Dominium Mundi
I only played the game for 5 minutes, but I left the game running for 3 hours as I was doing christmassy stuff with my cats. So in short, I know very little of this game so far. The UI and map are excellent, I’m excited to go back and look at it more. I only took over one single city and explored over half of the map thus far, but it feels good to play.
If you consider yourself a fan of something, you deserve to something something good review.
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Procedural Generation Medieval Games.
Save your money. I like simple strategy games at times when I want to take a break from too much intense thinking, but this is overly basic. You get bored of it after playing once or twice; it looks far more interesting than it truly is. Perhaps prices at $0.99 it may be worth considering - do not spend more than that on it.
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
Phoenix Point: Year One Edition
Been following this game since announcement, could only buy it recently
Not as polished or filled with content as reboot XCOM titles and has a lot of balance issues, but i like it, i hope devs will keep on supporting the game.
The biggest difference from other x-com-like games is that you can aim at different body parts similar to fallout’s VATS system, effectively letting you disable individual bodyparts of enemy units or strike the least protected spots to maximize damage as guns fire projectiles and not just mimick that feel, making cover work as actual cover and not just decrease a chance to hit and damage received
– Real player with 344.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Procedural Generation Tactical Games.
Phoenix Point is an evolution of the turn-based tactics genre. The free-aim system allows the player the control to make meaningful decisions in placement and in utilizing the soldiers rather than praying to RNG-esus to give us a good roll. Snipers don’t miss shots right in-front of their faces, there are no ‘99% but whoops it missed!’ moments. For this alone it’s a worthwhile and substantial upgrade to classic tactics games.
The over-world is on par with X-Com 2 with the player moving from point to point looking for cities and supplies in addition to trading opportunities. The great bulk of the player’s time in the over-world should be spent either moving to a mission or moving between havens to trade resources. One of the major missed elements of Phoenix Point, and what I see giving players an endless amount of consternation is in finding enough resources to make it through the game. I’ve also noticed the achievement for ‘Trading 10,000 Resources’ is also under 10%.
– Real player with 177.2 hrs in game
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:
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Dev very responsive to Player Feedback
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Lots of Character Drama
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Interesting Events (Expeditions specially)
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Interesting Systems (Secrets, Justice, Gatherings, Favors and Negotiation)
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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 Procedural Generation RPG 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
Wizards and Warlords
This is the good stuff. I have 13 hours played and I started playing it less than 36 hours ago. It gets the ‘one more turn’ feel just right, and has enough depth to keep things interesting, but is a bit un-optimized in terms of interface and mechanical transparency.
The Dev (yeah, the one dude making it on his own) is basically the paragon that all early access devs should try to be, constantly pushing updates and tweaks and engaging the community in respectful and productive discourse with humility and ingenuity. His turnaround time on new ideas is alarmingly fast, which is why there are multiple patches every week.
– Real player with 228.5 hrs in game
I very much wanted to this game to be great. The references to Dominion but with a different take on it.
There’s so much in the game, cool thought out magic, cool proc gen world, cool city development, cool leader development. But it’s so shallow. I didn’t care about any of my leaders, all the cities were functionally the same.
And the list of resources is insane. There’s a ton of resources to be gathering, but most have only a single use. It’s annoying to play a Fae wizard, get herbs and fairy dust, and have little use for it. You chase more resources until you realize you have no use for mithril. I’d rather have a smaller more concentrated list of resources that did something.
– Real player with 104.0 hrs in game
City of Gangsters
An amazing game overall. I would like a few more features though, such as the ability to export goods to other cities, mansions that you can buy, maps based on Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and the ability to buy off the mayor or even run for office.
– Real player with 227.2 hrs in game
Great management style game. Don’t expect a game with heavy fighting as this is not the focus of the game. It’s really how to max profit. Easy recommend for me.
– Real player with 115.0 hrs in game
Minos Strategos
to give a little back story to new comers, BrainGoodGames has no pushed out their 4th strategie game Minos Strategos, a sort of board game turn based strategie game. While all there games have the same sort of feel as asthetic at the base, they all of very distinct game styles and rules. To give a little feedback on the type of developers BrainGoodGames are, its not uncommon to a player to find a bug and for it to get patched and fixed an hour later. Iv seen people suggest an idea they think would really work in one of their games, just to see it implemented the next day! Iv seen them push a new game out, just to go back months later and push another content patch for all their older games as well, continuing to make sure all their games get tons of love. Its almost as if buying one of the BGGames also comes with a 24/7 Dev hotline ! HAH
– Real player with 35.9 hrs in game
Now that I’ve played quite a few games of Minos Strategos and moved up a few ranks I feel confident in saying this game is another great addition to the BrainGoodGames collection of strategy games.
The tutorial is a bit brief and left me with some questions. Watching a short video that is linked to on the main page of the game soon cleared up the questions I had. There is a practise mode so if you aren’t sure how something works and you want to experiment, you can do so without affecting your rank.
– Real player with 35.0 hrs in game
Zenith Frontier
Zenith Frontier is an interstellar strategy simulation game. Explore and colonise hostile exoplanets and help humanity survive the struggles of 2040 and beyond.
Zenith Frontier features several novel mechanics in the context of traditional 4X and grand strategy gameplay elements. Experience visionary strategic gameplay set in an evolving procedural galaxy populated by billions ot autonomous citizens and private companies. Build a faction with a rich background and strong identity, then oversee their interstellar efforts to advance their position within the precarious New Space Age.
New Gameplay Features:
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A Shared Origin: Factions start in the same overpopulated, suffering home system and compete to expand outwards in the year 2040. This is made possible by the recent discovery of –REDACTED– which allows high-tech spacecraft to slip into subspace.
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Volatile Subspace: Exploration of this newly accessible subspace is incredibly dangerous. This chaotic region is thick with dark matter and swirling dark energy fields, but the ability to travel interstellar distances in considerably shorter timeframes may be worth the risk. Known safe routes will become critical to sustaining your remote holdings, but beware - subspace is neither static or stable and these routes may change!
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Information is Essential: Unshielded signals will be destroyed in subspace and must be carried through by comm drones. News that arrives at your capital from a distant colony will be out-of-date - the situation will have evolved and you will have to consider this when planning your response. Additionally, perhaps the illegal hijacking of another’s comm drones will glean some strategic information - and prevent it from arriving at its intended destination!
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Special Relativity: Spacecraft travelling at incredible speeds and colonies established within deep gravity wells will experience first-hand the effects of special relativity and time dilation. Time will progress more quickly for the crew of your –REDACTED– spacecraft making a long journey at high speeds than the colony they are destined for.
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Geospatial Resource Pricing: A supply and demand model for price determination within a dynamic economic system that includes taxes, import/export fees and transportation costs mean that resource prices will vary throughout the galaxy. Plan your economic developments accordingly - or invest in this interstellar network infrastructure to take a slice of your rival’s operations.
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Top Level Direction: Shape your faction from the top down by issuing orders, directives, and edicts to your military staff, governors, and private sector. These are executed autonomously, which can lead to surprising outcomes. This indirect control poses interesting strategic challenges.
Traditional Gameplay Features:
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Diplomacy and Politics
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Research and Technology
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Military Conflict
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Management and Governance
Zenith Frontier’s Design Pillars:
Zenith Frontier is being designed and developed in line with these pillars.
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Emergence - A rich, living world that generates unique emergent scenarios.
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Strategic Depth - A semantic network of interconnect systems.
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Gameplay Over Graphics - A high quality interactive system that priotises gameplay.
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Self-Directed - The player is primarily working towards self-selected goals in open gameplay.
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Top Level Decisions - The player provides direction from the top-down to autonomous agents.
Kingdomonium
Kingdomonium is an indie medieval procedurally generated side-scrolling real time strategy game. Build up and command your medieval kingdom to explore and conquer the land. The game at its roots is a real time strategy game with the unique mechanic of playing as a side-scrolling 2D platformer. You play within a procedurally generated sandboxed open world environment which allows activities such as foraging, chopping, digging, mining, building, fishing, sailing, exploring, strategic combat and many more!
So what’s so special about this game?
Most traditional real time strategy games play from a top-down perspective. Kingdomonium plays as a side-scrolling 2D platformer. This combined with the fact that the world you play in is procedurally generated with aspects of destructible terrain makes for some very intriguing and enjoyable gameplay!
What can I do in this game and what is the end goal?
The game allows you to take command of a medieval kingdom. You give orders to various constituent units (some of which are mentiond below) to perform tasks such as foraging, chopping, digging, mining, building, fishing, sailing, exploring and tactical combat. There are many goals in the game but the main overarching one is to expand your kingdom and take over as much land as possible. Other goals include exploration, finding rare items, overcoming various obstacles and enemies and many more.
What commandable characters or units are in the game?
Below are some of the basic units planned in the game. Of course this is only a small sample. There will be many others and advanced versions of these below in the final game!
#### Villager
Villagers are the heartbeat of the kingdom. They perform a multitude of tasks such as wood-cutting, mining, building and crafting. Without them the kingdom cannot function
#### Swordsman
The short swordsman is a staple infantry unit. Although basic they are a formidable force to be reckoned with when commanded in groups for close range melee battle
#### Archer
The archer is another staple infantry unit. They are very effective for planning strategic range attacks and defending the kingdom from higher vantage points and gaurd towers
#### Knight
The knight is a more capable, experienced and equipped infantry unit. They possess a great amount of armour and durability as well as quicker attack times and greater hit-point damage
#### Cavalry
The cavalry are highly durable and effecient combat units. They possess a great amount of stamina and hit-point damage against any opposition as well as having the ability to traverse vast distances quickly
#### Priest
Priests can heal wounded units as well as cast spells against the enemy during battle. In addition to these they also possess further mystical powers yet to be revealed
#### Catapult
The catapult is a basic artillery combat unit. Highly advantageous for launching ranged attacks with large splash damage. Especially useful for destroying buildings and other structures
#### Transport Ship
The transport ship is essential for moving troops, equipment and supplies across sea to neighboring lands
Need For Conquest
TL;DR:
The visuals may be basic, but the AI is very well done, which creates tension-filled moments as you try to decide where to allocate your limited troops. You need patience and attention to accomplish anything, which makes things rewarding and addictive (serious case of “one more turn” syndrome for me).
Full review
I’m a veteran strategy game player (my favorites include Civilization, Total War, Company of Heroes and Age of Empires). I was asked to try out Need for Conquest by the developer, who I know personally. I thought I would only check out the game for an hour or two, but then the most unexpected thing happened – I got hooked! This simple Risk clone gave me the biggest “one more turn” syndrome since I played Civilization. I have put off meals and personal hygiene just so I could find out what would happen next turn: Will I finally be able to complete my conquest of South America (and get a nice draft bonus)? Will my defenses in Indochina hold? Will my two AI neighbors fight each other or will they turn their attention to my not-quite-well-defended eastern border? You get the picture. My playtime is now at 60+ hours.
– Real player with 78.0 hrs in game
A stock basic RISK like game, whose strength, I imagine, is in the variety of the maps.
I played one game, and while the AI was pretty weak, everything worked. The controls were pretty solid, and the music and sound effects were fine. There was no animation.
Obviously it cannot be a total RISK clone. This game does not have cards to collect, or turn ins, and there is no plus to taking out a fellow player. The game does seem to be trying to work new ideas in to the mix, for example some territories can have a resource called Stones that gives armies in that territory armor. Not sure how that works into the game yet, but it does show creativity.
– Real player with 7.5 hrs in game
Planet Nomads
[May 16, 2019: Now that the game is released, I wanted to edit this review to reflect changes to the game since I originally wrote it,]
Will you enjoy Planet Nomads?
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Yes if you enjoy sandbox building games.
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Yes if you enjoy being creative.
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Yes if you enjoy problem-solving (not fixed puzzles but real creative “how can I put this together” building challenges).
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Yes if you enjoy a beautiful environment.
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Yes if you enjoy a good soundtrack.
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Yes if you enjoy single player.
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Yes if you enjoy being able to customize your game world.
– Real player with 4203.3 hrs in game
Gameplay (Short Summary)
Let me start off this review by saying, that the game currently has very little to offer in terms of gameplay if you are not much of a creative person, but if you are, then be prepared to a big grind fest early on in the game until you get the ability to construct auto miners, after that prepare yourself to the next gameplay phase - driving simulator, because resources are scattered across multiple biomes and while driving at max speed from 30-50kmph, it takes a while to get you around the map.
– Real player with 120.7 hrs in game