Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville
A series that takes an inventive twist on the zombie apocalypse setting, Rebuild takes the “man versus man versus nature” struggle present in most games pertaining to zombies and reframes the gameplay from the more common action/shooter elements and turns it into a 4X game of conquest. The world of Rebuild is one in which the survivors are all fairly competent people. Nobody here is an idiot that is going to stand there and quiver in fear while the zombies take a bite out of their neck. The primary struggle is maintaining the flow of your resources and zombies are only really a threat when you spread your people thin. Fortunately the game manages to balance this well so that you’re generally never too comfortable that you don’t have to worry. Each map tends to follow the same flow of scrambling your survivors frantically so you can find food to eat that night to having a slight bit of breathing room so that you can begin to, as the title suggests, Rebuild and then challenge the AI factions present. Zombies ramp up their difficulty as time goes on as well. There are a few strategies that generally guarantee victory as long as you execute them well but I’ll leave you to figure out what those are. It has clever nooks and crannies and like any other good 4X you’ve played it’ll keep you up all night as you have multiple goals planned out at once, one of which can always be achieved in Just One More Turn. The ebb and flow guarantees that you’ve always got something to do.
– Real player with 338.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Colony Sim Games.
Summary: Turn based zombie survival
Multiplayer: No
Completion: 46 hrs
Cards: Yes
Cloud: Yes
Rebuild 3 is a real time or turn-based tactical zombie survival game with a focus on recruiting followers and expanding territory. The game offers two distinct modes of play, Quick Play, and Story. Quick play offers unlimited procedurally generated maps, with various settings that can be adjusted to your liking. Story mode is a whole campaign where you can carry over leader stats and a small group between missions.
– Real player with 81.6 hrs in game
Somewhen
SOMEWHEN is a retro RPG inspired by early J-RPGs. Enjoy dungeon diving, resource gathering, and town building mechanics. In Somewhen, you must help Idyll and company restore a fractured world with an uncertain future using a curious time-travelling train and a little something called the Conductor to rebuild entire towns. Your goal is to quite literally reshape the future by placing homes, trees, and other structures in the present. Rebuild towns using a unique top-down system while fighting for your future with a snappy, on-map battle system!
Read More: Best City Builder RPG Games.
Hexters
This is a fun little game that as of this review is still in development for more maps past the 5th one. The banter with the “ai” programs as you complete the objectives for each one have a nice zest of comedy with them.
It runs very well and even when set to 1920x1080 whist having fullscreen disabled I am able to take advantage of my ultrawide using borderless gaming.
The response of the devs in regards to suggestions and reports is very satisfactory and I am more than happy to see the evolution of this game to its full state as well as possibaly check out any future projects they have in mind.
– Real player with 43.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Early Access Games.
Hexters is a story-driven RTS that takes place deep inside a computer. Apparently there has been one too many accidental bewerage container discharges on top of the computer since the tiny programs and the world running inside are in a complete disarray. You,as the User, are charged with traversing the bitscape through multiple levels to gather both the scattered programs and routines that keep your computer running, and the information of what actually led to the post-digicalyptic state of the machine. Unfortunately, you have to fight gnarly manifestations of bugs, glitches and stale memes not belonging in a healthy computer that inhibit your technological journey.
– Real player with 13.3 hrs in game
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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
Buildings Have Feelings Too!
Video Review: https://youtu.be/dc5HAgXdCHQ
4.5/10
Overall
I Like the charm of the game it has personality and that’s why I really want to give this game full run through to find the best in this game. But I can’t finish it the game-play loop is so tiring and tedious. The graphics and the dialogue you have with each building are nice and oddly strange that you start to sympathies with a high rise. I don’t want to say this game is terrible I’m sure a group of people will love this game, but I feel like it’s a small group. With all its issues most will only play about 2 hours of the game and be bored, but look at the game-play and take my words with a grain of salt if it seems like something you might have fun with and 15.99 is the price right now seems good to you then don’t be shy and pick it up.
– Real player with 8.7 hrs in game
These buildings might have feelings easily swayed and broken like humans do, but they certainly also have some serious control and UI issues, tend to overcomplicate things, are prone to sudden outbursts of poorly worded explanations and get lost in their thoughts often.
On the surface, it’s a quaint, charming 2D city builder with anthropomorphic buildings and a rundown, old hotel as the main protagonist. But, take a shovel to it and it turns into a somewhat obtuse and fiddly puzzle game of micromanaging buildings and trying to satisfy their wants and needs in the form of upgrade requirements and appeal increases. A city builder in the traditional sense this really ain’t.
– Real player with 7.5 hrs in game
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
Actraiser Renaissance
First of all, this is a QUINTET remaster. The mere fact that this game exists is a tremendous blessing for a certain cult fanbase.
The obvious bias aside, is the game good?
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE
It’s obvious that a lot of faithful effort was put into remastering this game. From including Yuzo Koshiro’s amazing soundtrack and accompaniment to the astounding artwork given to the many characters, menus and intro cutscene. People put their sweat and tears into this, and it shows in that regard.
– Real player with 54.0 hrs in game
A great example on how to make a remake. Renaissance does an excellent job of bring the original SNES games action and town sim into a modern era with new graphics, classic and remixed soundtrack, and expanded story that makes you feel more immersed in what was a somewhat bare-bones world before.
The new artwork is great and the story telling is actually quite deep. Everything reads like a positive psalm with the writing really showing some great character development and overall storytelling. Which is good as all the new characters do little gameplay wise. The story is the only way you will interact and learn about the characters and their backstories.
– Real player with 40.9 hrs in game
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition
Excellent remake of a classic
– Real player with 118.8 hrs in game
I’m too old for this
– Real player with 96.4 hrs in game
Epic Palace : Knossos
This game was developed in close cooperation with an archaeologist of the period to make the art, resources and mechanics as close as possible to our state of the knowledge of the Bronze Age Aegean. The art of the game is beautiful and conveys very well the overall mood of the Mediterranean seascape. As an archaeologist of the period myself, I really enjoyed the historical accuracy, as well as the immersive reconstruction of the throne room. The game has good replaybility and I found it overall very enjoyable. Would recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about this fascinating period of Minoan culture while having fun!
– Real player with 103.3 hrs in game
TL;DR A simple yet entertaining resource management game with around 15-20 hours of replay value and well worth the price if you’re looking for a fun management/trading experience.
Pros:
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Outstanding art direction (some of the best representations of Palatial Minoan society in media, period)
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Fun core gameplay loop (2-3 hours/game)
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Good visuals & decent, albeit repetitive score
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The trading system though not the focus of the game is very enjoyable (‘lootboxes’ appear after sending ships on trading missions)
– Real player with 19.1 hrs in game
Malmyr
I stumbled across this recently, and have been enjoying working through the campaign. I give this a thumbs up primarily because of the enthusiastic and helpful developer responses to questions I had, and I feel I got my moneys worth of entertainment value. These guys deserve some more attention for their efforts. It is a game that I “like” but don’t “love”.
Malmyr offers some quite different mechanics to what you would normally expect, though not all of those are necessarily positive things (it is very mouse clicky) and can take some getting used to. Kind of revealing is the lack of a lets play series out there - people tend to bounce off it after a few hours I think. Fundamentally the game is more of a puzzler than a true building game - space is limited and the randomly generated tiles can require some planning before you commit to building. I am hoping to finish the campaign, I am always a sucker for trying to “finish” a game. I haven’t tried the sandbox mode though I may give that a quick shot once I knock off the last two missions, we shall see. I just have too many other games that are begging for my time and this just doesn’t have that magic X factor or depth of strategy tp keep coming back to.
– Real player with 77.2 hrs in game
Malmyr is THE game you’ve been waiting for a long time! What a pleasant surprise!
Malmyr is the perfect mix of real-time strategy and puzzle game. Because in Malmyr building your city is not made as easy as in other building games. Instead, you have to ensure an always sufficient flow of raw materials through increasingly complex road systems. but malmyr always remains clear, fair and, above all, relaxing. Relaxation is the perfect word to describe malmyr. You have no time pressure, you can correct mistakes at any time without losing your progress.
– Real player with 23.8 hrs in game