Ancient Cities
So, I think I have enough time to comment on this now. As a disclaimer, I never backed the game but saw it a year ago, read all the stories about the time it’s taking, that the game was empty, the devs not being capable of this challenge and even that it was a scam. I put it off for these reasons, wanting to be sure I wasn’t wasting what is a lot of money for EA, but I do not think this is a scam any more, no. I think the devs have wasted time building a custom game engine and may have overfaced themselves, yes, but the level of detail and the continued work on the game to me shows this is a passion project that they will continue, if slowly.
– Real player with 171.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Historical Moddable Games.
The game looks amazing, much better than Dawn of Man (even with my Realistic Stone Age mod ). I will update with a proper review after I will play some more, but so far I can say this (compared to DOM):
- You can choose to start playing from 10,000 BC up to 3500 BC, and the end of the last glacial age is depicted on the overview map, as it shows how snow evolves from one date to another, even from summer to winter (I do not know if anything else changes). In DOM you can only play in 10,000 BC.
– Real player with 46.7 hrs in game
Help Will Come Tomorrow
When I first saw this game, I was super excited. I expected it to be largely similar to This War of Mine and Day R Survival. It looked like it had an incredible amount of potential, and the basis of the plot, a group of strangers thrown into a survival situation is the pinnacle of survival concepts in my opinion, provided you are able to have a complex story line and character development, with social and moral choices having a major impact on the characters. Help Will Come Tomorrow failed in this aspect, and honestly, you can completely play through this game in about 1-2 hours max. Overall, this game was thrown together hastily, and that is apparent in the lack of quality. This game was a disappointment, it had a great concept, and if Arclight put more time and effort into it, I feel they could have made something incredible, instead, we get a cheap game with a short plot and a base level story line.
– Real player with 29.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Historical Atmospheric Games.
Now, even though I have a “no” recommendation here, I have enjoyed this game and will probably give it a couple of more rounds before I lay off it and maybe never replay it again unless there are some changes.
Pros:
Environment–good overall presentation and graphics, interesting premise and setting for the game. It maybe feels a little higher-stakes than similar resource management/strategy/survival games.
Mechanics–once I got through a couple of sad, major failed save files, I managed to figure out some good strategies that worked and allowed me to finish Passenger mode (easy) with “the good ending,” of which there does only seem to be one way to get.
– Real player with 28.2 hrs in game
AstronTycoon2: Ritual
I am playing the game for a while now and really enjoy it. At the first glance there were a lot of things going on so it took a while to understand villagers behaviour.
Game is very well balanced and have good pace. At the begining possibility to play on slow speed allowed me to absorb and admire nice nature and sun rises :)
Later on when making new buildings, harvesting or cutting wood I preferred max speed. At the later stage of the game, I just slightly changing villagers behaviour through economy interface and focusing mainly to build my own Stonehenge.
– Real player with 80.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Historical Building Games.
I love this game. I found it pretty intuitive, got stuck a few times but I figured it out. The motto of this game is KISS, Keep it simple, stupid. It has a basic recipe that once learnt permeates the game and allows you to progress at a good rate. I didn’t get all the achievements on my first play through and I learnt so much about where I should place things that I absolutely have to try again and I want to start from the beginning because, it’s just that much fun to play!
I can understand why some gamers may be frustrated with the game however I believe that has more to do with the current culture of gaming more so than the game. What I mean is, people are used to games that are tedious and arduous in nature. This game is casual, it has simple mechanics that are straight forward. If you can’t maintain enough herbs, consider that every time they are watered, they grow. If you plant 100 plants then your workers have to water them to full and then chop them, it is inefficient. This is the first lesson of the game. If you cannot figure out that the management style is about efficiency, then you will not enjoy this game.
– Real player with 61.8 hrs in game
Mask of Sanity
Storyline doesn’t looks like completed, so I’ll wait for more cutscenes even if it would be in another game.
Game scares me when enemies are shows suddenly. From gameplay perspective combat system is odd, but allows to maneuver. Or you can use pistol to deal with emeny.
There are random loot in the destroyable boxes, so one time you can get full heal, but the other - just an apple. This poses a challenge that makes each play slightly different from time to time.
– Real player with 19.0 hrs in game
After playing the game for 2 hours there is no way to save to game to be able to pick up where you left off… as well at a certain spot after you are killed, you lose all of your inventory items and playing blindly without anything to defend yourself and the items that you have collected previously.
Overall a good game but would like to be able to play where i left off if i want to turn it off and be able to keep the inventory collected.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
ARIDA: Backland’s Awakening
[8/10]
Review in english first, portuguese below
Análise em inglês primeiro, e em português abaixo
JOGADO TOTALMENTE NO LINUX - PLAYED COMPLETELY ON LINUX
======================================
Árida is a very regionalist game about the worst period of drought in northeastern Brazil in the region known as “Caatinga” (blacklands). It is a short semi-linear exploration and survival game, with cartoonish aesthetics that resemble drawings from that place and age (“literatura de cordel”) in sharp contrast against the looming sense of dread that permeates the entire game - you see death everywhere, the Sun quickly exhausts your thirst and hunger bars, specially at noon.
– Real player with 12.3 hrs in game
Esse jogo brasileiro de sucesso se passa nos arredores de Canudos, na Bahia. É um jogo de sobrevivência e de ficção que retrata esse contexto histórico em que muitos brasileiros do sertão nordestino acabam migrando na época de seca intensa de terra árida para sobreviver. Com a protagonista não é diferente, e com ela você experiencia um pouco de como essas pessoas lutam para sobreviver a esse ambiente e você encara junto com ela a jornada de ir até Canudos encontrar seus pais e buscar uma vida nova.
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
Dawn of Man
I love a lot of this game. But what genius makes a game of superhuman raiders that march through winter and blizzards but your dudes decide its just cool to sit in the hut while the town in destroyed. Go ahead and slice my head off while is sit here with yellow thermal condition. Spend hours building and surviving only to have a uncontrolled illogical game issue ruin it. Congrats in your inability to handle this issue in beta.
– Real player with 555.2 hrs in game
Dawn of Man is an excellent educational game. It’s a quick way to teach children how difficult it is to build up a town, society, and people. Farming, Hunting, Building - all skills that all humans should know the basics of how to do it - For REAL - and do with their own two hands. This game gives students a way to experience decades of development in only a few hours.
– Real player with 539.6 hrs in game
Little Hats
Not bad at all for an early alpha. Plenty of space to run around, harvesting, crafting and building systems work, some dangers, a bit of detailed neighborhoods already in. Pro tip: agarics are not poisonous to gnomes!
I would recommend the game while it is cheap and just hope a sole developer comes through and finishes the project. I personally have a good feeling about this : )
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
I’m really look forward to see a co-op in near future. This game has so much potential.
– Real player with 6.8 hrs in game
The Unbreakable Chain
could have more content, I enjoyed the music
save yourself some trouble and keep left to avoid saturn and jupiter
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Game Of The Year
LSG and Wainstop have done it yet again. To say the unbreakable chain is a masterpiece, would be an understatement.
I argue there is a second meaning to this game that takes a bold take on the human psyche, showing what it means to be human. It does all of this with a beautiful medley of music by Yasushi Kaminishi, ghxyk2, and Bankbank, and animation produced by LSG.
SPOILERS!!!
In the first level, you are a worm. Aimlessly worming around with no direction, much like humans do. You wander until you find a whole, a gateway. This represents childbirth, The worm immediately killed, just like how a child is ejected into a cruel world in which he can die at any moment.
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
Paleon
While the game is still in pre-alpha it is very promising, the dev rolls out updates that patch bugs and add functionalities pretty often and he listens to his community and participates in the discussions. The game kinda hooks you, for now it’s not very long but it is really cool and for the price it’s very worth it to spend some hours managing your colony.
It has had bugs in the past, but right now, the update 1.3.4b is very solid and I have not had a single crash or game-breaking bug. As I said, the dev is quick fixing them.
– Real player with 17.6 hrs in game
Quite an interesting game, for this stage. One of those typical “I want to research everything at once”-tech trees, which allows for many different paths to develop technology. It reminds me of the Settlers games, but without all the fancier-than-necessary graphics.
On the other hand, it’s also clear there’s a lot of room for improvement, like when it comes to instruction, explanation, and some QOL in the mouse button interactions. To quote Yahtzee Croshaw, “This is a game in which there is officially no shame in looking up the FAQ. A tutorial wouldn’t go amiss.”
– Real player with 14.4 hrs in game
Silk
Very nice game! Hope the developers will update and expand it though
+Huge open world for hours of exploring
+Simple mechanics of gameplay - easy to learn in minutes
+History notes makes journey immersive
+Handful of ways to beat the game
-No background/ambient music so it is pretty quiet
-Some pieces of map are empty
-No marching armies, caravans etc.
– Real player with 34.9 hrs in game
Silk is a compelling adventure strategy experience - not a genre name you see very often, and what a shame. The importance of picking a sensible route can be paramount, the threat of storms, raiders, wild animals and dead ends feel real and intense, and the feeling you get when you realise you have hit a dead end and have to turn back is a marvellous frustration.
It also means the satisfaction you get when you bring a caravan of silk back home is magnificent. The smalls joys of exploring a world in which every step matters, finding special locations, taking hidden treasure and fighting each small battle are immense. The feeling when your advisors reach a high enough skill level to start to really make the most of your surroundings is superb. A great adventure strategy title, definitely worth your time.
– Real player with 14.2 hrs in game