Strategy & Tactics: Dark Ages

Strategy & Tactics: Dark Ages

This game delivers some depth in thinking your strategy and tactics in terms of choosing the most effective formation and unit combination. The game might seem a bit difficult at first but once you start grasping the battle mechanics, the game becomes pretty easy to beat although somewhat time consuming depending on which scenario and how much upgrade you have invested on certain type of units. This game delivers some fun and challenge while providing a reasonable challenge and replayability for the price. What makes this game quite replayable once you beat all the scenarios is that you can choose and spend your glory points to keep highly skilled generals and use them again in other scenarios. Also once you have invested in weapon and armor for certain type of troops of your choosing, that upgrades stay for good so when you play other scenarios, you start those scenarios with upgraded stats for the units that you have invested in.

Real player with 190.1 hrs in game


Read More: Best Board Game Strategy Games.


Early Access Watcher Public Service Announcement

Game: Strategy & Tactics: Dark Ages

Update Version: v1.0 Patch #1

Disclosure: This game copy was bought by the reviewer.

Game Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHc0yrOBAjQ

Strategy & Tactics: Dark Ages is a turn-based strategy title by the developers over at HeroCraft. HeroCraft are no stranger to the strategy genre, making several medieval and modern themed games over the past year. It has been over a month since the game released into Early Access and it has already seen some patchwork to fix some of the crippling launch issues. While the tactics are indeed present in the game, some key mechanics and technical issues make the experience feel more like a battle of attrition than coherent operation.

Real player with 15.7 hrs in game

Strategy & Tactics: Dark Ages on Steam

Dominion

Dominion

Always heard about the boardgame but never had the chance to play it and now that i did I can see why it’s so popular!

The DA is very well done: plays smooth, good sfx, AI feels solid (haven’t tried Hard yet though). The game has already -I think?- all of the the expansions available that can be played in a 1v1 against AI or with another player online.

I must say this is very polished already for being EA for less than two weeks!

As per how stability goes, ​I played 3 games with a friend yesterday and we only got two freezes/crashes but we could keep playing by simply restarting the game: no game-breaking bugs found yet.

Real player with 33.0 hrs in game


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A very faithful adaptation of the famous evolutionary card game. The first one that found the concept of deckbuilding during the game. Many other games followed this inspiration, such as Star Realms, Ascension, War of Omens, for the main ones. If you know of any others, please respond.

This is a concept not to be confused with these two:

  • Deckbuilding before the game, the player builds a deck (example: Magic the Gathering).

  • Deckbuilding during the game, without being able to swap cards, during a quest (example: Slay the spire).

Real player with 14.6 hrs in game

Dominion on Steam

Kingslayer: The First Assassin

Kingslayer: The First Assassin

The graphics are very simple and the guitar music is pleasant.

The puzzles surprised me, they are really interesting and smart. I liked this game.

The option to download the music is welcome, the on-screen menu is intuitive, clean and works well.

The level selection is very good.

Extreme simplicity in everything, but it fulfills what is proposed.

Real player with 4.2 hrs in game


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A simple and yet very fun puzzle game! The medieval atmosphere sets the mood with a clean minimalistic design. Recommended for the puzzle lovers!

Real player with 2.0 hrs in game

Kingslayer: The First Assassin on Steam

Raiders of the North Sea

Raiders of the North Sea

I can’t stress how awesome this game is! The board game is fantastic. You get to build a crew and go off on raiding expeditions to get plunder! There’s something inherently satisfying about that. The game mechanics are innovative. You place a worker to take an action, and pick another up to take another action. And there are limitations on what actions you can take based on the color of the worker token. All of this adds to the strategic depth since it limits your options and therefore makes you plan ahead.

Real player with 25.1 hrs in game

Raiders of the North Sea is a beautiful competitive digital board game, where each player represents a clan of warriors, racing for the most VP (Victory Points) and living the Viking mythos by pillaging, making choices that lead to pillaging, making offerings with the loot from pillaging and then pillaging a bit more! In case you didn’t get the memo pillage is the name of the game! The game is a worker placement where players each take a turn making strategic decisions about where to place their Viking workers. In each turn you either make two moves by placing and then removing another worker or you can straight up pillage (if you meet the criteria). The only thing that’s left to luck are some helpful dice that may aid you in conquering most locations and cards drawn that represent potential rading warriors that you can hire or 1 time use. Anything else is pure strategy, so there is not much luck involved! What I find most interesting, is the player dynamic. Each of your moves may (and should!) anticipate the other players possible moves, in order to stay one step ahead of the game, “forcing” your oponents to the lesser choices. The pillage locations are split in 4 tiers, each one giving potentially more VP (Victory Points) than the previous tiers! Interestingly, the game ends a) if someone conquers the second to last fort (last tier location), b) if someone runs out of offerings (base location that trades pillage loot for VP) or c) someone runs out of Valkyrie tokens (tokens that each represent your clan’s heroic deaths!).

Real player with 17.7 hrs in game

Raiders of the North Sea on Steam

Magic Lessons in Wand Valley - a jigsaw puzzle tale

Magic Lessons in Wand Valley - a jigsaw puzzle tale

A lovely puzzle game with a simple story to go along with the wonderful colours and excellent design. This is a game for jigsaw puzzle fans. There are only six separate pictures, and the challenge comes from playing with more and more pieces. The artwork is outstanding, especially if you like the fantasy genre (wizards in particular). This game could be suitable for younger players at the 135-piece level; however, there is enough depth to entertain experienced puzzlers.

Pros:

  • art design

  • puzzle design (clearly thought went into how the light effects add to challenge and interest)

Real player with 104.1 hrs in game

I really like this jigsaw puzzle game. The illustrations are beautiful and tell a simple but nice story. The modes with different amount of pieces lets you play for many hours. The music is very comforting and keeps you in the mood. It has some nice features to help setting up the puzzles. The entire series from the studio is worth playing. Recommended!

Real player with 22.9 hrs in game

Magic Lessons in Wand Valley - a jigsaw puzzle tale on Steam

Realm of Heroes

Realm of Heroes

Realm of Heroes is a strategy game in which players build castles to defend their lands and recruit heroes to fight for their cause. Players not only move against each other, but also must deal with an evolving board that can derail the best laid plans. Using minimal luck, Realm of Heroes is a game in which a player on top can find himself in a rapidly collapsing position.

After the map is set up, each player places his leader and a tower on the map. During a player’s turn; existing plague may spread to nearby locations, unsupported heroes die and are replaced by plague, players may reinforce their position by placing or upgrading units on the map and finally players move their heroes around the map to capture more territory, destroy other heroes and capture the other players' leaders to win the game.

Realm of Heroes on Steam

Blood Bowl 3

Blood Bowl 3

Put on your cleats, buckle on your helmet, adjust your shoulder pads and breast plate… and (discreetly) tuck a sharp dagger into your belt.

War disappeared in the Old World when the inhabitants decided to resolve their differences by playing the god Nuffle’s sacred sport: Blood Bowl. And yet it is no less bloody than the battlefields it has replaced. Murder, mutilation, cheating, corruption, sorcery and even divine intervention come one after another on the pitch, to the delight of everyone watching!

  • Merciless, not brainless – Take charge of a team from amongst the 12 available races, each with unique characteristics, and stop your opponents from advancing by carefully positioning your players. Dodge or mercilessly eliminate whoever gets in your way and reach the end zone to score the decisive touchdown! Naturally, the best strategists should have an edge, but… who knows? A rampaging troll might eat a teammate and change the course of a match.

  • You’re the boss – Create your team, recruit your players, customize their appearance, emblems and armour, recruit cheerleaders and a coach, then take part in the most ferocious competitions in the Old World. But beware: injuries are commonplace, and it’s more than likely that some of your players will be carried off the field in a body bag, bringing a definitive end to a once-promising career…

What’s new in Blood Bowl 3

  • Based on the official rules of the latest edition of the board game, with new skills and overhauled passing mechanics

  • 12 races to choose from including, for the first time in a Blood Bowl video game, the Black Orcs, the Imperial Nobility, the Old World Alliance and the Chaos Renegades

  • Fields with special game rules to vary the types of match

  • New customization options for your coaches, cheerleaders, teams and every piece of armour worn by your players

  • A solo campaign open to all races

  • An improved competitive mode with new league management features and an official ladder

  • A flexible timer so you are free to organize practice sessions between experienced and rookie players

The brand-new solo campaign

An agent has noticed your skills as a coach and decided to finance you and your team, so you can participate in a new Blood Bowl event: the Clash of Sponsors. Will you be able to demolish your opponents and win over the spectators?

  • Play with the race of your choice

  • Take on teams sponsored by the most influential parties in the Old World

  • See how you stack up against star players who are now the faces of major brands, including the legendary Griff Oberwald

  • You will be able to use the team you built during the campaign in any other game mode.

Competitive modes with endless possibilities

In addition to the campaign and friendly matches against other players or the AI, Blood Bowl 3 has a brand-new competitive mode which lets you compete against players of all levels, from around the world:

  • Competitive seasons with an official ladder

  • Players can join a league, with new management options and the possibility of creating and configuring your own tournaments the way you want (stadiums, pitches, timing, races, etc.)

  • Regular challenges with temporary game modes

Blood Bowl 3 on Steam

To Battle!: Hell’s Crusade

To Battle!: Hell’s Crusade

I thoroughly enjoyed this game - and yes, the humor is sophomoric and the voice acting is tongue-in-cheek, but it just works for me. It’s an old-school general’s type game from the SSI era and as everyone else has already said, in line with the modern Fantasy General.

More importantly, I think the strategic design is really well thought out - the units each have their niche but aren’t hobbled by hyper-specialization. And while the maps are static, and prior map-knowledge is extremely advantageous, it also opens up the pursuit of battle perfection.

Real player with 32.1 hrs in game

Disclaimer: I’ve been a beta tester and I know the developers personally. But….

Here’s my review:

I’ve played HC now for probably several hundred hours (most of that was in beta). The campaigns aren’t suuuuper long, but somehow I just enjoy playing them over and over because it always goes a little different each time I do. Like I can beat all of the missions now, but I cant ever do it as well as I want to. So I just keep trying! lol

The tactical campaign is more kind of old school in that you’ll probably have to restart missions. I do anyway. It’s kind of like chess cause you really have to plan ahead. The adventure campaign starts out easier so it may be better for your first playthrough, but about half way through it starts getting pretty challenging.

Real player with 16.3 hrs in game

To Battle!: Hell's Crusade on Steam

Carcassonne - Tiles & Tactics

Carcassonne - Tiles & Tactics

edit : changed my review to NEGATIVE. The reason being that there has been a bug in the game for many, many months now where players don’t get to see their final scores in the game on most occassions. There’s not much point playing a multiplayer game if you don’t know who won!!!

I bought the physical version of Carcassonne two weeks ago on a Saturday morning. After a couple of games with a friend and working out how to play it I decided to invest in this digital version. It seemed like a good game and playing the digital version was going to ensure I’d understood the rules properly.

Real player with 80.7 hrs in game

The game is true to the original, playable and quite pretty, but for this price, the user experience is very poor.

Sounds:

The background ambient sounds are as loud and clear as the interface sounds, so it often feels like the game is trying to tell you something, but it’s just a background noise. Making this effect worse, the sounds play totally at random, which means the same sound will often play over and over again, which can only mean it’s signalling something, but it’s nothing. There’s no option to turn off just the ambient sounds.

Real player with 64.6 hrs in game

Carcassonne - Tiles & Tactics on Steam

Defendion

Defendion

This a is great Table Top Tower Defense VR game…the best I have ever played! The Developers are very helpful as well, so we will look for more games from Dilly Frame in the future. I got hung up on 21 Wave, but the developers showed me the reason, and I was able to complete the game afterward. They still fix bugs in the game when you reveal them to the Developers. This game appears to be bug-free now, so it can be completed without issues.

Also, there is a lot of depth to this game, and it is well worth the full asking price. You can expect several hours of enjoyment before actually completing the game. Replay is also fantastic, because you have several achievements that you can go back to unlock. Superb game, guys! Keep them coming.

Real player with 7.1 hrs in game

Great game idea, but very poor execution..

Real player with 1.8 hrs in game

Defendion on Steam