Hell Architect
Hells Architect is my first ever review, and one of the reasons why I decided to leave a review for this game is because I am surprised by the mixed reviews the game is currently at (day 2 of release). In my opinion, the producer and developer of Hells Architect launched this game correctly; they ran a successful campaign by keeping the customer in the loop during development, they released a playable demo, they sought feedback from testers, are continuing to listen to feedback, and perhaps most importantly – they delayed launch by several months until they had a viable product ready to go that they were proud of!
– Real player with 116.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Colony Sim Base Building Games.
I feel awful posting this review, but I’m hoping that the dev team will fix the issues that I have with the game over time. It’s not that I don’t recommend the game, I just don’t recommend it right now and at the price I paid for it (more than $20 in case someone is reading this later after a price change). I’ve completed every stage with the exception of the final mission as of this writing (and I intend to complete that stage), as well as played some of the sandbox mode. My actual playtime is a bit lower than what the review will have listed, since I had to leave the game open while I wasn’t actively playing it (more on that below).
– Real player with 28.7 hrs in game
Space Trader: Merchant Marine
Space Trader Merchant Marine is that strange situation where two very different genres have been combined together in the hope of hitting that once in a lifetime combination that everybody agrees is pure genius, like Vampires and Teenagers, or Ninjas and Cheerleaders. Space Trader doesn’t quite hit that special recipe however.
Space Trader is a combination of a numbers trading simulator and a first person shooter and by far and large the biggest problem is that playing the game you have trouble telling which of these two aspects feel the most tacked on.
– Real player with 82.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Colony Sim FPS Games.
Space Trader Merchant Marine was released in Oct 23, 2008. It boasts a score of 89% from a review by GameFocus saying, ““One of the best indie games of 2008. An innovative and addictive experience. Addictive, very fun and innovative are the best words to describe the game and the bottom line is this is a welcome addition to any gamer’s library so buy this game and enjoy it.”
This is very akin to the how ‘reviews’ reflected Bubsy 3D on its own packaging, to those that remember.
The game is broken down into four different areas, exploration, trading, time management, and fighting/bounty hunting.
– Real player with 21.3 hrs in game
Buoyancy
Buoyancy has something special going for it for sure, you know this within the few hours playing it.
However at the 6hr mark (at least for me) I felt like I had already experienced all of the game mechanics and all of the challenge was gone. Population was easy to maintain (even passed 150 pop) and everything else started to repeat itself. The pirates towards the end really weren’t a threat nor were fires and extreme weather threats.
There’s nothing wrong with any of this, especially because it’s a early access title and the low price point still provides decent value. I can’t say this enough, but games like this is exactly why I love early access. Buoyancy is a gem!
– Real player with 33.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Colony Sim Early Access Games.
Its still in development but and I have high hopes for it in the future but right now its pretty dumb. For a full explanation continue reading.
Its virtually impossible to set up steady food production because the villagers you have working on water, wheat, bread, beer (yes beer) all the necessary things to keep the colony going just randomly quit there jobs and wonder off. Once your population reaches a couple or three hundred you are pretty much guaranteed to have one of these situation which results in running out of food faster than you can get all the villagers back to work and as a result dozens or hundreds die. Now to get to this point you had to build a large raft. You need a lot of villagers to row the raft around to collect supplies from the ocean. Once you lose a sizable chunk due to one of these wandering abandonments of duties you don’t even have enough people left to row the raft and are basically done.
– Real player with 32.4 hrs in game
Deadwater Saloon
Create Your Character
Playing as a rich and dynamic character in the old west, you will be able to fully customize your attributes to fit your playstyle, such as Mixology, Seduction, and Sneakiness. You will manage your life as well as your saloon, such as maintaining your reputation and getting married. You will struggle with the effects of disease, aging, sanity, and addictions.
Form Relationships
Provide travellers with a distinct drink parlour, gaining legendary stories to regale and build your legend. Interact with townspeople as they populate the town, forging friendships with blacksmiths, sheriffs, and preachers, romance prospective partners, or blackmail, abduct, and murder those who threaten you.
Build
Build your saloon from the ground up. Expand the walls, build bordellos, opium dens, high stakes gambling rooms, and railed porches. Buy and place spittoons, tables, chairs, handcrafted bars, pianos, chandeliers, and diamond dust mirrors.
Manage
Thrive within a complex economy system, stockpiling booze, food, guns, and opium. Research a diverse array of drinks and foods to serve customers. Hire and manage staff from within the town populace, including barkeeps, cooks, servers, prostitutes, croupiers, pianists and bouncers. Help them reach their full potential, or fire and replace them with those more skilled.
Hundreds of Events
Face the forces of nature, meddlesome customers, firebrand Preachers, rival outlaw gangs, and much more. At some point, you will be tested by stronger and more formidable nemesis in longer event chains. Whatever you choose, you will face the consequences of your choices. The frontier is an unforgiving place.
Garbage
In depth at first– TL;DR at the end.
Ok, so, I have beaten this game right before the thirty hour mark and what do I have to say. It’s good. But, it’s bad. And, what I mean by this is simple as any other problem found with games similar in case. The basic lay out is very nice, no lie– if you played Monster Rancher or the Digimon games, you’ll like this. If you like Darkest Dungeon or Dark Souls, you’ll like this. If you like AoE, Civ, Banished, Endzone and so many other games like these, you very well may end up liking this. This is a resource management, unit grinding, hardcore rpg adventure.
– Real player with 29.1 hrs in game
THIS GAME IS INCOMPLETE DO NOT BUY!
To start, it is an auto save function with no choice of you being able to save except what the game claims.
A few mechanics that makes this game just terrible, it is an auto attack, pick your moves and let it play out type of game. It gives a false advertisement that you get to “pick your fighter” and develop like an RPG. NOPE! You assign moves, everything plays out, characters can get stuck walking in circles as you get beat up. Any settings you adjust in the options menu, resets every game.
– Real player with 28.8 hrs in game
Empires of the Undergrowth
One of my favorite indie games. While only in early access, it easily has several hours worth of content already.
Four colony types are available as of posting, with more to be released in the future, each with its own unique features. The ereptor, gene thief ants, a fictional species that allows the player to mix in other ant species and their abilities; the fusca, black ants, which act as an introductory species with basic worker and soldier roles; the rufa, wood ants, which split their soldiers between defensive and offensive roles; the atta, leaf cutter ants, which have a unique resource system involving gathering, food production, and waste disposal, as well as four castes to make resources and combat more dynamic.
– Real player with 683.7 hrs in game
This game is great and is most likely to be enjoyed by fans of the real time strategy genre. Currently there are 4 levels each with a challenge mode and many difficulty settings which you will tackle as you control two different species of ant colony. The ants must collect food to grow their colony which can in itself have various different methods applied such as the strategic placement of tiles for upgrading purposes to the ratio of worker ants to warrior ants so that they can defeat the many hungry predators around them which seek to devour their queen! For those who like a challenge you will get quite a bit of enjoyment and playtime from tackling the hardest versions of these levels as for others this will be a shorter 2-3 hour experience which will be enjoyable nonetheless. inbetween these levels you will visit your formicariam (ANT TANK) where your success in these levels provides resources for your main colony which is a species of ant that can take the genes from other ant species and have their queen produce them within the colony. This formicarium colony itself has two challenges to face which are kind of like a hoard mode. If you finish all of this content and are still eager for more there are a handfull of other modes which may entertain for awhile such as the demo levels (earlier levels with a more basic concept), arena mode (a mode where you can pit various creatures found in the game against each other) and Freeplay mode (where you start a colony on one of two maps with many options for you to tweak for a customised experience which is scored upon the defeat of your colony) and finally the hungry spider level which sees you take control of the one of the ants most deadly predators THE WOLF SPIDER! (This is a slight genre flip as you control the one spider which grows and levels as you defeat enemies working your way up to bringing down other huge predators.) I very highly reccomend this game and support the development team who are constantly keeping the community around the game informed on what they are working on next.
– Real player with 281.9 hrs in game
Ruinarch
A fun game that is definitely in early access.
Edited: 7/30/2021. The game has been significantly changed since I posted my first review, and its' unfortunately not all for the better.
The Good:
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Villagers have been overhauled significantly, and their interactions with each other and the world are much more interesting. They earn money to buy resources, have more robust individual trades, craft items, and all sorts of other fun stuff.
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The way monsters are used has been vastly improved. Rather than just spawning them next to a villager and letting them have at it, they are formed into parties, led by one of your demons, to accomplish a specific purpose. Marauder parties from the marauder building break stuff and attack villagers to sow chaos, snatching parties kidnap villagers or monsters for imprisonment, and defense parties protect your base full-time. It’s a bit monotonous to reform the parties repeatedly if you make heavy use of them, but this alone has made Ravager a lot more fun.
– Real player with 36.0 hrs in game
UPDATE: hot damn, that’s one hell of an update. 10/10 guys, very cool.
At first, I thought this was the “Devil Simulator” I’ve always wanted. But the longer I played, the more frustrated I became with this game. I’ll start with the Good things, follow up with the Bad, and leave you with my suggestions for improvement.
The Good
-The AI is tremendously well made, just as advertised. Each NPC has different traits, different relationships with other NPC’s, and adjusts it’s behavior over time as it interacts with the other NPC’s. The level of care and attention that went into this facet of the game is dumbfounding, considering this is, at it’s core, “God Simulator meets Sim City”. As an example, if you turn enough villagers into vampires or cultists, they can split off and form their own societies.
– Real player with 23.7 hrs in game
Beetle Uprising
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Very cute.
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Very relaxing.
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The evolution system is realistic.
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You can feel the power growing.
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Kind of dislike the fact that we must kill our own beetles.
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Don’t be too boldy. It is a relaxing game. Not a “Conquer as quick as possible” game.
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You end up with a mess on the floor.
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Decorations are useless and lack of potential.
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Kind of annoying how the inventories work. Lack of organization. Annoying to navigate.
Conclusion :
I am really not sure if this game is supposed to be beautiful or efficient…
– Real player with 22.2 hrs in game
While at this time it is still in early access, this title has a lot going for it even with some of the drawbacks.
Its a nice little management game with some real time tactics for the combat, that grows in depth once you start playing around with the genetics to improve your combat abilities. You go from simply looking at your highest stat numbers and trying to combine them, into looking at the genetic tree of your particular units then breeding based off that to improve on your entire gene pool, which does lead into one aspect of the game that needs some work in my opinion at this stage as you spend a lot of time just sat there, combining genes then throwing the inferior beetles into a blender to make room for the next set.
– Real player with 21.3 hrs in game
Garbage: Hobo Prophecy
Can’t recommend the game, based on the demo…
You start out with RIDICULOUSLY little resources, and then you’re supposed to survive and scrounge together a living by traveling to different areas/zones to collect more resources. The problem is that my hobo died of cold before I could get warmth (since your hunger/warmth/hygiene/energy is constantly draining from the start of the game). This makes the game a constant juggle of your hobo(s)’s resources and your hobo camp is raided by other hobos every couple of minutes. I think that the game could be playable, if there were more resources to be gotten or if there was a reliable way to generate resources, but currently there isn’t. Now, that would make the game playable, but it still wouldn’t be enjoyable imo. Quite a lot of stuff needs to be done before this game becomes enjoyable, nevermind playable. So in its current state, I can’t recommend the game, but I’ll try the full version of the game down the line and see if that is at least good enough to be recommended.
– Real player with 124.5 hrs in game
I’ve had a chance to test this game on my friends account and I can to say one thing for a fact - this game is difficult.
One thing is watching how someone plays it, but the real deal is playing it. Very soon you realise it shares some similarities with heroes of might and magic 3, where few silly decisions can cost your life in future.
The game keeps punishing you for every mistake you do, nor training too much, neither trying to quickly go through the quests will do the trick. I love the way this game tingles your anxiety when the winter comes and you realise that your main issue is not the food anymore. Stacking up supplies might help you pass through the winter which reminded me a great strategy game - Northgard.
– Real player with 25.0 hrs in game
Bird by Example
What is Bird by Example?
Bird by Example is — and I say this with great passion — an RPG sandbox where all the occupying NPCs are grotesque birds who mimic your behavior with deep learning algorithms. Nothing is scripted! Everything is emergent! Be the bird you want to see in the world!
Steam has asked me to be more explicit with the game’s features:
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world
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objects
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jump
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crawl
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punch
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squawk
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bite
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physics objects
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other*
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stories??**
It’s an artificial intelligence sandbox acted out by birds with concerning musculature! Help them see, help them love, help them eat a big fat bug! Right now at this very second, the metaphysical bounds of this game hold a throng of hungry birds who wish nothing more than to be like you! Like Mama!
_*: Imprint psuedo-neurologically upon independent bird agents, using recurrent neural networks, gradient descent, and a custom-built system of semiotic metadata evocation (to afford transferrable behavior between distinct objects and agents which share characteristics along an n-dimensional space).
**: Isn’t life a story? Aren’t we all little stories, flying on this crazy rock?_
You said this was a game? Who’s Mama? I’m Mama? Who are you again?
Please pay attention. These birds are equipped with artificial neural networks that optimize themselves against your own actions! Using trendy deep learning algorithms found in a black box at the bottom of the sea, and something called ‘gradient descent’, they will try to become mathematically perfect distillations of you! It’s very computationally expensive and very math!
But what do you actually do?
Explore, follow self-imposed rules, and cultivate your flock! Tutor a bird to act just like you! By simply doing things, they will learn from you by witnessing your play! Bite an orange and you may start to see other birds doing similarly! Squawk at a another bird and watch your flock erupt into squawkage!
Oh! That’s interesting. So they have brains!?
Woah, strong word! Let’s avoid that word!
Have you ever played a game, and thought: “This is fun, but I live in such fear that I cannot enjoy it…”
Yes, I do live a life of fear! And thank you for blowing off my silly and ethically challenging question!
Yes, you do live in fear! You’re like any brain-wielding creature! But in Bird by Example there will be nothing to be afraid of! In bird world there is nothing to be afraid of! Nothing to be afraid of! Turn that brain off!
Okay. And the game is fun? It’s a game?
You must teach the rest of the birds basic life skills! If not, they will all starve to death!
Wait, you coded these birds to feel hungry but didn’t teach them how to eat?
That feature was out of scope! Please!!! Hungry!!!
Hold on… What’s a bird?
A bird is a fictional creature which came to me in a dream on a particularly cold night in February. I woke up in a sweat the next morning and quickly tried to recreate the apparition from memory. The results? Remarkable.
Earliest known footage of a “Bird” from that morning.
They were perfect. All they needed was a name.
The word ‘Bird’ is a mix of the word ‘word’ and the letter ‘b’ This is because I needed a word — or “wird” — to describe the birds. Sadly, a word using ‘a’ was already taken. It’s like gamertags!
I experimented for many weeks with flight, but no matter how much I stretched out their arms they would not.
Whatever. Doesn’t matter.