As Far As The Eye
This game was incredibly brutal until I discovered the Council building and the Knowledge resource, and then it became an incredibly fair and deep city-building/roguelike/4x game.
The biggest problem with the game is there isn’t a good reference for how all the mechanics work. I think it will be better once an online wiki is available.
My tips for a winning initial game:
Opening:
1. Get 40 wood and build a sawmill. Assign one of your workers to be a gatherer and gather wood. Later, when you don’t need wood, switch this worker to be a food gatherer and build a fruit hut for 80 (you can do this earlier if you get a 4th worker). You should have enough rations for this, and the carpenter/fruit gatherer jobs share the first 3 levels.
– Real player with 26.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Colony Sim Building Games.
I too believe that this is a nice game if you enjoy roguelike games.
When I first saw the list of buildable buildings I was worried the game wouldnt have much depth, as there are exactly 15 buildings which can be built.
So .. I was worried I will just figure out how things work and lose interest in the game after a few days, because I found some safe winning strategy.
Luckily it was different!
The overall difficulty is quite high. After the tutorial campaign you get to play 4 tribes with increasing difficulty (you have to start with the lowest difficulty tribe). However, even that tribe took me quite some effort to win with.
– Real player with 25.2 hrs in game
MicroTown
Very fun village builder, easy to learn, on my second run I got to the end goal (Monument). Not much random so not a lot of replay value at present. Highly recommended but don’t expect it to keep your interest past one solid day at the present state. I really look forward to new developments in this game! Some specifics:
1. Nice easy to learn mechanics
2. Tutorial needs to teach balancing, in particular (a) how do you tell when to add workers at a building, and (b) how do you know when to build more houses, and © show how to change the number of builders & carriers
– Real player with 56.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Colony Sim Base Building Games.
Worth the $8, a good game to mindlessly play while listening to music or a podcast. I recommend turning on background play so i can click away and do other stuff while the little guys idle away. I’d like to see a better graphics option and more content as it is updated but you get exactly the kind of game you expect. It’s quaint and relaxing. I’m satisfied.
–-{Graphics}—
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☑ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Paint.exe
—{Gameplay}—
☐ Very good
– Real player with 21.1 hrs in game
Signals
This is the game for Vibing!
Its super chill and the perfect for winding down.
The music really sets the mood of the game and the next thing you know you know, you’ve lost track of time and its time for bed. The controls are intuitive and the shortcuts become muscle memory, navigation works well and the UI is clean.
First play I sat there and completed the campaign mode and am now ready for getting those achievements in “Run mode”. Campaign helped to learn how the economy works and gave some backstory to the “signals”.
– Real player with 10.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Colony Sim Economy Games.
I really wanted to like this game. I don’t like combat games, or games that test hand-eye coordination. This has a lot to like for somebody like me. The problem is the interface. There’s no decent help. I passed challenge #1, but couldn’t pass challenge #2. So I tried the run mode. There are three icons at the top of the bottom bar. I can’t repair the portal until I have all three resources, and I can’t even figure out what the third resource is. Whatever I do, it stays at zero. It might be titanium, but I’ve three three runs and checked every planet and I can’t find any with titanium. And I can’t find a way to get advice. So I’m done.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Before We Leave
I have personally been enjoying this game very much! I appreciate that I don’t need to worry about war or combat, nor must I consider the monetary value of my peoples (ie. slavery). It still can be challenging, and I was pleasantly surprised by the little challenges it throws your way (ex: the gremlins!). The aesthetic is very pleasing, and it isn’t very demanding graphically. I would definitely recommend this! I’ve written out some of my experiences and some tips! ♥
- The Tutorial -
Doing the tutorial is a good idea and I do recommend it, but the tutorial will take you through pretty much the whole game, or at least deep into the mid-game – this could literally be hours and hours lol. But I would suggest stopping after you have started to explore your second planet., then proceed to your own games.
– Real player with 59.2 hrs in game
At the time writing this I have little over 10 hours in the game! You tell me what I end up getting to :)
Check out this Let’s Play for More Visual and Audio Experince!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOdcC0ErbSc&list=PLjMDVXkLIQ3772ETUImsVXS_1AwZFdcKw
Before we leave is one the best games I have played in a long time for getting right into the game and understanding what to do. It’s not because it’s easy or simple. It’s because of the amazing job they did with the tutorial system and explaining the basics of the game.
– Real player with 31.8 hrs in game
Sheltered 2
There is a good game waiting to happen here but right now it is still a product that should be in Early Access.
There are TONS of bugs and features that simply don’t function well and the game balance is pretty much non-existent as it stands.
Bug example:
Your Shelter (which you have painstakingly expanded and built onto) is breached or invaded. You use the very rudimentary control scheme to position your survivors right in front of the door as they are cutting through, ready for COMBAT!!!! Then, nothing as the collision detection fails utterly and every invader literally clips through your survivors to go on and loot whatever they want.
– Real player with 111.4 hrs in game
Hooked on this game for a while. Plenty of bugs back then. But a lot of issues have been fixed, although there’s still few remains but worry not, they always working on the game! Beginning part of the game has always been fun to me, as you get used to it. its get easier later unless you are playing on harder diff cause breaches could be brutal if you aren’t careful enough. Overall, pretty chill game to spend few hours in!
– Real player with 98.7 hrs in game
Hexia
This is a game that relies heavily on luck. You can very easily get a random event that completely ruins you seconds into your game. You might end up starting a new game over and over before you make it through the first ‘story’ goal. And yet, it’s very much worth playing.
Once you get that little bit of good luck mixed with frugal resource management, you can make it through the first twenty or thirty tiles and clear the first couple of challenges. Learn your limits – don’t overspend or expand too fast. You’ll learn what impact each event choice has, which upgrades work best for your kingdom.
– Real player with 14.4 hrs in game
Had fun in the short time I’ve played and quickly figured out how to keep a 0 loss of people.
I would love to see it expand more than 100 tiles but even at 90 it became slow to move across the screen when zoomed out. Some kind of option to speed up the cursor would be needed to expand more I guess.
More levels of 100 tiles but with harder conditions would be nice if expanding to more tiles is not feasible.
The text sections are a little long and some repeat through the game, so I did as another reviewer had done and skipped through the text to find the main points.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
Zen World
Zen World is a fun chill puzzle game in the vein of Dorfromantik and Mini Metro / Motorways.
At its core its a game where you expand the map with tiles, get boxes with upgrades and resources to expand more, and in the end you get a highscore.
It feels like a very basic version of Civilization that’s drizzled down to its most essential elements (that being said I haven’t played a lot of Civilization. This is NOT a 4X game, this is a puzzle game).
The developer has stated that in time there will be full controller support, more tile types, a mid-game save/load system, multiplayer (coop and versus), custom game mode with modifiers, better visual & effects and a lot more.
– Real player with 52.0 hrs in game
Very fun to play.
It’s like Settlers of Catain, but more relaxing.
Very simple to start but is has complexes that make it a mini strategy game.
– Real player with 32.5 hrs in game
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia is a game that lets you create unique ever-growing farming villages set in ancient Greek style. In this game, you have to transform a lonely house into a charming hamlet by placing your buildings strategically, raising their level, receiving various adjacency bonuses, and expanding your territory. Magna Graecia is suitable for both who want to relax, slowly filling their village with olives and grapes, and those who want to test their strategic thinking because every ill-conceived building can be one of the last in your Greek village.
You start the game with one house in the center and six empty hexagonal tiles around it, which you have to fill using a randomly generated sequence of buildings and resources: crop field, winery, forest, and so on, gaining points along the way. To expand your village, you need to build a house that adds all adjacent tiles to the territory of the Greek hamlet. In this game, you can (and should!) level up houses, wineries, and olive farms. Leveling up mechanics are simple: 3 same first-level buildings, where each is adjacent to the other two, turn into one second-level building, which gives you amazing bonuses. For example, a second-level house adds all adjacent tiles in a radius of 2 to the village (the radius is doubled). The game ends when the limit on houses is exhausted and all tiles in your village are filled with buildings and resources.
There are two key resources in the game – olives and grapes. We can say that this is the real pride of your Greek hamlet. You should place olives and grapes on the adjacent tiles to olive farms and wineries respectively because adjacency bonuses play a very important role here: each resource gives +1 by default, and for each farm adjacent to it, this indicator increases by 1. Farms level up the same way as houses. Their radius of influence and adjacency bonuses will be doubled (now +2!), significantly increasing production in the village. Remember, that’s a very powerful tool. By placing buildings correctly, you will literally become an olive oil and wine tycoon, thereby adding a lot of points to the overall rating of your village, which will show at the end of the game, how well you did in creating a Greek farming village.
Magna Graecia offers you:
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Evaluating different options. Should I place it here? Or here?
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Reflection process. There is no timer. No one is rushing you.
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Overcoming yourself. Wanna beat your previous score? Do it.
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Free camera. You can just stop playing and fly around the village.
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Growing olives and grapes. This is the most important.
Magna Graecia does not offer you:
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Triple-A game experience
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A cinematic story
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Microtransactions
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Character customization
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Battle royale
Game mechanics are inspired by Dorfromantik and Triple Town.
Graphic design is inspired by Islanders and Kingdoms and Castles.
