Crystarise

Crystarise

The player becomes a guardian god apprentice girl,

We aim to rise up a sky island while going back and forth between the extremely vast field that continues to be automatically generated and the island that serves as the base.

First, let’s get down to the field to collect resources.

In an isometric 2D world, monsters, items, dungeons … various things are reflected on one screen.

Combine shooting and slashing actions to defeat monsters and get resources.

Once you have the resources, produce a variety of things and customize the island to your liking.


Read More: Best City Builder Cute Games.


Crystarise on Steam

Dwarrows

Dwarrows

I first found out about Dwarrows by watching YouTube Lets Plays before it was even released. I bought it as soon as it came out (payed full price) and, so far, I am enjoying it just as much as I thought I would. If you play games like My Time in Portia or Ni no Kuni II, then I believe you will love Dwarrows. So what do I like about the game?

Likes

I really enjoy the slightly simplistic styling of the game. It isn’t hyper realistic, but more of a cartoony (is that a word?) feeling, that adds it’s own charm to the game play.

Real player with 78.9 hrs in game


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Oh my. Dwarrows is a little masterpiece.

Here are some notes on happiness:

  • Visual: The wood elves reminded me of Sesame Street characters – a bit of Bert and Ernie and Grover.

  • Audio: Enjoyable. :) I liked to run into a group of bluebirds just to hear them tweeting as they scattered. I liked the piped-in suspenseful mini-melodies when I was trying to solve a puzzle.

  • Travel: This game handled fast travel really well. Having three characters to port around could have been a hassle, but instead so many workarounds were provided: teleport scrolls in inventory (with options to transport one character or all three), teleport fountains at puzzles (to bring all three to help), and teleport stone rings (for one or three). Plus it was nice to have the three characters spread around the map sometimes – I often left Gloia in town to build, while the other two ran around to explore. Really well done.

Real player with 76.8 hrs in game

Dwarrows on Steam

Shadowbane

Shadowbane

First of all, this game is absolutely worth playing if you are into oldschool PvP MMOs. No other game allows such in-depth character customization. Sandbox elements are present but are not annoying to the end of being “chop trees to gather lumber”. “Sandbox” here is actually building cities and demolishing your enemies' cities in sieges, hiring AI mercenaries to craft items which is another good part of this game, crafting isn’t about gathering 10 dragon scales and 1 mummy dust by repetitively killing monsters, it’s more about having mercenaries of right races placed in your forges and having resources from right zones in general, even city building (if you happen to own / manage one) is as simple as placing the building on the city grid and waiting several hours for it to go up in one click.

Real player with 1573.7 hrs in game


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Overall an exceptionally poor experience.

So why do I have so many hours you ask? 1) nostalgia and 2) I played with friends, but neither of those points are positives to the game in particular. And also do not be mistaken, for an RPG 80% of this playtime was sitting afk while leeching experience from macro-bots which is what everyone uses.

So this game is mislabeled as a PVP title. It isn’t. It’s actually a zerg v zerg title and those battles are decided by sheer numbers. If it was a pvp game, you’d have skills which synergize with each other to allow for good and creative builds. Builds which later you can learn to play and get better as you get more accustomed to playing your toon. Not the case here. At first glance you have SO many races, professions and disciplines to combine that the options eem endless…until you realize that every profession has no more than 2 ways to build it if you want to be in any way viable. Yes, you CAN be a minotaur that uses unarmed fighting, except due to weapon skill restrictions (built into the races) and stat caps you’ll never be more than 20% of the strength of a proper polearm minotaur.

Real player with 1121.8 hrs in game

Shadowbane on Steam

Arcadia: The Crystal Wars

Arcadia: The Crystal Wars

Arcadia: The Crystal Wars is an open-world, squad-based fusion of role playing and strategy, combining traditional RPG elements such as character skills, talents, quests, dungeons, and raids with strategic base-building, farming, and crafting. Explore the world of Arcadia in non-linear fashion as a single character, or recruit up to 20 characters and dive into the rich storyline while taking an active part in shaping the outcome of the Crystal Wars.

Features:

  • Dive into the Quest Driven Story

    Arcadia also offers a rich story that you can dive into at any time. The unique, hand written quests will take you from city to city, meeting unique characters, exploring dungeons and raids to retrieve artifacts, and helping to guide the outcome of the Crystal Wars as you see fit. Will you fight alongside Tech Commander Kyber, to rid the world of the Crystal’s corruption? Or will you seek out the Etir, to understand the Crystal at its' source? The choices you make will decide the fate of Arcadia.

  • Explore an Open World

    Looking for a non-linear experience? Then Arcadia is your sandbox. Just because the factions are engaged in the Crystal War, does not mean that you have to. Would you rather be a lone adventurer, seeking the challenges of dungeons and raids? Or a trader, developing trade routes and settlements and only using combat as a means to defend yourself? You have the freedom to make up your own story.

  • Unlock Powerful Magic or Advanced Technology

    As you explore Arcadia, you will undoubtedly encounter the power of the Crystal. Using special techniques, the power of the Crystal can either be consumed directly by your characters to unlock powerful magic or be harnessed and used as a power source to power advanced technology. Whichever you choose, your characters will gain new abilities as well as physically change. The more power they acquire, the greater the physical transformation.

  • Character Customization

    Each character within your faction has a set of skills related to Combat, Crafting, and Labor. It’s up to you how to train them and what talents they acquire. Do you want a solder, capable of wielding heavy armor into battle during war but also able to craft the finest armor in the game? Or how about a farmer, wearing light armor yet when combat calls wields the most power magic to heal your allies and decimate your enemies? The choice is yours

  • Unique Character Races

    Arcadia offers four unique character races that you can create and recruit into your faction. While each race has strengths and weaknesses in terms of starting skill level and rate of experience gain, the ultimate path of each character you control is completely up to you. Has a powerful Rhingar, who has trained with one handed weapons and shields to defend her allies, offered to join your faction but you need a armorsmith? So be it, recruit her and take advantage of her racial bonus in Armor Crafting, while also being capable of defending your settlements from attack.

  • Develop Settlements

    Whether you control one character or twenty, you’ll want to consider developing settlements to fuel your adventures. Perhaps you only need a single base camp, with a place to rest and to cook food? Or maybe you are ready to take an active role in the Crystal Wars and want multiple strategic base locations where you have farms to feed your troops and forges to craft armor and weapons.

  • Explore Dungeons and Raids

    It’s been said that great riches and power can be found in the most difficult of locations. Arcadia is no exception. Take up to five of your characters as you dive into one of five dungeons, each with unique enemy types and scripted boss fights or brave it all and take up to 10 of your characters to fight in one of five raids.

Arcadia: The Crystal Wars on Steam

Urban Survival

Urban Survival

This game is Awesome! So creative and fun even for a early access game there is loads of content and the Devs. are constantly adding new stuff. they have limited-time seasonal updates were you can get unique holiday weapons and armour. Its stuff like that, that makes this game such a fun and fresh experience not to mention the humour keeps me laughing the hole time.

Real player with 31.5 hrs in game

Great game! This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for! It has exactly what I want in a game! Open world (although its not so huge from what I can see but nonetheless feels great), base building/managing, crafting/cooking, looting (lots of looting lol), combat/gang wars and the power to pee on anything! lol. I’m glad I wish listed this game and then purchased it on day one, it was worth every penny! Its been keeping me entertained and glued to my seat. I look forward to seeing this game grow in development! Keep up the good work Helix Games!

Real player with 14.8 hrs in game

Urban Survival on Steam

Skyclimbers

Skyclimbers

Skyclimbers on Steam

Depraved

Depraved

pros

  • love the weather cycle

  • great attention to small details

  • better than average graphics

  • great foundation to build on with improvements

  • bandits/native american interaction is a nice aspect

cons

-terrible economic system at all levels (easy medium hard)

at hard you pretty much can only build one way or you will fail

at medium you can waiver a little but not much

at easy not much different from medium

if you want to build only a logging town and never advance your populations status then you have no worries

Real player with 165.4 hrs in game

Bottom Line Up Front: This game will be amazing when it’s finished.

Pros:

  1. It’s a very cool concept of starting a town in the wild west.

  2. The Devs. have come up with a great backbone for the buildings and resources you will need to be successful.

  3. Replay-ability once complete will be a GINORMOUS 10/10.

  4. It’s not an easy game to master in the beginning. You really need to think a few steps ahead before building anything. This makes it so much more fun when you are successful in your choices.

Real player with 43.1 hrs in game

Depraved on Steam

Aground

Aground

[DEMO CONTENT] One year ago, I came across a very interesting-looking web game called “Aground” and I was fascinated by the idea of playing a game reminiscent of “Minecraft” or “Terraria” directly in my browser. It starts like every other survival game: gather resources, build a shelter, upgrade your equipment and improve your efficiency.

But, the demo for the game had a lot of content to offer, so much so, that it felt like a fully fledged out game! I was really mesmerised when I later on found out that you could build advanced industrial gear, like guns or battery-powered equipment! After a while, I also discovered that there was a magic portion to the game and that it had an island and quest line dedicated to just that, which gave me access to enchanted equipment and unique materials. For a demo, the game has an unbelievably vast amount of content to offer, more than in any other demo I’ve ever seen before, you surely won’t regret giving it a try! ;^)

Real player with 327.3 hrs in game

I love this game so much especially since I think it’s an indie game by three people and it’s only $10 as of when I bought it. I’ve already spent 30 hours playing and I’ve restarted a few times because I wanted to optimize my approach. What really got me was the free game on various flash sites and the playable demo which alone is around 7-10 hours depending on gameplay style.

I love the story so far, the graphics appeal to me since I’m an old school gamer (think late 80s, early 90s) where gameplay is much more important than flashy graphics wanting 160 fps. There is a story in it as well which is nice, but doesn’t take away from the game if you’re the sort who doesn’t like reading much, but it’s actually a pretty neat story. One thing I’d like to have the cutscenes as a replayable option in the menu when you unlock them. The music adds to the game and has atmosphere to it.

Real player with 118.8 hrs in game

Aground on Steam

Alek - The Lost Kingdom

Alek - The Lost Kingdom

Updated opinion from edit is at the bottom.

Great Concept, I have played 11 hours in and I still want to play. However, the game just crashes now and it’s because of a bugged out Hunter. He doesn’t hunt unless you interact and close the menu, if you make him quit the game crashes. I lost 10 minutes of progress which turned out to be a lot of stuff being done in that time span. It’s fustrating to have an incompetent NPC that carries a heavy liability to cause crashes.

I sent a couple of the crashes not sure if the Dev received them. With this problem I am held back from progression in the game. It won’t matter if I do another save because the bug can just happen again.

Real player with 23.3 hrs in game

Here I am back for another game review!

Today I’m covering elements of Alek - The Lost Kingdom.

This is a charming little adventurer simulator that centers around Alek (the PC). In this game you build up and manage village settlements, ward off attacks, and help develop a land. Now mind this game IS only in Early Access at the time of this review. That being said it has a lot to offer. Now I know some of you are going to look at my play time and say “But Relmara! That’s hardly enough for a fair review!” The only reason I haven’t logged more time in this game is because of a nasty bug that kept me from loading an old game and starting a new one. Here is where I have to say I am thoroughly impressed. Dev. Blackmeyers has been VERY hands on with us early access player when regarding bugs. I know that working out such issues is laboriously hard. I have never had a dev. respond so expediently to an issue. It’s very heartening to know that we have someone so invested in their player base working to helm the game.

Real player with 12.9 hrs in game

Alek - The Lost Kingdom on Steam

Flotsam

Flotsam

This is a delightful game. The main challenges are to have enough food and water; currently there’s no other goal except what the player decides to accomplish. There are small hidden treasures (zoom in the first time you build a house for a drifter!) as well as small frustrations (priorities are still a bit buggy, due to early access and updates changing occasionally). I generally stay on the slowest pace to play, enjoying the atmosphere, the music, and watching my little drifters scurry and swim around.

Real player with 60.4 hrs in game

Still very promising, but definitely not ready for Early Access. Content is extremely limited and repetitive, and for those who play games like this on a regular basis, there’s about 1.5 hours of content. Hardest part was getting stable water supply, which I achieved on take 2, and then subsequently completed the game, which restarts you with your existing city at the start of the game.

In addition to this, I went through the game and focused on building a bigger city, rather than completing areas - bad move. The game has numerous bugs, including one that locks you into the map view and requires a forced restart. Other bugs included stuck boats, workstations that villagers refuse to use until you clear their queue and restart everything, production limits that are not really followed all that well, and etc. Several flaws in the UI made me want to claw my eyes out as well - like the blocky “Exit” button that you can see sticking out behind the “Delete” button on the “Continue” screen.

Real player with 32.2 hrs in game

Flotsam on Steam