Spirit Island
(My biases up front, I am a backer on Indigogo, a beta tester, and a fanboy of the developer. I’ve also played a little bit on physical)
The game is an excellent recreation of the physical game. The creator of the physical game was involved in the development of this port and it follows the rules very well.
It should be noted that this game is very dense. There is a ton to keep track of and many rules to keep in mind. The physical game has this problem too. Experienced players will not have too many problems but people new to the game will have to spend some time figuring it out. As of now, the full rule set is available but a full tutorial is slated for the full release. And yes, the rule book is something one would do well to read carefully.
– Real player with 220.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Destruction Nature Games.
Understand first and foremost, this game is complex, and will melt your brain. A traditional play of this game is done with 2-4 players working together, talking back and forth to help people push back the invaders and win the game.
This doesn’t have online multiplayer [aside from remote hotseat via Steam’s remote play]. So you’re probably going to be playing 2-4 characters yourself.
Suddenly, your options are immensely increased. Playing just 2 characters is much more difficult than just 1 – and 4 player games will melt your brain with the amount of decisions that you’ll be asked to make individually. It’s not an uncommon move to have one character play a card to allow your second character to have enhanced range to move something into range of your third character being able to defeat it along with two other enemies they were going to destroy already.
– Real player with 153.4 hrs in game
Scuffed Tower Defense
A must play game. Scuffed Tower Defense is genuinely a lot of fun to play, and I’d recommend picking it up if you’ve got the money. Buster.
Buster
- Buster.
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Destruction Turn-Based Tactics Games.
When I first saw this game, I had high expectations, mainly because of its resemblance of the hidden gem New EPIC SCUFFED BHOP SIMULATOR 2023 (POGCHAMP). After playing it, I can gladly say, my already high expectations were blown out of the water by this modern masterpiece. Most triple A games cannot even compare to the work of art that is this game. From the aesthetic design, to the gameplay, everything about this game is the definition of groundbreaking.
When it comes to aesthetic design, this game is perfect. Menus are simple, yet effective. The background of the main menu in specific shows gameplay that makes you pumped to play. The sound design has real bangars that always get you hyped for the next wave. The enemy design is minimalistic, but charming. The levels in the game all have a charm to them in a different way. From the dark lighting of the asteroid, to the minimalistic style of the fall, every level feels different from the last. The voice acting has tons of personality and sets a tone for the rest of the game. Even the towers all shoot bright bullets that feel really satisfying to watch tear down the enemies. Also the doggo is really cute I wish I could pet him.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
Shadows Behind the Throne 2
Remember “That Which Sleeps” the kickstarter game that promised that you could play as Cthulhu and corrupt the world and a million other things, but then the dev took the money and ran and never delivered.
Implausibly Shadows is not only the game that was promised, but it delivers. The graphics are a little off and the interface is a little confusing, but goddamn is it fun to corrupt and dismantle several civilizations until eternal winter falls upon the land. There is a lot of room to grow, and here is hoping it keeps growing.
– Real player with 119.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Destruction God Game Games.
Great game. It’s a bit like Ruinarch, if you’ve ever played that, except on a strategic level. Lots of variety in the ways you can take down a kingdom. Very replayable and it’s right up my alley.
That said, it’s EXTREMELY rough. As EA as you can get while still being playable.
- Kind of a crap, poorly thought out UI. For example, saves are placed in alphabetical order instead of chronological order where your most recent one is at the top. You might have 7 autosaves, and the one you’re looking to load is save number 3, halfway down the screen and you have to look at the time to know that’s the one you want. I called my manual save aaa, so it will be at the top of the list. That’s a small thing, but there are a lot of poorly designed UI functions like that and it impacts the level of information you get from the game.
– Real player with 39.5 hrs in game
Shadows of Forbidden Gods
TLDR - Great, unique Lovecraftian turn-based grand strategy game.
The player takes on the mantle of one of multiple eldritch gods with different play styles, bent on bringing their particular brand of apocalypse. The first unlocked god is the most simple - She Who Will Feast, a giant snake that focuses on corrupting heroes and rulers through “enshadowing” them. She starts weak, without a real worldly presence, before awakening, destroying civilised lands and ultimately eating the world. Other gods include Iastur, the Laughing King who focuses on spreading madness to all, Vinerva a god representing nature’s bounties but with a serious catch, Mammon (unreleased at time of writing) who offers great material wealth for the small price of eating people and Ophanim (unreleased at the time of writing) who offers mankind salvation from the aforementioned enshadowment but at the cost of their autonomy.
– Real player with 23.7 hrs in game
My plan to destroy the world was foiled but its okay because I can change the chosen one’s name to Ligma Balls as a final act of primordial malice
– Real player with 19.7 hrs in game
Olden: Card Game
Olden: Card Game is designed in such a way that every battle will give a different and unique experience. A mix of overpowered and weak cards in your hand and deck will constantly test you and your opponent ability to adapt and make the best out of the current situation. In order to give players a form of individuality and theory crafting outside the match, the game offers unique talent systems per every avatar that will help the player with various perks.
In this battle of entities there is no deck building and no card collecting, so all you need to do in order to enter the match is to choose your avatar and hit the play button.
For now, there is: Entity of Light, Death, Chaos and Life.
Your entity will give your troops a unique bonus during the whole length of the game.
Basic rules
To win the game, the player needs to harvest 300 value points. Your entity receives value points whenever you sacrifice your own cards.
Once your turn begins, you receive 2 tokens: an action token and a draw token. Your options are to:
- Play a card and build your board presence
or
- Engage in combat by attacking one of your opponents’ cards
or
- sacrifice your own card, so you can harvest its current value.
Doing any one of these three things will consume your action token.
To consume your draw token, simply click on the main deck to draw a card, and that’s it.
For now, there are 3 card abilities, effect, passive and combat.
Effect is something that will happen only once, at the moment a card is played by the player. A card’s effect does not trigger in cases where you summon or resurrect it with other cards. Effects take place only if they are played directly from your hand.
A card’s passive ability will be present so long as the chosen card is on the board. Once the card with the passive ability is removed from the board, its passive ability will go away along with it.
Combat ability is something that will only trigger once that card engages in combat with an enemy card.
As mentioned, you can use your turn to perform an attack action and engage in combat. To perform an attack, simply place your card on the top of the opponent card. After one turn, your card value number will sink its value into the opposing card. If your card has enough value to destroy your opponent’s card, it will do so, and then it will return to your side of the board.
If your card does not have enough value to destroy an opponent’s card, it will do its damage after one turn, and then be destroyed.
You can engage in combat with cards that are already on the board, or with the cards from your hand.
One card can be attacked by multiple cards at the same time.
To win the game, a player needs to harvest 300 value points. Players can harvest value points by sacrificing their own cards that are not currently in combat. To perform a card sacrifice, select your card, and then click on its respective altar. Performing a card sacrifice will consume your action token.
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We thank you for having the time to check out our first game.
Element
Really fascinating game. Still obviously rough around the edges, especially as the difficulty ramps WAY up in the campaign very fast - I might say frustratingly fast. A bit more “Clicky” than I normally prefer but a very interesting alternative the the usual RTS fare and a lovely visual presentation. A lot of potential, assuming it keeps getting developed.
A few things I hope will play out as development goes along:
- A gentler ramping up of difficulty. The first two planets are challenging for a newcomer, but easily beaten. The third one is suddenly far more difficult. I find this just a bit too punishing - a smoother curve is needed.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
I’m really impressed with the graphic design, that’s why I bought this game at first glimpse, it is almost a game I’ve dreamt of.
But the game mechanic is pretty disappointing.
The bigggest issue is that the mechanic make players have to carefully protect the enemey while not die to it. If you killed your oppenent without taking the mines, you might lose accidentally (which is not a rare situation, since your mines can be took down by enemies in a fight). This makes the game very tough and frustrating when the enemy starts really strong, and it is very annoying when you lose a game you shaw have won.
– Real player with 5.5 hrs in game
Imperia Online
Okay, let’s go… For all those who are considering this game need to know some facts.
First thing first. It’s pure pay to win game. Meaning if you want to win era/season you need to buy: Premium, Subscription, take daily offers and so on… Or if you have luck to join some rich players alliances and they carry you all the way up.
Second thing; There are cheaters/scripters in game. There are 3rd party people who sell those stuff and when some rich player who spent so much money on the game use those stuff (scripts) IO admins will look otherway. So, as long as you’re spending money you can use cheats do frauds; you are protected.
– Real player with 7366.2 hrs in game
As far as I can tell this is the best empire builder mmo I’ve come across so far. I’ve been overlooking this game for a long time. Right now I’m pretty happy I finally decided to give it a shot. It caught me by surprise to be honest. I started off playing these types of games with Evony. Later on I tried Forge Of Empires, Ikariam, O Game. I played Stronghold Empires Online for a good time, and that’s not a bad empire builder game. But, as of now, I don’t think I’ve found a better one than Imperia Online. I’m pretty surprised to be honest. If you’ve ever played any of the games I’ve played then you most definitely want to give this one a shot. I especially like the aspect of managing a court of nobles which you appoint as generals and governors. I’ve never seen this aspect to an Empire Builder before. Pretty fun.
– Real player with 226.4 hrs in game
Planet Nomads
[May 16, 2019: Now that the game is released, I wanted to edit this review to reflect changes to the game since I originally wrote it,]
Will you enjoy Planet Nomads?
-
Yes if you enjoy sandbox building games.
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Yes if you enjoy being creative.
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Yes if you enjoy problem-solving (not fixed puzzles but real creative “how can I put this together” building challenges).
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Yes if you enjoy a beautiful environment.
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Yes if you enjoy a good soundtrack.
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Yes if you enjoy single player.
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Yes if you enjoy being able to customize your game world.
– Real player with 4203.3 hrs in game
Gameplay (Short Summary)
Let me start off this review by saying, that the game currently has very little to offer in terms of gameplay if you are not much of a creative person, but if you are, then be prepared to a big grind fest early on in the game until you get the ability to construct auto miners, after that prepare yourself to the next gameplay phase - driving simulator, because resources are scattered across multiple biomes and while driving at max speed from 30-50kmph, it takes a while to get you around the map.
– Real player with 120.7 hrs in game
Total War: THREE KINGDOMS
I’ve been a fan of Total War games, but I’ve typically stayed away from ancient/classical warfare titles like Rome, Shogun and Medieval. I’ve gravitated more to the early-modern titles like Empire and Napoleon. So, by all logic, I should have avoided this one.
Why?
Well, despite this being yet another rendition of ancient warfare, it’s set in a period of history that I am not very familiar with (the eponymous Three Kingdoms Era of Chinese history, and the fall of the Han dynasty). Based on the famous historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, TW3K allows you to take on the role of one of many warlords during this period and forge a new dynasty for China. This game was really my first true exposure to this period of history and all the fascinating characters that inhabited it. I suspect the story is much the same for any other Westerner playing this game. I can say definitively that playing this game made me want to research more about the Three Kingdoms period and its prominent actors (my personal favorites are the Sun family).
– Real player with 1266.7 hrs in game
While I do agree with most people on how bad CA have schrewed up with cencoring mods, and partnering with NetEase, I will speak for the game and the game only.
It has potential.
It has Interest.
But it falls short… Quite short.
Firstly, Three Kingdoms do a lot of things right, if you can ignore the bugs. Let’s go over that before we tackle the bad.
-The foodsystem, while I would have liked it to be more advanced, is a nice toutch.
-Diplomacy has a new coat of paint and seems to be a bit more smooth and easy to understand. With personalities to each faction leader, making them unique and interesting to negotiate with.
– Real player with 822.5 hrs in game
Planetary Annihilation: TITANS
It’s about time I sat down and gave this wonderful game a review.
In Short
PA is a game about big stuff. Massive armies. Massive titans. Massive possibility. No matter how you intend to play the game – casually, competitively, or even just striking it out on your own – you will find many hours of enjoyment not only wielding planet-smashing power, but also finding yourself improve over time as you learn the ins and outs of this humongous RTS. Just buy it already!
The Actual Review
– Real player with 2282.9 hrs in game
TLDR; great game, large scale, has nukes, can blow up planets, but can be fustratingly slow in the late game. The game is totally worth your money if it costs less than 5 dollars.
Update (1/27/19): The devs just announced that their servers have been optimized for more performance. I haven’t tested it out yet but it sounds very promising.
Ignoring the questionable decisions that the developers have made about the game, in terms of funness (you can say whatever you want, but the word is real to me), PA: Titans is one of the best RTS games that I have played. Unlike many other RTS games, the game runs on a flow economy, so rather than paying upfront the complete cost of a unit, your resources slowly drain as your unit becomes built, which leads to interesting tactics, like destroying most of the power generators of your opponent if you spot them building game enders, effectively pausing their production.
– Real player with 166.9 hrs in game