Bravery Network Online
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“Ok, I have the advantage here. My Digital Attack is strong against the fighter they have out right now…”
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“If they notice this, they will probably tag out into their other fighter with a high Digital Defense stat, meaning I won’t do much damage and they will have the advantage again…”
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“If I predict their switch, and switch to my other fighter in the back with the high Physical Attack stat, I’ll keep my advantage and then be able to set up the win”
If you like this sort of turn based, mind games type combat, then you’ll love Bravery Network Online (BNO) !! It has a good selection of available fighters (with more on the way) - all with their own pools of possible attacks and tricks they can use. You can build up your team of 5 fighters and fight online against other people in both casual and ranked matchmaking. There are some story and single player elements, but BNO is mostly designed around PvP and playing online - at least at this point in early access.
– Real player with 254.8 hrs in game
I wrote my first review when I only played 5.8 hours of the game, and even then, I had a blast with the game. Now, with 195 hours in and getting 3rd place in a community run tournament, and running a tournament myself, I came back to revise my review.
The gameplay is much like competitive pokemon, you and your opponent bring in a fighter, and you select a move without knowing the opponent’s selected move. However, what I find most interesting in this game is that it does not have the random effects that can happen in pokemon. Statuses are not applied by chance, a critical hit is not random, and neither are misses, which are parries in this game. However, other reviews will talk about this at length, so I’d like to focus on another side of the game.
– Real player with 248.7 hrs in game
Mech Armada
I’ll probably come back and make this review a bit more in-depth (for me :p) at some later point in the game’s EA, but for now I can say it’s already a promising thing to get on the ground floor of. The dev’s got a good philosophy going and is receptive to feedback, and the parts of the game indies most often get wrong are already really crisp - the responsiveness of the UI and ability to quickly queue up moves/attacks is better than many AA games.
The bread and butter of the game is one you’ve seen before in a lot of roguelike-something games: you get offered random stuff, and try to build a synergy out of it. However, you also have an added layer of pretty high stakes tactical combat, with enemies having clearly marked threat areas and both killing and dying to your own mechs quickly. So there’s a lot of jockeying for positions, trying to make sure the only mechs that get attacked can take it, while looking to get into a position where all your synergies click and a huge chain of missile swarms annihilates all of the enemies.
– Real player with 37.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Early Access Roguelite Games.
Mech Armada, A Review.
So, I will give two title that might describe this game the best. Front Mission and Xcom.
Concept wise, its really like Front Mission Series. You got mechs to control in a grid, against enemy across the map. You can mix and match leg part, body part, and weapons for the mechs in your party. You could make a tank with a shield in the front and the class cannon at behind, or spamming drones and cheap mech to overwhelm your opposition. Its fun play round with the combinations.
– Real player with 26.5 hrs in game
Stolen Realm
This game is still in early access. There are lots of bugs and quirks, but the game is being regularly updated with bug fixes and new mechanics.
Do you like Dungeons and Dragons? Do you like turn based strategy games? Do you like to kill stuff? If you said yes to any of these questions, then this game may be for you.
Make a character. Go on quests to kill stuff. Level up and obtain sweet loot. These are the basics of this game.
With 8 skill trees to choose from, each with their own unique abilities, you can make your character just the way you want them to be. The best part? You can mix and match skills from any tree you want, whenever you want (so long as you have the skill points to do so). Wanna be a sneaky rogue who does lots of crits? You got it. Wanna be a fire wizard who sometimes casts ice spells? You can do that too. Do you want to make 20 attacks in one turn, each one applying a debuff that causes your target to take increased damage from all subsequent attacks? Its gonna take some effort (and a lot of luck), but it is completely possible, thanks to the skill tree!
– Real player with 42.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Early Access Party-Based RPG Games.
It’s a diablo3/PoE style aarpg with divinity/baldurs gate/wasteland turn based party combat, and it does both fantastically well. I find myself respeccing characters constantly because the skill tree is so much fun to experiment with. You select the difficulty scaling whenever you want which can scale as high as you want or as low as you want, with the rewards reflecting accordingly. Will be looking closely at future content and patches for this game.
– Real player with 42.1 hrs in game
Battle Map Studio
Decent map maker considering the fact that it’s early access. Would love a way to make custom assets. And an option for steam remote play would be amazing as my players have no need to make maps, only play on them. OR make a heavily discounted version of the program that only allows playing.
The UI is garbage as of now, hopefuly it improves over time. Will probably just use it to make custom top down 2d maps until it gets usable. Will rewrite the review when/if i test this thing out a bit more.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
If a game requires internet to be played please disclose that information.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Business Heroes: Food Truck Simulation
The Birth:
Every day while sipping his favourite Earl Grey tea, Master Lee reflects on his inability to find a true Business Hero to succeed him. The wealthiest entrepreneur alive knows only too well the cost of making a wrong choice. Refusing defeat, Master Lee decided to create the ultimate tool to reach every corner of the world. A Business Simulation challenge based on his very first business. And so, Business Heroes: Food Truck Simulation was born.
Gameplay:
Prepare to make your fortunes in any capital city of your choice. Armed with some cash and a humble burger bike, begin your journey to become the richest burger business entrepreneur in the city.
The city is packed full of several groups of people, all with different tastes, eating habits, and earning power. You’re going to have to figure out the best recipes for each of them.
Start your business with a small burger bike stand and upgrade to more exotic stands as you become more profitable.
The City has 7 locations with a different population mix and cost of doing business. To sell more burgers, you’d have to adapt your strategy to fit the population in each location.
You’d also have to deal with weather conditions like snow and rainfall which affect the population size and their willingness to buy burgers.
To be successful, you must
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Hook diverse customers with their perfect burger recipe
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Offer burgers and drinks at prices customers can’t resist
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Invest in equipment and upgrades to serve customers better
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Snatch customers from the competition with timely marketing
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Keep your employees smiling with bonuses and training that improves their skills
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Respond quickly to weather changes and unexpected events
In this business simulation, you take all the business decisions at night and watch the result of your choices unfold during the day.
Features:
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Experience fun but challenging game play inspired by real-world business and marketing strategy
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Enjoy unique business experiences growing your enterprise in the capital cities of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, Ukraine, UK, and the USA.
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Trade in the actual currency of the City you are playing in and enjoy realistic price simulation
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Upgrade and Expand your business to 7 Localities (Street Corner, Noisy Playground, Park Central, Big Station, Glamor and Hip Street, National Landmark, and The Finance Hub) within the City
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Target customers you think would be more profitable with a market segmentation strategy
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Experience weather simulation consistent with the actual weather conditions of the City you choose to play in.
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Face and overcome simulated economic conditions that will test your business acumen.
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Play against friends and family in the multiplayer/1v1 matchmaking mode.
Caravan Trade Tycoon
Erased my entire game. Also pretty monotonous because you just go from town to town without events. I never got attacked.
– Real player with 24.4 hrs in game
good game , but still have need more fix, high price
– Real player with 18.6 hrs in game
Everpixel Tactics
A fun alpha that I expect to have a good future.
Currently completely lacks any kind of option menu, has a limited UI, and an assortment of minor annoyances and game breaking bugs, with limited gameplay.
Not recommend for people who want a full game or a bug-free experience.
The game is somewhat a cross of Battle Brothers and Final Fantasy Tactics, though with no plot.
The difficulty curve is very high and balance is not great.
Current Bugs:
Game breaks during combat sometimes while stuck on AI units, once while on a player unit.
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
Magic skill says same words as melee skill, that it increases melee.
have to click random till you get a build you want on your first dude.
needs work, may be good latter.
Shows great promise, as I posted this review a few days ago, and the developer is going to make customizeing of your first guy, because of this review.
seems like if you have a good idea for the game that will clearly make it better, and mention it, they will implement it, thats gold.
Ill mention a bug, sometimes adding people that have the skills needed for a qwest doesnt change percentages, and then they get “Phantom stuck” in the slot makeing it very frustrateing.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Netherguild
Netherguild is a turn-based tactical roguelite dungeon-crawler, where you command expeditions below the earth in a desperate attempt to cure a strange plague.
Explore, camp, and fight as far as you can before heading back to resupply.
What will you discover underground?
Key Features:
Bonfires:
Construct campfires underground, rest and eat next to them. The food items you consume affect your guild members and the rest of your expedition, with passive effects, permanent changes and more!
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Combat:
Learn how to defeat different enemies (and when to flee) in combat. Hitting enemies requires no RNG - so you can depend on your abilities, but watch out for tricky enemies that are immune to your strategy, unfortunate circumstances and surprises!
In Netherguild, combat is another form of resource management- how can you prevent your characters from getting hurt, or receiving harmful debuffs? When is it the right time to use a powerful ability, when should you save it for later?
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Oddities:
Different oddities you find underground will present you with various choices that may affect your expedition and the game world at large.
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The World Above:
While you explore below, different events may happen above-ground, presenting opportunity and choice when you return from expeditions.
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Replay Value:
Random equipment, random character backgrounds with different skills each playthrough and procedurally generated levels every time you descend underground mean that playthroughs feel different every time.
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Additional Features:
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Roguelite with Persistence and Story: Keep your characters at the end of each expedition (if they survive), equip them with powerful items and level them up over time. Netherguild’s story progresses the more you explore and find out about the secrets of its world.
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Dungeon Crawling Resource Management: Powerful abilities have a limited amount of uses. Your characters have limited inventory space. What is more important? The priceless loot you bring up back to the surface, or the firewood logs that let you descend even deeper?
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Original Game World: Netherguild may be fantasy, but don’t expect it to play by genre conventions at all; No Orcs, no Elves, and no wizards casting fireballs. Expect to find strange biospheres and denizens far underground.
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Cute Voxel Aesthetics: Contrasted by a story with serious themes, as you face against plague and conspiracy!
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Solo Developed: I’m always happy to get feedback, suggestions and inspiration from players. You can reach me through various channels such as my twitter, the Netherguild discord and Netherguild Steam forum. If you love Netherguild, dislike something about it, or you have a fantastic idea you think should be added to the game, please let me know! :D
Early Access: Risks, Plans and Expectations:
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Risks: It’s possible that during development, I would run out of money and wouldn’t be able to continue full time development.
If that were to happen, I’ll take up part time or full time work and develop Netherguild in my spare time. This game will be finished as long as I’m physically able to work on it.
I’m doing everything in my power to combat this risk - for example, marketing and getting to a certain number of wishlists before release should prevent it from ever occurring - but I think it’s still important to be honest about risks like this before release.
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Plans: Updates will happen in regular intervals; With a new update every week to three weeks. I would like to have weekly / bi-weekly updates for the most part, but of course that depends on development, with bigger changes taking longer to update, but containing more content and additions.
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Expectations: Expect progress to be slow and steady- being a solo dev means I can’t finish the game in a year, and big updates will take time. Also, expect me to always be active on the Netherguild discord during Early Access, listening to your feedback.
Old Salt
Players begin the game as one of six factions with control of three islands, a fleet of ships and a handful of gold.
A player obtains victory over the other players by controlling 6 islands or being the last ship sailing. There are many routes to that victory but the journey will without a doubt involve sailing your ships, firing cannons, seizing islands, and using faction abilities.
Sail ships
Players can move up to 3 ships on their turn and are able to move a ship up to 3 tiles unless aided by Known Tradewinds
Ships are able to turn in any direction players desire. Think of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean where they dropped anchor and drift a U-turn and outmaneuvered the Black Pearl.
Fire cannons
Step one of firing your epic cannons, count the number of tiles to the target. That is the minimum you need to roll to hit the target.
Step two, pay your crew to load and fire that cannon! 1 coin to fire a single shot. Roll to see if it is successful.
If successful, place a damage token under the target, if unsuccessful, roll better next time.
Seize islands
When seizing an island, a player must first be adjacent to the island they would like to control. Once in position, pay 2 coins for the island along with a mast that belongs to the faction you are wrestling island control from.
Seizing an island that is defended is very costly. For each enemy ship that controls that island within 2 tiles adds 1 coin to the overall cost of seizing the island.
Use faction abilities
When playing with faction abilities, each player selects 1 of the 6 factions to be. Each faction comes with 3 exciting and unique abilities that no one else has access to. These will help players turn the tide of war.
Abilities can cost coins to use or be limited on when you can use them, such as on your turn or when you seize an island.
On the left side of each faction card is an illustration, some adjectives to describe the faction and a quote the faction can be heard saying from time to time.
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