Bleeding Moons
A unique and entertaining point and click adventure game in the vein of Space Pilgrim about war, politics, love and everything in between. The game is more of an interactive novel, the puzzle part is very easy, too easy I would say, so if you are expecting to get creative about picking things and combining them in the inventory, this is not the game for you.
The game tackles adult issues such as rape and abuse, but very tastefully, which is testament to the overall excellent writing. The world is rich with characters and they all have a story, even the many NPCs will tell you their tale. The creators really took their time with every detail, including some humorous: in a city with many stray dogs, of course you will find poop on the street :) … which should have been an achievement itself.
– Real player with 35.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Diplomacy Dark Fantasy Games.
First of all, I’m writing this review as a huge THANK YOU to the creator. I just finished the game and I’m absolutely in love with it! I spent about a good 10 hours playing through the story and because I’m that kind of guy that wants to know everything, I logged over 200 saves. I’ll be going back to my final save later this week to try something a little different. After that I’m likely to try again from the beginning to see what I might be able to change.
! I was surprised to find out I was locked out of Luna’s ending but the rest were available to me
– Real player with 13.8 hrs in game
Ambition: A Minuet in Power
I almost fainted when I saw Ambition’s premise. A choose-your-own adventure? With political intrigue and love interests?! Taking place in the French Revolution!? It seemed perfect for me - and, oh, it was!
You play as Yvette Decaux, a woman who travels to Paris on the eve of the French Revolution to rendezvous with her fiance, a baron named Armand. But oh no! He’s missing! You have the option to try and find him, and/or abandon him for one or more of the five other love interests. Each of those love interests are part of a faction - the Crown, the Church, the Military, the Bourgeoisie, and the Revolution. To build your power, you must go to parties thrown by these factions to meet your romance options, collect gossip, and participate in a randomized and vast array of entertaining minor intrigues. The gossip you get can be sold for money (used to buy dresses, pay rent, bribe the authorities, and purchase coffee - the usual!) or bend the factions to your will. You can increase or decrease their power, or nudge the middle factions towards the Crown or Revolution.
– Real player with 146.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Diplomacy Roguelite Games.
First and foremost: this game gets my recommendation. Its content is deep, compelling, and interesting. Despite having limited hours to do so, I wanted to keep playing. The historical perspective seems incredibly well researched and founded (though I admit I am not a good source to weigh in on historical legitimacy), the characters were diverse, and the story was compelling.
That being said, I found numerous issues. The most frustrating being that many of the randomly generated interactions kept appearing “out of order” in such a way that the story felt massively interrupted and disjointed. I’m honestly not sure if it’s some strange series of choices I made to cause this, but I kept accidentally running into one of the main characters in the game in side missions at parties in which she would act as if we had some very contemptuous history, when in reality, I had never even seen her before let alone (to my knowledge) upset her before. As I found from playing the entire game, I believe she was destined to be an adversary, but I was SO confused when I was playing. There were several other instances in which I found that interactions I had already had with characters didn’t jive with interactions I went on to have with them subsequently, and honestly, this is my biggest issue with the game.
– Real player with 48.2 hrs in game
4th Generation Warfare
This Is an update to the review 11/20/21
Single player Is not bad to play. There are quality of life things that needs to be Improved.
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Instead of checking the phone for each person or backing out the menu to re open to view messages from characters to have a simple list of all messages.
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When you tell your military to move somewhere they will move Into borders of countries and start a war If still there traveling In two or three days.
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More defence from cyber attacks. As a large country you cannot defend against this. Other actors can ruin your entire economy and cause mass shortages withing days.
– Real player with 106.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Diplomacy Wargame Games.
In the beginning it was confusing but the more I played the more I realized all of the hidden treasures that this game has behind its sleeve. Its not those games that tells you everything right off the bat and spoiling all the fun by doing so, this is a progressive type game that the longer you play the more you discover and develop a history as the leader of the nation. By far one of the most underestimated games with extremely high potential by far I have ever seen to date. If you don’t like this game cause its hard, tutorials aren’t good, or you don’t understand the game play, I would say that the game provides difficulty levels and different modes to play through, play the actual game and this is 4th generation warfare which you should have researched what that means if you don’t know. Great Game!
– Real player with 98.8 hrs in game
Imperium BCE
Be a leader of one of the greatest civilizations in the world. Bring glory to Rome, in our upcoming title, Imperium BCE.
Would you expand Rome’s borders through war? Or would you use spies to sabotage other kingdoms, divide tribes? In Imperium BCE, you can use many different strategies, to bring about the inevitable Roman dominion.
Surrounded by so many different kingdoms, cultures and leaders, you will need to maintain balance and spread your influence slowly, so as not to alarm your neighbors. Your spies will have to work in secret, act on your orders, to strengthen your culture and religion, making your enemies weaker. Your diplomats might work on improving relations with other kingdoms or might provide you with valid justification for war.
Events
Being in control of a sprawling empire comes at a cost. Unexpected things happen. Events take place which are outside of the control of even the most powerful people. In Imperium BCE, there are events that can hold you back or propel you forward.
An unforeseen rain might ruin the crops. This can lead to food shortages, citizen dissatisfaction, anger with the Gods for letting it happen, or maybe anger with you, for not doing enough for your people. Will you find a way to appease them?
Will you follow the advice of your priests, and have rituals conducted, to celebrate your Gods, at a great cost of the coin, in order to make your citizens happy?
Your choices could have dire consequences. Thread carefully.
Spies
Weaken your enemies. Soften the battlefield. Some of your greatest assets in Imperium BCE will be your spies.
Well trained to operate in secret, your spies will sabotage, assassinate, and do whatever it takes to make Roman take-over easier. Give your spies time and resources, and they will steal essential supplies, spread your culture far and wide, and even disperse diseases, which can devastate entire populations.
Just hope that they never get caught…
War
Train some of the mighties warriors that ever walked the Earth.
Bring your enemies to their knees with advanced battle strategies, reward your soldiers with land, besiege cities, and expand your territory. Attack when your enemies are vulnerable, be able to defend your citizens against anyone who dares to make a move against you. Fight sea battles and maintain control of the sea.
When the dust settles, Rome should have prevailed!
Diplomacy
Win hearts and minds, improve relations, give gifts. Hide your true intentions.
Your diplomats will repair the damage in reputation, caused by your conquests. A good diplomat will make an agitated king feel at ease as if the Roman invasion is not just around the corner. When the time is right, they will provoke and insult, leading kings and their people, into your well-prepared trap.
Wars can be prevented or set in motion by a crafty diplomat. Use them well.
Building
Provide your architects with the resources needed to build the unimaginable!
Develop your cities, turn villages into towns, have your citizens witness Rome growing beyond their wildest imagining. Build structures that will stand the test of time. Different buildings will provide you with different benefits but will take time to construct. Plan your expansion carefully.
Your enemies will be envious of your achievements!
Discoveries
Encourage bright minds to work on inventions, for the benefit of all.
With more than 50 technological discoveries available to research, or even steal from other kingdoms, gain the upper hand and crush your enemies. As some discoveries can take years to be put into use, you will have to choose carefully which discovery to pour limited resources into.
Have patience. Good things take time.
Laws
Legislation was of great importance to the Roman public.
Choose between different governing political systems, and enact laws that will help shape your society. Organize your people, bring about needed changes, make improvements for your citizens, and reap the benefits of well-structured communities with clear rules and responsibilities.
Watch Rome prosper before your eyes!
Fort Sumter: The Secession Crisis
A very faithful implementation of the original board game, which is a Eurogame by design with a historical ACW theme tagged on it. The game does have a decent AI and can be played solitaire as a result. Statistics on your own profile is available and so you can track your own performance vs. the AI. The only downside is the program still has a bug, freezing the solitaire game play from time to time and it seems Playdek was not aware of the issue. The multiplayer is easy to set up and game with score, measuring how you fare against others. However, there is no world ranking in the game, and different level of AI there is not. You can get notification in email when it is your turn in a game with another. A chat room is available but most of the time it is dormant. There is an alternate mapboard to give the game a variant, non-location look but I doubt people to use such a boring map. The gameplay is abstract and there is no manual inside the game or here on the Steam. You have to download it from the boardgame publisher GMT, as long as you are aware of it. This is absolutely a minor for the newcomer as the game itself is abstract and you are quite probably knowing what you are doing in the first few games. Once you get a hang out of the system, the game is smooth and quick to finish in 10 to 15 minutes. Overall, Fort Sumter is a game of tile-placement competing for control of the areas on the map. Score: 6.5/10.
– Real player with 79.0 hrs in game
I’ve been on the road a ton in the past couple of weeks and played the hell out of this. In about 60 offline games and a half-dozen online games I haven’t noted any gameplay bugs or rules/cards implementation problems as noted in another review. The recent AI bugfix improved the AI, and it’s competent enough in a mechanistic sense, but it' still a bit weak against experienced players, especially as it relates to setting things up in terms of the long game and Final Crisis. To be fair, that’s something the many human players don’t grok until they’ve played a while (which I have as an owner of the board game).
– Real player with 51.2 hrs in game
Gerrymander Madness
What?!? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Gerrymander Madness is a free VR experience. It worked on my system, looked ok, played ok, sounded ok. This software was designed for a museum environment. The rooms looked nice. Needs more time on the clock. I didn’t see how to subtract or shrink a district’s borders. The controller scheme needs work.
I live in North Carolina and i am well aware of all the Gerrymandering that has been done to all the Voting districts in the state. This program might help educate others of what political dirty tricks have been done to the state citizens. Both parties have been and still are guilty of this.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
POWER
I recommend this game but there are some major things missing from it.
Missing from international diplomacy:
-Sanctions
-Illegal annexations
-Proxy-wars (non-declared wars)
-Any international punishment system VIA the UN at all (that has been demonstrated)
-International court/UN positions that manage world politics
-smaller countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Korea(s)) that don’t necessarily play a roll in world politics as heavily as the current nations
-secession (though that may be hard to do)
– Real player with 3095.3 hrs in game
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying my time with this game so far. But I would NOT recommend it to anyone. Unless you have very specific interests in you game mostly involving chatting on Discord apparently. I’m having fun bumbling through and clicking around and being sort of a maverick. But honestly the community seems REALLY toxic (as you might expect) and overall this game is just not what I thought it would be. I’m just playing every free game I can get my hands on right now until Cyberpunk 2077 comes out, cause I’m SOOO bored of everything else I own right now. If you’re in a similar boat, or feel like toxic discord servers are where you thrive, give the game a try then.
– Real player with 20.8 hrs in game
PRINCIPIA: Master of Science
Summary
A rather simple game with a huge potential. Overall, it is great now, but if the devs are able to improve on the concept by introducing more scientists, fields of science, and perhaps more locations/academies, it can become truly amazing.
What works
1. You can pick one of about a dozen scientists from the era of enlightenment, and guide him throughout his career. You choose what to concentrate on, you can study, attend lectures, conduct experiments, compose scientific papers and much more.
– Real player with 24.7 hrs in game
You can’t tell this is a outstanding game, but it is amazing. BGM, graphic, system especially this theme is rather KOEI than Paradox. It reminds me about my PSP and the mighty Daikoukai Jidai IV.
I really want to see dlc for this game like more scientists, more theory, more universities. I think there still be a lot of system improvement and details can be developed. Such as more countries can have different budgets to invite scientist or build better universities and labs; a interdisciplinary research systems; relationship between professors and students etc.
– Real player with 21.1 hrs in game
Intelligence Trader
I’ve been playing this for about 4 hours and I like it so far. It definitely feels like the game is unfinished and there’s more to come, but the basic premise of the game is clear.
Pros:
Fun concept
Interesting story lines and missions
Nice graphics (I like the look of the agent photos)
Clear interface/map
Lots of potential for expansion by tying in the missions completed with the news headlines
Cons:
A little unorganized. You can’t click on an agent placed in country and get information about them. When intel comes in to sell, you have to scroll around to figure out the highest bidder. (easily remedied with an icon indicating high and low price, or maybe highlighting with certain colors to shoe high or low)
– Real player with 6.7 hrs in game
Bought it hoping find something similar to Kremlingames products. Unfortunately realised that it’s too early to buy it. Started the game and understand nothing. Russian translation is not finished, in some places in place of words I saw just black strips… Surprise… Cannot return an agent back from a country to base. News are very interesting, but I’d like to see it in a new window. Time moves too slow. There is no explanation what is specialization of agents.
Perhaps it’s only in Russian version, didn’t play English one. Hope to see something remarkable and interesting in future)
– Real player with 5.9 hrs in game
Democracy 4
Solid 7/10 overall. Just don’t base your own politics on it. I’d say this game shines in its core mechanics and falls down in the accuracy of the policies/objectivity of the developer.
The only mechanical issue is that GDP is not generated by population but is in stead seemingly separate. So growing the population of a prosperous country does not correspondingly grow GDP.
Certain policies (cough college tuition cough) are way off in terms of cost versus performance and seem more like a policy ad from the dev than balanced game elements.
– Real player with 174.0 hrs in game
Good game, more polished than the predecessor. Don’t be afraid of early access. It would be suitable as a finished game.
Would be nice to have some scenarios or what not to spice it up.
– Real player with 16.9 hrs in game