HammerHelm
Update May 27 2021, for game version 1.7.8 just after full retail release.
My original review was for the early access version. Now the full release is EVEN BETTER.
Bottom line: CASUAL style, mixes adventure/exploration/combat in a small open world with some farming mechanics and a city builder with resource and resident management. Nothing is very complicated, but it also never feels pointlessly easy. Be the mayor of your own dwarven village: protect your people from orcs and necromancers, manage your town’s resources as your population grows, mine various metal ores and craft better weapons and armor to deal with stronger foes, grow herbs and have your town’s alchemist use them to brew health potions, grow various plants to feed and clothe your people, hire townspeople to do various jobs to keep your people happy, decorate your town with rose gardens and fountains, build and decorate your own home too! You can collect heads of your fallen enemies and have your tailor turn them into trophies for your wall, or if taxidermy isn’t your style you can just buy some neat paintings instead.
– Real player with 157.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Fantasy Action-Adventure Games.
So this game has me on the fence… in some ways I REALLY enjoy it– in other ways, it’s not so great, and in some ways, I really, REALLY dislike it.
What is HammerHelm?
Hammerhelm is a hybrid of RPG, city management/builder, adventure, and crafting game. The basics is that you are a Dwarf that was outcast from your clan for having the balls and the audacity to tell the council that “Instead of sitting underground to rot, why not go to the surface and get all the untapped resources there?”. The council tells you to suck it, before proceeding to toss you out so you don’t corrupt the young Christian minds of the other Dwarves that live like NPC’s without free thought. So once you get casted out like the little heretic you are, you find yourself on an island that looks pretty much deserted with nothing but basic tools and a hammer to defend yourself with, and you get a sizable plot of land to boot.
– Real player with 20.9 hrs in game
Mason: Building Bricks
The game is as advertised. You build, build, and build more. If you expect anything else, you will be disappointed. Overall, a relaxing experience.
– Real player with 83.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Fantasy Base Building Games.
I liked it simplicity and focus on personal creations.
– Real player with 81.5 hrs in game
A Game of Dwarves
I recently played through the campaign for A Game of Dwarves. I’m giving it a thumbs up, but a qualified one.
The Game
The game is something of a builder/manager game: you control a settlement of dwarves and guide them in both mining out the area around their settlement and building the things they need to be happy and do well.
I really liked the potential of this game: I find it a fun thing to occupy myself with while watching TV or just winding down in the evening, and there is some challenge to it too — more than once I restarted a scenario to come at it from a better angle.
– Real player with 230.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Fantasy Crafting Games.
I used to love the old “Dungeon Keeper” game, but my dungeons always got destroyed when I broke through to the hero’s lair because I couldn’t keep up with the attacks. “A Game of Dwarves” is styled after “Dungeon Keeper” but has what amounts to a sandbox mode (so you can play and dig and build to your heart’s content without being attacked left and right), is brighter (one of my complaints about DK was that everything was dim and dark, being in a dungeon, and that I couldn’t see what was going on half the time), is 3D so you can dig up and down as well as sideways, and retains the humour that made DK fun to play.
– Real player with 116.3 hrs in game
Hard to be a King
Hard to be a King ( Realm Guardian ) is a voxel strategy game.
You will play a role in a fantasy world and become a lord, rule the land, and protect your people. Assign tasks to everyone. Gathering, hunting, farming, keep your people stay away from starving. Crafting, constructing, build a stronghold to resist the dead army.
Terrain
The terrain of Realm Guardian is voxel based. One kind of cube correspond to one kind of resource. You can DIG a cube to collect its resource ( miner ), or consume resource to BUILD a new cube ( builder ).
Environment
Deer will eat plants when they are hungry. If there are no plants to eat, they will starve and die. So do wolves. As the bottom of the food chain, Plants will keep growing in a slow rate. Of course if men kill all the wolves and protect deer, all the plants would be ate, and deer finally die for starving. Besides, water is another problem. Wolves from different packs may fight for the only water source. ( Don’t worry, human beings won’t fell thirsty because the author didn’t finish this function :P ). Just like the true nature, sun raise up and fall down every day ( Seasons are in planning ). Deer are more active in daytime.
The King
The king won’t do most of works. All he has to do are rebalancing resources, assigning works ect. The King can talk to one to assign task for him. Of course it will break their current work ( The author feel unhappy when he worked in a game company, he interrupted by designers very often )
Realm
Flag banner to claim regin. Flag more banners to enlarge the realm. Most of works ( e.g. mining, building ) can only do in realm. Banners would also support population limit.
Peasants
Peasants would sleep when they are sleepy ( If free bed exists ). Peasant who lack of sleep will get low work efficiency. Nighttime also bring bad influence ( So does author, he hate overtime work ).
When peasants in danger, they will run into the safe area the king designed.
Professions:
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Chamberlain could report to the king and auto assign tasks to civilians
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Builder could build blueprints designed by the king
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Chopper could cut down trees and carry logs into storage
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Craftsman could craft items or stuffs
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Forager could gather food or small items like cobblestone in from forest.
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Hunter could hunt for animals, loot their body
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Miner could dig redprints marked by the king
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Smith could forge metal items
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Tailor could make cotton into complex items
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Chef could produce processed food
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Farmer could farm the land and harvest crops.
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Archer, ranged soldier
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Infantry, melee soldier
Food
In the early stage of a game, most food come from foraging. But in the middle stage, farming becomes more important. The meaning of chefs are procduce food which support more energy. Especially food would be rotten as time goes by, produce dried food is also a good choice
Exodus Borealis
I feel like it is important to point that this game this is made by solo dev, who has been great at interacting with everyone in discord and is willing to listen. Now those of us that have dipped into the early access games will know that this is something to cherish lol.
Also the Gameplay well let me go into more detail about that, but it is important to remember that it is early access so may change after i write this review but what i have found so far is:
Tower defence - The towers have this kinda Age of Empires feel to them this brings back that old nostalgia i love that! There also is an Arachnophobia mode this is something i recommend you play i wont tell you why, just trust me it is worth it! The enemy ramp up nicely giving a good amount of failure and felt to me like fun Gameplay
– Real player with 84.1 hrs in game
This game is excellent for civ building and tower defense gamers. I am a seasoned (72 years old) player of both. The combo of both makes the game intriguing and challenging. It has depth without drudgery. Folks who do not play either of these genres may like this one just for that reason. To me there is a third aspect included - research. Which path should you choose first. There is no formula - one choice may be the best this go round but not in the same sequence the next time. And there will be a next time as you progress from map to map. Deciding how to allocate workers is another juggling complexity. The Dev’s UI design is a thing of beauty. Easy to use, informative info tips and an effective warning/informing system. Whatever your gaming proclivity I encourage you to give this one a try. It is just that unique.
– Real player with 63.1 hrs in game
Fantasy Defense
i like the game its simple enough, on the low side for a variety of towers/models, but good non the less has a few glitches still, one of the main ones for me is im not unlocking any achivements not sure why, but i like the game, not worth a replay unless iam able to get achivements..
– Real player with 11.3 hrs in game
Could be a fun Tower Defense game …. but has problems.
1 Achievements are not working in steam
2 bugs with goblin mages not being removed when killed
3 easy exploits to farm money from selling towers
4 doesn’t seem to be updated
The pros
good graphics and sound the music is nice as well
Its free so download it and play around but don’t expect much
– Real player with 10.7 hrs in game
Golems TD
The very short version is: So many things are wrong that I cant complete the tutorial. (I’m not even sure its possible to fail it, endless wave thing) Feels like early alpha on kickstarter.
I will not refund it, because someone accomplished his goal and made a game, he deserves something for that.
Ok so, it would be wrong to offer nothing but criticism, thus ill start with the good.
Good stuff: Behind the clumsy interface, there is a potential depth of gameplay here. The idea of alternating between heroes and towers is not bad, and crafting crystals mid fight as well as non-tower structures (gathering, fusing) could have some weight in forging a deep strategy later on.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
TowerMancer
TL;DR - Great game, worth cost, cute story, addictive.
I played the Demo before the game came out. I knew it was a good game because I couldn’t get it out of my head and checked almost daily to see if it was officially out yet.
The full game is just as addictive as I’d hoped. I’m well versed in these types of management games and was happy that there was a good challenge for me when I wanted it. Would recommend to anyone that enjoys management games.
– Real player with 25.0 hrs in game
It wasn’t that bad. Quite a challenge to pass your free time but kinda repetitive if aiming to get all achievements.
It’s drag and drop games, kinda clunky at times. To save time and distance, play on a small resolution window mode (but font will be extremely small).
Sometimes the game kinda unresponsive (boss not initiating next action) but it’s very rare.
Tips: Thieves can be bypassed by putting imps with materials on the room before clicking/initiating repair. They will repair before the thieves can steal the materials.
– Real player with 12.5 hrs in game
Alek - The Lost Kingdom
Updated opinion from edit is at the bottom.
Great Concept, I have played 11 hours in and I still want to play. However, the game just crashes now and it’s because of a bugged out Hunter. He doesn’t hunt unless you interact and close the menu, if you make him quit the game crashes. I lost 10 minutes of progress which turned out to be a lot of stuff being done in that time span. It’s fustrating to have an incompetent NPC that carries a heavy liability to cause crashes.
I sent a couple of the crashes not sure if the Dev received them. With this problem I am held back from progression in the game. It won’t matter if I do another save because the bug can just happen again.
– Real player with 23.3 hrs in game
Here I am back for another game review!
Today I’m covering elements of Alek - The Lost Kingdom.
This is a charming little adventurer simulator that centers around Alek (the PC). In this game you build up and manage village settlements, ward off attacks, and help develop a land. Now mind this game IS only in Early Access at the time of this review. That being said it has a lot to offer. Now I know some of you are going to look at my play time and say “But Relmara! That’s hardly enough for a fair review!” The only reason I haven’t logged more time in this game is because of a nasty bug that kept me from loading an old game and starting a new one. Here is where I have to say I am thoroughly impressed. Dev. Blackmeyers has been VERY hands on with us early access player when regarding bugs. I know that working out such issues is laboriously hard. I have never had a dev. respond so expediently to an issue. It’s very heartening to know that we have someone so invested in their player base working to helm the game.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
Architects of Shangri-La
Architects of Shangri-La takes you to a beautiful, mountainous land full of myths and untold stories. The state is led by thoughtful monks that constitute spiritual, political and economical power of the nation. Help them build their community, spread wisdom, make Shangri-La thrive and guard it against enemies!
Colonize uninhabited wild slopes. Search for the right spots so that your settlements are easy to reach by traders and porters, but also safe from natural disasters, animals and foes. Make sure that there is room for necessary infrastructure and future expansion. Try to make living in the mountains easier for your citizens.
Take care of physical and spiritual needs of your people. Give them shelter, provide with food by building farms and breeding cattle, ensure access to water, organize trade, construct places of worship and meditation to keep their morale high. Protect your citizens from wild animals, weather breakdowns as well as raiders wanting to disturb your peace.
Communication in the mountains is essential. Carve your way through rocks to connect your settlements with the net of roads and narrow, hazardous paths. Monitor their state and repair them to maintain supply chains, necessary for your people to survive.
Fulfill your spiritual duties. Schedule regular prayers, build chapels and temples to keep evil spirits away and be blessed in your deeds. Meditate to acquire wisdom and remain in balance with your body and mind, assuring happy and peaceful life.