Smart Fart
Smart Fart is a silly strategy game about a warehouse worker who ate too many beans. Your resource is your main enemy, so spend it wisely !
The game features 30+ levels in which you have to deliver packages while making sure other workers don’t end up in your smelly gas. Blocking their path and timing your farts is key to win !
Read More: Best Minimalist Funny Games.
Transport INC
Disclaimer: Ol' Il Pallino has Asperger’s, and the characterization of aspies having a high tolerance for repetition is mentioned in the Negatives section of this review. If stereotypes of aspies offends readers (however true) the reader is advised to go read someone else’s review. Ol' Il Pallino and REXCurse hereby disclaim liability of triggering snowflakes who become butt-hurt as a result.
Overview
This is one of those times where writing a review is tricky, because recommendations are purely Yes/No and management sim Transport INC is in a gray area with a slight red tint from what was experienced in the story. Apart from the story, which is a campaign about the son of a bus driver who has ambitions of becoming a shipping tycoon who’s father very early own proves to not share-in on the main character’s ambition, the main character branches out from a bus empire to also trucking, which leads to other modes of transporting passengers and cargo. The game also has a casual Free Play mode and Global Race mode where the player and AI opponents compete against each other to “capture” cities by being the most profitable carrier.
– Real player with 21.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Minimalist Transportation Games.
[url] Please see my curator page for more games that are well worth your time[/url]
I’ll start this review with something I normally wouldn’t need to do, a WARNING: At the time of writing, there is one achievement in the game that you can’t unlock (yet).
There is an achievement for completing the campaign on expert mode, however, the expert mode appears to not be added to the game. People who’ve completed it on Hard Mode have reported on the Steam Forums that it hasn’t unlocked the Expert Mode. I’m not sure if that is how it should unlock or if there is something else currently causing the issue, I just hope that in the future, this warning will not be needed.
– Real player with 19.7 hrs in game
Fly Corp
As you can see by the number of hours I’ve played, I definitely enjoyed this game. Play is fun and exciting and yet weirdly satisfying.
It could be perfect with these changes:
1.) It would be cool to see what percentage of players beat each scenario (like “0.1% of players beat this scenario” for “Unlock All Countries”). This would make winners who beat difficult scenarios feel even more superior, and warn those of us who struggle. It’s nice to get an idea of what difficulty to expect.
2.) In the tutorial, I would mention that there is a random element to the game in addition to skill. It’s possible to be the best player and still lose if you get a bad unlock order. That’s good to know coming in as opposed to slowly realizing it over time.
– Real player with 102.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Minimalist Early Access Games.
I see potential for a great game in Fly Corp, but I feel it’s developing in the wrong direction. The devs seem to be making a shift toward realism and have made the game difficult beyond belief. It already had major balancing issues in terms of cost scaling before the latest update. Now it’s unplayable.
I implore the devs to remember this is a game. Yes, make it difficult, but on the same note, it needs to be winable or you’ll lose your audience.
Please dial back the cost scaling, fix the event randomization and imbalances, and completely remove cost scaling for routes. It should not cost more to build the same route just because you’re farther into the game.
– Real player with 52.7 hrs in game
3 O’clock Horror
This is honestly such a well constructed game…there are a few glitches, but it’s a fantastic environment and neat puzzles. It’s horror meets locked room. If you don’t mind inwardly panicking while trying to big-brain riddles, this game is for you ^^~
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
Awesome concept and I love the art style, but it is really hard to control and “E” will appear in some places and no matter where I go there is nothing to interact with when it appears. The skull puzzle is also very difficult. When the bear traps appear, they don’t go away, so you could end up in the same trap 4 times in a row because you can’t see them or when you open the mend menu, you will always get stuck in the trap when there wasn’t one there. Kind of buggy if you don’t have a decent computer. Trying to run this on my think pad was not working because the screen was cut off and the tutorial wasn’t working.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Galactic Merchant
Galactic Merchant is sci-fi business simulator (aka space tycoon game). Starting from small startup with single cargo ship you can grow your company to intergalactic monopoly.
To do so, you could trade, prospect, produce goods, smuggle, rob, give bribes, engage in politics, save lives and use many other options.
During the game you will learn many economical concepts and built-in calculation sheet will help you to use them in practice.
Make business in galaxy-wide economic system
Each planet is unique market and all of the markets are interdependent.
All of them are influenced by your decisions, actions of other market players as well as events, which happen all the time.
The economic conditions are dynamic and you have to adapt in order to be profitable.
Manage your company
You can achieve your strategic goals by growing company assets: ships, factories and personnel.
Not always more means simply better - with upgrades you can get better margins on your trades and make a good profit even on lower trade volume.
At some point your company may be too big to mange by yourself alone. In such case you can hire managers and directors to run parts of your company on your behalf. However, you still bear responsibility for company and you need to evaluate your leadership team and make changes to keep up to speed.
Still want more?
At the moment you become intergalactic corporation you will be able to acquire other companies to grow even faster.
Plan your investments and cut costs
There are multiple options for you to make profit over time.
You need to balance short-term and long-term strategies. What brings money now, may have bad consequences in future.
Sometimes you have to spend money at present to get profit in several quarters ahead.
Make profit
To help you explore different options there is fully functional calculation sheet to aid your decisions.
There is also comprehensive help, which will help you to sharpen your economic skills and apply them in practice.
Panda City
Late game there is a lot of lag but over all a very enjoyable experience.
– Real player with 2.7 hrs in game
I played for a few hours and it seemed like a fantastic game with a lot of potential. A simple and addictive game. Of course, I see that there are several errors, such as that no more pandas arrive to my city and the game remains constant. Another example is when I load my game, there are buildings that I eliminated and they appear on top of others that I had already placed. Despite this, I loved the game and would like to see more updates to fix the bugs and also add more content. Sereusly, I WANT MORE UPDATES, PLEASE!!!
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Increlution
This game saved my life.
I am 35.
My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and adopted our son together. They are now both 4 years old.
When we were going through our separation, I found myself lost and miserable. I was self destructive. I got so mad one day from everything spiraling out of my control that I punched some concrete in a moment of overwhelming emotion. That caused me to break my 5th metacarpal in my right hand… my working hand… my games hand.. the hand that I held and carried my children to bed with.. The hand I desperately needed to make sure I could continue to provide.
– Real player with 370.6 hrs in game
Despite the 157 hours listed, I probably only played for about 90 or 100 hours with the game on in background for the rest. That said, those 90-100 hours were some of the smoothest I’ve ever experienced in an idle game. This is where the game really shines–there are few of the hard bottlenecks or annoying babysitting due to huge exponential growth other games in the genre tend to have.
Similar to Idle Loops and Your Chronicle, etc., you can queue processes for your player who will perform them–bars fill up and unlock new processes and flavor text in the form of unobtrusive story content. The handful of forks in the game are interesting and keep the gameplay (that is, the metagame) fresh, as different forks will be more useful at different stages of your character’s skillset progression.
– Real player with 165.9 hrs in game
Lawnmower Game: Racing
A good indie race, it helps to relax in the evening with a cup of tea, and without straining to go through the levels, I liked the driving mechanics, the levels that are now, lvl-design, as well as the atmosphere of the game, visually I really liked the game, in the graphic plan there is room for improvement, as a singleplayer game, it turned out very well, although there is a lack of drive in it, as well as a small number of game mechanics and a variety of movement, physics is far from the best feature in the game, but it is unlikely that it can cause any inconvenience, I really look forward to the development of a multiplayer component from this game, as well as the possibility of co-op passing so that you can compete with friends, thanks for the opportunities provided in the game, I really look forward to updates in the near future.
– Real player with 4.7 hrs in game
Incredible! Truly a game to remember! I’ve already 100% it on stream and I still can’t stop playing it! Beware, when you start playing, you will start to have thoughts of becoming a lawnmower. You will begin to inhale oil as a lawnmower does and you will try your best to convince your friends to become lawnmowers as well in order to race with them. You will also spend your money on pure gold to create gold barrels so you can collect them for achievements. Pure agony.
– Real player with 3.3 hrs in game
Lo-Fi Life ( Walking Simulator, Chill, Casual Relaxing, Choices Matter, Chose Your Own Adventure, Interactive Fiction, Narrative )
Lo-fi Life is a FPP game about time management in hard conditions of morning time before going to work.
Every decision you make costs you time, every decision is important.
Create your own life path using procedural story and face the consequences, decide to get up or lie “only 5 minutes more”.
There are many player stories and paths to the ending
Taste the life in Lo-fi music style!
Plumber: the Pipe Rush
I really like this game. It’s a simple concept, but challenging and different every time. And it’s fun to see how complicated you can make the pipeline. The only issue is that I wish that when it does fail, it was easier to see the board to see what went wrong. A bunch of stuff is displayed over the board after a failure which makes it difficult to see the problem.
– Real player with 13.3 hrs in game
Note: As of reviewing, I have played the first ten levels.
This is a fun game which at its most basic is about using pipes to transport toxic waste from point A to point B without a leak. However, the gameplay contains a lot more nuance and presents additional challenges as you progess through the levels. The pipes come in multiple shapes and some of them add extra directions for the waste to travel while others create a “dead end”, allowing you to make the waste travel a certain direction. You will not always have the pieces you want, so there is some tetris-esque strategy involved in deciding when to trash one of your current pieces to try for a better replacement or to improvise with what you currently have. Additionally, some levels already begin with pipe pieces present, so you have the option of placing your pieces strategically to connect with these or to work around them as if they were an obstacle.
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game