Empires in Ruins

Empires in Ruins

Edit: The developer is super chill, and is looking to patch out the bugs soon. This is still a hard game with hit-or-miss writing and an imperfect UI, but serious props to anyone who can indie dev something this complex. Check it out if there isn’t something in the review that’s a dealbreaker for you.

This is a very “yes, but…” recommendation.

Empires In Ruins is a thing I should like. It’s a tower defense with a 4x strategy layer, and where you can econ yourself into an easier TD situation, or TD yourself out of a bad economy.

Real player with 27.9 hrs in game


Read More: Best Grand Strategy Tower Defense Games.


**This is a short excerpt of my longer analysis and review (available in English and German). I would recommend reading the full text or watching the YouTube Video (German Voiceover, many subtitles)

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Empires in Ruins Test / Review

Empires in Ruins Review – Conclusion and opinion**

For an indie game of a small team just entering early access, the game is already surprisingly polished. The campaign includes a very entertaining story and for strategy fans an appealing game depth.

Real player with 13.4 hrs in game

Empires in Ruins on Steam

Halloween Night

Halloween Night

26-year-old Henry is at friend’s halloween party. At 11pm they sit down at the table and tell each other terrible stories. Henry begins to tell a terrifying story from his life when he was just a little boy…

You play the role of little Henry and experience the terror that befell him 20 years earlier on Halloween. The game consists of 4 chapters, each of them is a separate day in the life of a 6-year-old Henry and includes separate game mechanics.

You are in your childhood home 20 years earlier. Your job is to stay alive and keep the Devil, who wants your soul, away from you. It will not be easy, because the Devil is getting more and more angry and dangerous every day. Surviving each day will be a challenge.


Read More: Best Grand Strategy Horror Games.


Halloween Night on Steam

Star Dynasties

Star Dynasties

Infinite potential, incredible progress.

I started playing this game during the indiecade demo mid-2020, and the evolution this game has been through in just one year is massive.

Pros:

  • Dev very responsive to Player Feedback

  • Lots of Character Drama

  • Interesting Events (Expeditions specially)

  • Interesting Systems (Secrets, Justice, Gatherings, Favors and Negotiation)

  • Powerful Modding Tool (Seriously, one could create a full DLC-worthy experience with it)

Real player with 996.3 hrs in game


Read More: Best Grand Strategy Politics Games.


Addendum

Have changed review to - Would recommend.*

Only about a third of my gamer friends are big head enough to truly enjoy this game, but I know they will enjoy it immensely. I can see this one sinking hundreds if not thousands of hours into, and I’m already hopeful they go series with it.

I have a great deal of hope, if only because of how quickly the developers are acting on feedback and making solid changes. Meaningful save files now exist. There’s still a lot going on, so I’m not yet done with this review, but the nature and flow of the game are starting to make more sense.

Real player with 122.9 hrs in game

Star Dynasties on Steam

Gemini Wars

Gemini Wars

“So i had around 40 hours in this game, it is not good it is not bad either. Missions lack in challenge, they are mostly the same, protect this, defeat that. The later part where the aliens apears was slightly better but i wish game is longer, more ship classes and details. However for people who like this kind of game its okay. Graphics, could be better, much better.

Would i recommend this game?

Game recieved many negative reviews,and mostly because it didnt deserve positive ones, for the current price of 14,99EUR i wouldnt recommend this game. If you find it on sale, for cheap, try it, you wont lost anything except few hours of your life. I would give positive on this one since i did had fun in skirmish with this game, and because i love some of the ship designs. Otherwise if there is neutral button i would hit instead.

Real player with 43.6 hrs in game

This game feels like it is still in beta with all the glitches.

Pros:

Good concept. I enjoy how quickly bases can be built if you have the resources which makes comebacks not entirely out of the picture. Easy to pick up.

Cons:

Ships will shake violently when trying to move and sometimes won’t even move when part of a large selected group. AI is horrible for skirmishes. I played a skirmish where the AI player sent its starting construction ship to where I was building my fleet about 5 minutes into the game and it was destroyed easily ending the game.

Real player with 28.0 hrs in game

Gemini Wars on Steam

Total War: WARHAMMER III

Total War: WARHAMMER III

**Pre-purchase to get an additional free Race Pack for Total War: WARHAMMER III.

More details coming soon.**

Far beyond the world and its petty wars there exists a dimension of pure, malevolent magic: The Realm of Chaos. It is a terrible place, incomprehensible to the mortal mind. It whispers promises of power, but to behold it is to be seduced by it. To relinquish your soul to it. To become it.

The four Ruinous Powers rule over this place, ever seeking to slip their bonds and engulf the world in a tide of daemonic corruption. Nurgle, the plague god; Slaanesh, the lord of excess; Tzeentch, the changer of ways; and Khorne, the god of blood and slaughter.

On the border between the worlds, two mighty kingdoms stand sentinel: the stern warriors of Kislev and the vast empire of Grand Cathay. But each is beset by its own trials, and now both have cause to cross the threshold and send their armies into the Realm of Chaos.

The world stands on a precipice. A single push will plunge it into cataclysm.

And there is one who schemes to achieve just that, an ancient figure who desires nothing less than to wield supreme power. But to succeed, he will need a champion…

The coming conflict will engulf all. Will you conquer your daemons? Or command them?

Total War: WARHAMMER III on Steam

苏维埃模拟器 Soviet Simulator

苏维埃模拟器 Soviet Simulator

Game Contents

Note:Contents in screenshots are in the development, especially numerical values.

  • Make USSR Great Again!

  • Play as the high authority of USSR from Dec 30, 1922. Nobody knows USSR better than you! Control USSR’s Policies, economy, industry, military, diplomatics affairs. Can you plant the red flag on Reichstag?

  • It’s not a realtime game like Paradox games. It’s turn-based. You can deal with affairs at the end of every month.

  • Plan the industry schedule according to the requirement of people. Product consumer goods, infrastructure, T-34? It’s up to you.

  • Plan the import and export schedule. You can import foods to satisfy people’s need, or export military goods to other countries in war.

  • Scheme the Five-Years Plan. Every five years you can determine the way USSR’s industry structure goes forwards.

  • Strike Fascism! Knowing the real world history, can you prepare Operation Barbarossa well?

  • A war system dominated by ground force, supported by airforce, meanwhile navy withstands the trade routes.

  • Natural science, engineering and social science technology trees.

  • Can you avoid the mistakes USSR made in history, even though they may the best choices at that situation?

Game Features

  • Events in game are mostly real events in history. There may also be magic alternative history event. (Trotsky is coming back!)

  • Content based on fully textual research.

  • Include lots of capitalism jokes.

  • You can listen to Soviet military music and classic music with the radio on the desk.

苏维埃模拟器 Soviet Simulator on Steam

Call of Knights

Call of Knights

Call of Knights is a SRPG game produced by Chengdu LongYou Game Studio. Here you can enjoy strategy games and role-playing games. You can play as the ruler and be able to fight against different forces on a reshaped fantasy continent, leave a page of your own in the annals of history, or conquer warcraft.

The features of the legitimate game.

Pixel style:

A total of 400 knights from different periods appeared , restoring a reconstructed magical medieval continent. Unique UI design shows the charm of pixel style.

Call of Knights on Steam

Crisis in the Kremlin

Crisis in the Kremlin

Well I’m a Chinese and it’s my first time to write a comment on steam, so if I say something wrong or something you don’t like please forgive me.

For me I want to recommend you to use Romanov or Gromyko. Actually all 4 characters in 1985 have chance to win including Gorbachev, yesterday I play as him and it’s not impossible to save the country but use him will have two problems. One is reformer look like too strong to resist in the CPSU, other one is you cannot extract resources in Africa because you need to make conservative and Stalinism majority to open the mutual-aid in foreign policy part, but you can’t legalize Stalinism when you play as Gorbachev. For Grishin, a conservative, well I think is no problem to use him but I’m Deng supporter. And maybe it’s not a good news that Gromyko died in 1988 though he is really, really good man. So personally I choose Romanov. Year 1985 or 1986 is a better choice because you can change the country more easier.

Real player with 266.2 hrs in game

It’s incredible really for a game to be so vague in how the mechanics work, so rough in design, so lacking in proper translation (seriously, the translation is a real problem here), and yet, I’d still definitely recommend it to any modern history buff or, of course, any aspiring Red with a taste for revisionism, and what Red doesn’t like a bit of Revisionism? I know I do.

Graphics: Nothing too much to mention here, they’re largely functional, and while many of the event pictures are nice Soviet posters or photographs, beyond that it’s very much just a text adventure with a red border. Not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination, but don’t expect a 3D sprite of Yeltsin to go stumbling across the top of the screen in his signature drunken fashion. (Hm, suddenly I feel a real sense of loss)

Real player with 264.5 hrs in game

Crisis in the Kremlin on Steam

Scuffed Tower Defense

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

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

Scuffed Tower Defense on Steam

Sorcerer King: Rivals

Sorcerer King: Rivals

After finishing game on insane difficulty I finally feel ready to write a review. In short, I think Sorcerer King Rivals is an amazing game. One of the best games I have ever played in fact. Having said that, I doubt it will appeal to people looking for a deep strategy game. Because this game is not that deep and not particularly hard, except, maybe for a highest difficulty. Also, I think it is important to mention, that I barely played FE:LH and did not like it at all so if you are looking for a similar experience, you may not like SC:Rivals. SC:Rivals is more like Eador: Masters of a broken world. So, as always, keep your expectations in check) Now, let’s talk about what is good, not so good, and pretty bad in this game

Real player with 87.0 hrs in game

A great game. It’s fairly small in scope for a 4x, but I think this has allowed the developers to focus on producing a polished product. Sorcerer King: Rivals has lots of scripted story and events, which makes it different to other 4x games which rely soley on the quality of the AI players to pose a challenge. As Sorcerer King relies on heavily scripted events, don’t expect great AI. On the plus side, Sorceror King tells a great story with writing that is often hilarious.

You will see reviews complaining about lack of replayability, but I think if you want 300hours out of the game you need to look at the Civilization series or Galactic Civilizations 3. I’ve played Sorceror King for a total 65 hours. I will agree however, that the strategic map AI is extremely passive. It generally does not initiate combat and will wait for you to attack it. This means its not really much of a threat and this does effect replayability.

Real player with 65.1 hrs in game

Sorcerer King: Rivals on Steam