Cavesweeper
Been a fan of BankBank’s work from way back, some of the wildest games Ive ever played have pored out of this bountiful creative mind. Sally forth me if you wrong, but the Indie scene as we know it would basically not exist if not for BankBank…
As for the game itself, I find it to be a maddeningly enticing combination of the Minesweeper template with some of the greatest storytelling endeavors of the early computer RPG scene… Wizardry 4, Ultima 4, Ultima 7 and Wizardry 6, 7 and 8 have all left their indelible marks upon this curious little sojourn. Quests Galore in this game, a day without Cavesweeper is like a year without rain.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Inventory Management Roguelike Games.
Cavesweeper is a weird combination logic puzzle / RPG battle game that hits this weird sweet spot in my brain. The logic puzzle is exactly the sort of Minesweeper-like constraint-solving mechanic that I can just sit and play with endlessly. But as the game progresses, the puzzle’s difficulty is ratcheted up such that it can’t be completely solved by logic alone, and you have to make tactical decisions about what risks you’re willing to take to gain information. I don’t get sucked into a lot of games, but once I start a Cavesweeper run I gotta see it through. I was pretty sad when Apple broke the iPhone version after an upgrade, so I was super excited to learn it had made its way to the PC.
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
Wager
I really want to give this a good review but I have only been playing for a bit (5h or so of play) and I think I am done? No progression, unlimited cash, most runs. If it goes no where then what is the point? I have done a few runs and it seems very limited in variety. ALso, fix the numbers, add notation or something to that at least we can see the big numbers. This game needs some work to be worth paying for.
– Real player with 3.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Inventory Management Strategy Games.
Fun little game, needs lots more items and has some balancing issues and bugs
On my first game I have found Assembly Line + Stacking Use ‘em is very broken, add some above and below 10 free money and you can catapult into the stratosphere very quickly.
I ended up getting so much money I caused a buffer overflow plunging me into negative coin values XD
Would like to see more than 28 items, as you get to know all of them and which ones are useful and which are not very quickly.
Needs some more work to make the gameplay interesting for much longer than half an hour or so
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Cubic Currency
A charming indie game with character. Hot take on capitalism
pros:
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excellent worldbuilding
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immersive experience: soundtrack, sound effects, and art are very well done
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fun and nuanced gameplay that keeps you coming back
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balances randomness and skill well
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well planned achievements
cons:
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seems a little too easy (i’ve won each of my first 3 runs without many difficulties) – let capitalism be more brutal! (or, have different difficulty settings–that’s probably a better way to do it)
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as far as i can tell, there isn’t “save game” functionality? either that or it’s not intuitive how to use it. could be a nice thing to add
– Real player with 4.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Inventory Management Strategy Games.
Full Disclosure. I bought this game at 90% off. It was less than a dollar, so at that price i really can’t complain for myself.
Now if you buy it at full price, it might be a little short for that price tag as I finished it in just over 3 hours. The game has enough elements to make some days/levels a bit intense, especially with the last character. Which is good because without the juggling of customers and the negative dice types, the game would be waaay too easy. And if you want to achievement hunt the game to 100% then you’ll probably get maybe an extra hour or two of gameplay.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Quinterra
It is merely an okay game. The tactics portion of it isn’t very in depth, often times feeling very Rock-Paper-Scissors like, and the forces fit into at most two of those. The graphics are fine. The UI is usable though not helpful in any way and the text for the mission requirements is super tiny. Yet the missions end up feeling very much the same one after another, which would be fine if not for the Rock-Paper-Scissors element mentioned before. You can find yourself deep into a game and then because you are playing a force that has to group up (Lycans) vs. an enemy who poisons everything there is honestly nothing to do but quit the battle and find a port to get your morale back up.
– Real player with 20.1 hrs in game
Summary & Positives
Quinterra has a really strong underlying mechanic set, loosely reminiscent of a faster-paced Faeria. Whilst highly comparable to a card based roguelite (like Slay the Spire or Monster Train), it’s not really fair to lump it into that genre.
The combat map is composed of tiles, each of which produce different ‘colours’. Each turn, you pick a tile up which lets you produce a new type of unit (a bit like setting up a building to produce a unit for you in a strategy game) for that battle, with some limits. Over time, you can sequence your tile collection in a way that lets you pick up more ‘colours’ to use, both to get a wider variety of units to play with but also to give yourself a variety of options to augment and enhance those units more with added effects.
– Real player with 18.8 hrs in game
Rogue Invader
In Rogue Invader, YOU are the invader attacking the alien horde in this genre-flipping roguelite shooter. Game-play resembles 1-Bit black and white old-school games, with modern touches and HD graphics.
Twenty years ago, the Zenos began invading terran colonies, leaving a trail of death and tears in their wake. Terrans fought back, one planet at a time, while building a fleet to stab at the Zeno home-world.
You arrive with that fleet, just after a series of massive space battles in which all supply ships have been destroyed. You are left with a huge invasion army but no supplies to invade with other than one drop-pod, and one pistol.
Vivid Knight
This is a cute roguelite and auto-chess crossover. It’s very strategy-focused, and the difficulty makes it quite addictive, but some balance issues begin to detract from enjoyment once you’re deep in the game.
The Good
The core game play is roguelike, with your character exploring a maze and fighting monsters in turn-based auto-chess-esque combat. Each step consumes mana, a limited resource that refreshes on each floor, and your team begins taking damage when you run out of mana, forcing you to be efficient in your exploration.
– Real player with 62.5 hrs in game
Welcome to Auto Chess Darkest Dungeon, But Cute.
Jokes aside, this little game so far is one of the biggest surprises of the year for me. I do quite like the auto chess formula, but this game takes a quite unique spin on it which makes it really enjoyable for me.
I’ve seen a lot of reviews making comparisons to TFT and they’re not entirely wrong by drawing the said comparison.
That said, if you’re familiar with games like Auto Chess and TFT, there’s a few things this game does a little different.
– Real player with 32.4 hrs in game
Cards of Patience
Great game of Klondike/Patience (sort of) combined with simple random-generated Dungeon-Diving. You get thrown into a Solitaire type game in-progress against an enemy and have to discard from the Line into the Discard Pile all while managing items, potions and spells. Work your way through the dungeon to the boss. Don’t forget to keep upgrading your character after games, with the diamonds, because the bosses are not easy.
Only thing lacking is an in-game-progress Save feature though it does save your character development from game to game.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
Solid rogue-lite card game.
You need some braincells to advance in this game - but this is what makes it worthwhile and replayable.
4/5.
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Herman Electro
What an interesting game!
The video trailer and game description give a decent overview of some of the main aspects of the gameplay, which involve using (some subset of) your available tools to solve a puzzle in the current room. The large number of tools that each interact with a number of different room elements creates many puzzles that can be solved in multiple ways. And after you get through the tutorial zone and perhaps a few short individual failed runs, you discover that the game is not merely about solving a series of individual room puzzles. It’s also a resource-management game, where you must realize when rooms have multiple solutions, and then carefully choose which solution–and thus which set of resources–you want to spend on the current room in order to preserve resources you know you will need in another room.
– Real player with 31.1 hrs in game
I’ve been playing this game since its beta release and I am shocked that there’s not more hype. The puzzles are incredibly addicting and I am not even close to running out of gameplay. I think that the art is really classic and simple, which is really refreshing, since my computer can’t really handle graphically intensive games. I really hope that other potential players read this review and get the game so we can make a Herman Electro community!
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Theatre of Sorrows
OUR STORY BEGINS…
When a dark cult abducts his sibling, there’s nothing else Killian can do but to comply with their demands. In order to save his sister he travels to the mysterious island of Esha - a place forgotten by even gods themselves, where the unspeakable ritual is about to take place.
Join Killian and Eileen in a deadly journey through Esha and dive into dark secrets of its inhabitants; try to navigate your way through the unknown territory with only a handful of hints that might lead you to a dangerous discovery about things that should have probably been consigned to oblivion…
Because there’s something dark and unspeakable, hidden in Esha’s stormy waves.
EVER-CHANGING ISLAND
Esha will always be a bit different; procedurally-generated map, randomized events and branching narrative will allow you to experience something new in each run.
SURVIVAL THROUGH RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Explore different locations, gather things that might help you survive and be mindful of your own limits. Be careful, though, because every time you walk into an abandoned house, it might not be as abandoned as it would seem…
WIDE VARIETY OF MONSTERS
Sometimes the evil will take particular forms, straight from your worst nightmares… Encounter 20 unique monsters that will remind you of creatures from lovecraftian horrors and try to defend yourself from their attacks.
CUSTOMIZABLE CHARACTERS
You may not be able to fight, but that doesn’t mean you’re defenceless. Find and change your outfits, craft and equip talismans, learn about enemies’ vulnerabilities - all in order to survive.
MULTIPLE ENDINGS
Will you find the way out, or will you succumb to the darkness of Esha? The choices you make throughout the game will lead you to one of the five main endings.
UNIQUE SENSORY EXPERIENCE
Feel the despair of the main characters and the desolation of Esha through the combination of atmospheric graphics, music and narrative, inspired by the works of Lovecraft and other works of the cosmic horror genre.
Ring of Pain
3.5/5 : Card battler heavy on the modern “roguelike”: you die a lot, over and over, but your deck improves slowly (I’m going to start calling them neo-roguelike since rogue had no such advancement). Very pretty and novel UI. Weird story. I’ve played it all the way through and I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to get.
The worst part of the game and the reason for the low score: YOU CANNOT STOP PLAYING without losing the run. It’s the worst no-save game I’ve seen in a decade.
Full playthroughs take hours, but if you need to stop, you have to leave the game running or you lose all your progress. Not only no save, but no saved position. I have had to leave the game running for days because I had a great run going but then had silly things come up like work, sleep, cleaning, or making dinner. Perhaps the RING OF PAIN name is supposed to reference how terrible this designed defect is?
– Real player with 511.8 hrs in game
Alright, I’ll do my best to keep this review neat and concise. I will preface by saying that I tried the closed beta of this game.
Ring of Pain is a Dungeon Crawler Card Game where the player chooses to go left or right and attack monsters. You have stats and manage item slots with items found across dungeons, progressing deeper and deeper into this “ring” until you reach the end. You have Attack and Defense, Speed to determine whether you or the monster attacks first, and Clarity, which manages how much healing you get from potions, Curse chances, and additional Souls (currency) is acquired per monster kill. Item slots are individualized, meaning if you find a weapon, it goes in the weapon slot and if you find a new weapon, you have to make a choice of either chucking your old one for the new one or keeping the old one.
– Real player with 78.6 hrs in game