes slacking off more enticing, or maybe Jenkins and Rodriguez spend too much time arguing while the Fission Reactor goes critical. Figure out your problems and fix them!
-
Explore - Build and dispatch ships across the galaxy to explore planets, fight killbots, extract resources, and interact with other civilizations.
-
Delegate - The ranking officer of each ship will make decisions based on their personality, and take recommendations from their team.
-
Overrule - Change the decisions in the logs they send back, or let them make their own mistakes.
The procedural adventures of the crew assigned to your ships can be read and interacted with in the logs they send back. Carefully handpick the crew for each ship you send out. Monitor their progress or leave them to their own fate. Whatever you choose to do, the outcomes of their adventures will be felt in what resources they get, what injuries they suffer, and in how it changes their emotional state.
-
Assign - Choose the best person for each job based on their stats, personalities, and over 50 different skills.
-
Manage - Prioritize tasks, clear task blockers, optimize the routes that the crew take during their day.
-
Observe - Calculate resource depletion and stay on top of tasks to prevent the reactors from exploding, the conduits leaking, and compartments failing,
The desk is where you design the Astrobase into a functioning home for your crew, promote leaders, manage tasks, monitor resource consumption, read reports from your ships and give them your input.
Running the station means manning your desk. Be efficient, and use your time wisely or take a break and play some Asteroid Shooter.
-
Individuality - Characters maintain emotional memory, and experience psychological growth over time depending on how results align with expectations.
-
Expression - Each character’s personality is expressed in their conversations, thoughts, and ship log entries
-
Story - Over 100 personality traits and 42 intertwined emotions combine to author narratives that reflect how the crew are actually thinking and feeling.
The Astrobase’s crew will have conversations with each other, or insights about their lives. Crew members join the Astrobase with revealed personality traits that drive the emotions that effect their job suitability, choices and actions. More traits become unlocked as they experience emotional growth.
Ensure that your crew’s psychological needs are met and they have the ability to grow as people. When you’re processing recruit applications you’ll want to keep an eye out for personalities that might clash with your existing crew, or will be compatible and create lasting friendships.
Read More: Best Base Building RPG Games.
Division of Labour
In Division of Labour, the player takes on the role of The Manager in a developing nation called Auriverde during a world ecological collapse.
The player manages the workforce and machinery of a factory, fulfilling contracts and earning profits for the Overseer Corp. Buying resources, manufacturing goods, managing the workers and facing moral and ethical decisions are the core of the game.
Compassion
The player has the option to make their workers more comfortable to improve efficiency, or pay them more to increase worker happiness. Events may occur where the player can do a favour for a worker, give time off for a holiday or generally try to help them.
Exploitation
However, Overseer Corp always demands larger and larger profits, and so balancing these becomes the core of the game. To make greater and greater profits, more sacrifices will need to be made and corners will need to be cut.
Storytelling
Along the way, the player will be presented with moral and ethical decisions regarding their works and the world at large. Whether it’s simply a worker who needs time of for medical reasons or an earthquake on the other side of the world sending migrants flocking to Auriverde for work and security, there’s always decisions to make.
Development Progress
A playable demo will be available very soon. To stay up to date with development you can follow our site. For now, consider adding us to your wishlist!
Read More: Best Base Building Automation Games.
Black Forest
Gameplay has changed since review was made - will update once further changes have been made to the game.
As a first release, this game is already fun, and will really appeal to people who don’t have a lot of time to play but like to always have “something going” in terms of games running. You can log in, see what happened over the turn change, catch up on any chat going on, and decide on what your villagers will do for the day, and then go on to your next village to manage. So in essence you need to only log in once per 24 hours, although at later stages when all remaining players are active, the next turn will start when all players are ready, meaning much quicker days/turns.
– Real player with 83.4 hrs in game
Definitely a base for the game with some really good graphics. I really can’t wait to see where it goes!
That being said it does still seems to have some major balance problems with time like even on the slowest setting you may not be able to check which of your buildings for damage before the day is already over, you have to manually assign each villager manually still for the most part, there isn’t really anything for defense other then build walls until you can’t keep up with the damage being thrown at you and lose, those sort of things you would expect for an early access game.
– Real player with 33.9 hrs in game
Organs Please
Earth’s population is on the verge of a global resource crisis. Can you build the spaceship on time and earn one more chance for humankind? Hurry, you only have only 30 days left!
-
Screen the visitors dying to get off the planet and more than willing to risk being turned into canned food, incinerated or hired as one of the factory’s employees. The pros and cons of each fate are debatable.
-
Manage the factory floor, construct new facilities and upgrade the research center. Resources are finite, so try to make sure things don’t fall apart before the ship takes off.
-
Hire staff with unique quirks, fears and prejudices. Promote hard workers and keep them pampered with improved amenities. As for the lazy ones…they get sent to a special room in the darkest corner of the factory.
-
Juggle orders from competing organizations and be sure to meet your weekly quota to keep the higher-ups happy. Remember – you are alive as long as you are useful.
Thrive: Heavy Lies The Crown
Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown is a Medieval Fantasy city builder that forces you to make dire decisions that ensure the survival of your kingdom and the people you lead.
Volition is a valuable tool in your inventory as you build your city, shape the land and fortify it as you see fit. Burdened by the weight of your decisions, a seemingly trivial choice can shape your legacy and determine if you’re a soulless tyrant or a fair and just monarch.
Will your kingdom merely survive, or do you have the resilience and dedication to make it THRIVE?
#### Features
-
Struggle with real-time decision making that leads to real-time consequences
-
Uncover the true nature of the mysterious Waelgrim
-
Survive the harsh realities of medieval life, both natural and manmade
-
Advance the development of your kingdom through an in-depth tech tree
-
Discover your benevolent or tyrannical nature
-
Traverse an unknown land to gain new resources and allies
-
Explore this land alone or with up to four friends
-
Experience a day-night cycle that affects your citizens’ behaviors
-
Defend your growing kingdom by waging epic battles
-
Receive modding support to play your way
#### Benevolence & Tyranny
The path by which you rule, be it benevolent or tyrannical, is determined entirely by the decisions you make. Thrive’s narrative-driven event system presents dynamic, nuanced options that often make the best choice unclear. Compassion and communion with nature can empower you, but rapid growth and progression could catapult your dominion. One must always remember that a hero to some is a villain to others. What will be your legacy?
#### A Vast Land
Establish your presence in a large-scale 4X land, rich in possibility and potential conflict, with up to four friends. Compete for resources and develop relationships with numerous AI villages and kingdoms, strengthening your foothold in this new territory’s active economy. Develop outposts and small villages to gain increased resources while helping to extend the reaches of trade. As your kingdom grows, will you develop a legacy of fear or friendship?
#### Survival
To survive is to take heed of what you can control, and weather what you cannot. Direct your kingdom’s future through effective planning, advancement and a detailed tech tree. Success is rewarded with new options to empower or enforce the nature of your rule. Countless variables, from weather to Waelgrim, add increased pressure to your reign. Endure these unpredictable forces and prove you truly have what it takes to thrive.
#### Waging War
Thrive’s real-time combat is reflected in the costs of war. Choices are realistic and impactful: soldiers’ deaths affect morale, ammunition needs resupply, armour and weapons require repairs, and troops experience fatigue. Engage in siegecraft, both as an inflictor and receiver, to show you can persevere against any form of adversary. Approach all conflict with a clear strategy, lest you long for a bitter reminder of failure’s high cost.
Exogate Initiative
Exogate Initiative is a management/base-building game that puts you in charge of mankind’s first worlds exploration program. In the near future, a new technology will allow us to travel instantly anywhere in the universe, via portals known as Exogates. An international initiative is created to develop this technology and start the first exploration program.
You will lead mankind into the vast unknown, where we never before dreamt to tread.
In the depth of a mountain plan, excavate and build your base using a variety of specialized rooms and equipment.
-
Complete freedom to dig anywhere on the map.
-
Plan and build specialized rooms, explorers will need barracks to rest, a training field to prepare for their missions or a laboratory to study samples they brought back from other worlds.
-
Place equipment in these rooms, each one of them will have a dedicated purpose.
Recruit, train and manage specialists from all around the world.
-
You will unlock 6 different classes of explorers, the scientist will study flora and fauna on other worlds, the scholar will decipher alien culture and languages and the soldier will ensure everyone is safe.
-
Explorers are called gaters, they are completely autonomous.
-
Each gater is unique. They come from different countries, have different ages, look different.
-
Take care of their needs and ensure their well-being, both physical and psychological, as they are constantly facing the unknown.
-
They will develop relationships between each other, and losing a friend on a mission will not have the same impact as losing someone you hate.
-
Provide them with the tools and suits needed for their journey
Assemble teams and send them exploring new worlds through the Exogate.
-
Gaters will perform missions on their own but will request your help from time to time.
-
These contacts are micro interactive stories that will constantly try to surprise you, and where you will sometimes have to make difficult decisions.
-
They may discover new flora, fauna or even intelligent beings. There are more than 10 different kinds of encounters
-
After each mission, teams will return with more experience and interesting things to study. This will allow you to unlock new technologies and earn money to keep the initiative running.
Don’t forget to wishlist and follow!
FrankenStorm TD: Prologue
A solid tower defense, reminiscent of the Warcraft III tower defenses it was inspired by. Its strength is in its simplicity. A lot of tower defense games try to go wide, giving players many options of towers while restricting their ability to influence placement and mob flow. This game does the opposite by restricting you to one tower type. It lowers your immediate ability to change your damage types/styles, but allows for larges mazes and clever placement.
As you continue playing, you can collect power-ups that will allow you to shape your game-play even more. The towers are all still the same tower, but you can add attack speed, damage, give the ability to stun, or insta-kill low-health enemies, etc. to them. Every power-up comes with a penalty, that makes the strategy involved more complex, modifying all of your enemy’s abilities at the same time as it modifies all your towers.
– Real player with 56.9 hrs in game
I have to think the devs like Path of Exile because the way you “gear up” has so much in common. Everything you find has an upside and a downside. There are uniques that are build enabling, but total garbage if you don’t build for them. There is a specific range for the rolls that a unique can get. There is stuff that has great synergy together (For example, if you stack the increased chance that the enemy procs some special ability, then there is no big downside to grabbing more of that. But the downside that you are completely prevented from getting even 2% of something like enemy dodge chance because 2% dodge X 200% increased chance chance equals insta-death. They also both have the concept of “increased” and “more”. (i.e. you can get 5% increased damage or 5 more damage.) They also both have tooltips that show your basic damage oputput without revealing any useful information without you doing math. (i.e the tooltip will show your crit chance and it will show your percentage increase that random events proc. But it will not show your ACTUAL crit chance after it has been modified by your chance chance.)
– Real player with 45.1 hrs in game
The Island: King’s Order
The island is a combination of an RTS game and an RPG game where you play as an army commander and as a hero of your choice.
You will have to build the base, expand your army and defend the settlement at all costs.
Fight the nearby monsters in the name of King Actus,
And kill any monster that crosses your path.
But be careful with each passing day the monsters get stronger and more vicious.
Select your hero
Build the base
Manage your resources
Conquer new lands
Dwarven Skykeep
Dwarven Skykeep is a building strategy RPG where you’re a mage building a magical tower. Goblins will burn your books and break your rooms while rain will flood your basement. Tune your deck to cast spells, improve your tower and solve all the hitches.
Build, Improve and Protect Your towers
Draw your cards and put into play your building tactics in real-time. Create rooms and generate resources, plan your strategy and solve all the hitches, craft Spells and defeat Goblins, then repair what they’ve destroyed. And don’t forget to give beer to Dwarves!
Tune Your Deck Wisely
Build your deck to face up all the challenges. Choose cards from Blocks, Rooms, Tools, Improvements, Combat Spells, Support Spells and Creatures to create and defend your magical towers based on situations.
Dive into the City and Live Its stories
Visit Dwarven City in between levels, then listen to folk’s stories to unlock new quests and world’s areas of which discover the lore behind. Collect cards, awards and items by going deeper into the story to improve your skills and increase strategies at your disposal.
Weight Up Your Choices
Oh no, your basement is flooding! Will you pump out the water, pour it out with smart digging or use fire to evaporate it? Which will be the consequences? There are multiple solutions for every problem and no obvious decisions, will you be a wise mage?
Say Goodbye to Gameplay Routines
Every gameplay throws you into unique situations with high replayability, where different draws and different random events require a different use of resources. Play with skills, and a bit of luck, to win challenges or improve your tactics while trying.
