Gangster Empire: Vendetta
IN A WORD: MAYBE
IN SHORT:
WHAT TO EXPECT: Crime enterprise simulator. Mature themes. Low budget production. Basic graphics and audio. Simplistic, limited gameplay. Good range of random dynamic events provide core strategy depth. Minimal supplemental gameplay mechanics. Very repetitive. Clicker like tempo. Played on fixed-resolution window. No settings apart from muting audio. Singleplayer only.
ACHIEVEMENTS: NONE.
STATUS: COMPLETE. A FEW BUGS. ONE CTD.
– Real player with 13.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Replay Value Turn-Based Tactics Games.
Overview
If anyone seeks out REXCurse for an opinion about a gang-themed game (especially a gang-themed game involving management) you know ol' Il Pallino is on the job. With no sort of backstory and a mostly casual experience, Gangster Empire: Vendetta doesn’t have anything in the way of a “vendetta” against anyone or anything. Instead, there’s just turn-based strategy gaming in which the player controls a gang with a maximum of eight people and looks to complete the game by either satisfying requirements for money or reputation. Crimes involve petty theft, violent assaults, hacking, drug dealing, long-term schemes (which can be either violent or non-violent), and good old fashioned legitimate businesses. Sometimes the player may be asked to assign gang members to complete various tasks for outside bosses who provide large amounts of money upon completion and an increase in reputation the player can either hoard in hopes of reaching their overall goal or spend on attacking a rival crime boss who occasionally schemes against the main character’s gang.
– Real player with 8.8 hrs in game
Fantasy Blacksmith
Original Review before bug fixes (Scroll down to see edited notes):
Now…where to begin. Well, first question that may be asked, is this game fun? Short answer yes, long answer no with a but. This game does something rather unique that hasn’t been done before (as far as I know), it allows you to play as a sword smith in a fantasy world where your goal isn’t to slay the big bad overlord or to plunder deep dungeons so that you may retire on a pile of “phat loot”, but to become the “best” blacksmith (sword smith as you only make swords) in the land. You can design your swords from various parts, choose which materials to use and then forge them into mighty swords from myth and legend. Sounds cool, is cool, BUT and it is a big but and I cannot lie…
– Real player with 50.9 hrs in game
Last Edited: 3/19/2019 for Patch 1.0.3 (see bottom of review for updates)
A game with quite a bit of potential despite getting delayed multiple times with no notice at all to the customers waiting (including release day, coming out over 5 hours late without any word) but if you are not a fan of Early Access games with a lot of bugs I would suggest waiting until a lot more work is done on this.
Current issues I have encountered:
Physics are more of a suggestion than a law in the world of Fantasy Blacksmith. The first thing that happened after I started playing was picking up the Thermometer, testing the current temp of the bronze ingot in the forge, “placing” them next to me, and getting catapulted across the room.
– Real player with 40.2 hrs in game
Coffee Noir - Business Detective Game
The idea was good, the delivery is kind of disappointing.
The music and artwork are the strongest points of the production. It looks very pleasant and it’s nice to have in the background.
Gameplay is problematic. Tasks are easy (I played on normal), negotiations not always make sense, but it’s not bad. The worse were the clues, the whole detective system is quite bad. A lot of text and updates that are repetitive. The clues supposed to have the logic in connecting them, but it took me a while to understand, that some clues are going to be obviously connected to stuff that we already knew. I didn’t feel like it’s a challenge, more like a blind guess.
– Real player with 30.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Replay Value Building Games.
Coffee Noir doesn’t try to be anything more than what it is - a neo noir game with supporting business sim mechanics. No pointless time-wasting side activities to be found here. The story is at the front and center of everything. Moreover, the game’s fully voiced from start to finish, making for a more immersive experience. The game might not have much to offer in terms of replay value. But if you’re willing, you can walk away having learned a thing or two about the art of negotiating.
– Real player with 25.8 hrs in game
Wildlife Park 2 - Fantasy
Okay, so since I’d seen from previous reviews that the dragons would be expensive, I’d started my park with a lot more funds than I usually would’ve. I didn’t require a tutorial because I’d played all the other expansions, and I’ve gotten to tenth generation Fire Dragons so far. I guess I find this more interesting than other users because I’ve always been more focused on breeding than doing Missions.
– Real player with 92.5 hrs in game
OMGGGGG! THE CLIMATE IS AMAZING! DEFINITLY RECOMMEND! THE SNOW IS BEAUTIFUL, THE LANDSCAPE IS BEAUTIFUL! ITS AWSOME…………… ITS REALISTIC…………………… ITS AMAZING QUALITY IS FANTASTIC……………… ITS WILDLIFE PARK 2 FANTASY! Though you only get 2 animals i made a successful zoo with them!
– Real player with 48.7 hrs in game
Insurmountable
IN A WORD: COMPELLING
IN A NUTSHELL:
WHAT TO EXPECT: Adventure rogue-like. Turn-based strategy. Hex-tiled maps. Graphically beautiful. Layers of themed mechanics. Ironman style saving. Challenging gameplay. Permadeath. Singleplayer only.
ACHIEVEMENTS: NOT EASY OR QUICK TO GAIN.
STATUS: COMPLETE. CURRENTLY SUPPORTED
WHEN TO BUY: FOR A DIFFERENT TACTICAL CHALLENGE.
More info below….
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2519624284
– Real player with 26.1 hrs in game
Insurmountable is a good foundation for a potentially very chill roguelite. Its slow pacing means it compares more readily to autobattlers like Loop Hero than to action roguelites like RoR or Hades. It’s a good time if you fire up a podcast and get climbing.
I bought this game after watching a bit of a playthrough on YouTube. I watched it at 2x speed with no problem. The game absolutely should at least have the option to go faster. The current speed options are either “intolerably slow” or “slow.”
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
Red Sun Raiders
Join the last humans aboard the vast colony ship Tarian. Moving through the remains of the galaxy in front of a nameless dying sun destroying everything in its path.
Red Sun Raiders is a strategy game with elements of trading, levelling, looting, resource management, basic combat and exploration. This is not a combat based game, the gameplay involves building farms and mines to maximize loot collected, exploring to find keys and gold deposits, and trading to get a good price for your loot.
Swarm the City: Zombie Evolved
I have mixed feelings about this game. While I enjoy’d the gameplay, the game is not completely finished. There is a final chapter that doesn’t unlock, and it really bums you out. Like wtf? It leaves you feeling like you haven’t really beat the game. There’s no congratulation, no finally.. You’re left unable to get legendary parts for upgrades, cause they’re locked behind unreachable levels I guess..? I dunno. It’s rude to charge $15 for a game that isn’t even finished.
For now I am down voting because that is rude on the devs part to release an unfinished game. If the game is finished I will likely change my rating.
– Real player with 31.1 hrs in game
I just kept repeating the process of summoning and dying!!! It’s a lot of fun
At the beginning, the game is kinda easy, but it gets hard once you reach chapter 3, and that’s where strategy is needed. Strategy matters a lot, you have to actually think before you start taking actions. It might still be possible that you keep dying unless you are a hardcore rts player.
Even that, Swarm the City is still good for rts starters. The pause function in the game will make it easier for those new rts players to take a break and think about the next move.
– Real player with 16.1 hrs in game
Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown
A deckbuilder game with a novel theme and a twist in mechanics because it has a visual novel built around it, with its own set of problems and goals. It’s designed to be replayed, with the goal of earning permanent starting cards after winning the overall game, so it gets a little different every time. The plot is simple, but that’s fine because the point of this game is the cards.
I thought the little details in the story were charming. “Panda” really captures the essence of a streamer, and it makes dealing with disappointed parents feel more lighthearted when they’re pandas. It’s a game that’s not trying to be serious so you can focus on the cards and I appreciate that.
– Real player with 43.6 hrs in game
I want to enjoy this game, I really do, and I understand a lot of the references and tropes in it are geared towards jaded streamers who agree with the fact that there really isn’t a guide to go about streaming successfully. That being said however, I want something of a guide, a meter, something more than viewers to tell me I’m successfully streaming. I’ve tinkered with the length of streams, I’ve tried to be conservative, tried to be nice and run the nontoxic suite, I’ve tried to be combative and run the ego trip end the stream as quick as possible, I’ve tried to go full immunity and keep my chat from hitting me, I’ve let chat beat up on me to rest up next week, doesn’t seem to matter, I don’t see any difference in my stream results. Maybe it picks up when you get your viewership set, either way I don’t know if I have time to keep playing to try to find it, I don’t even know if this is something I will revisit down the line. If you play the demo for this know that you’re just going to get more of the same, it never seems to pick up, never gets fully explained mechanically. Dunno if there’s more to do with this, if the devs are going to keep making changes, but I’m not happy with it at this point.
– Real player with 23.8 hrs in game
Zoo Constructor
Very nice sandbox successor to Zoo Games for zen designing and critter co-habitation finangling. Very much look forward to the full product. I consider my early access purchase an investment.
– Real player with 73.0 hrs in game
Overview
Zoo Constructor is the latest park management games by b-alive; developer of the classic Wildlife Park series. This new entry puts a twist in their formula with a more arcade style game and a colorful, toy-like aesthetic.
Keep animals and paying visitors happy as you build and manage a humble little zoo into a renowned park for wildlife from all over the world. This new game trades more complex economic and advanced building mechanics for a great deal of charm and ease of play.
– Real player with 13.2 hrs in game
City Country
City Country is a city-building game where you manage resources, population, knowledge. You control various sectors of the city like education, medicine, culture, tourism, trading.
You start at some point into the map. Citizens will equally be separated into Men/Women and Farmers/Workers. The population will be separated into 4 different categories: Farmers, Workers, Engineers, and Academics. Any population category will work on different buildings and will have a unique family house.
You have the option to produce whatever you like, and what You don’t like, you can buy it at any time, or sign a contract for a later system that automatically buys the product from another city immediately. After that, you should sell part of the production so you can take some fresh money into the city.
As a governor of the city, your job is to grow your city, improve your resource incomes, sell your resources and take fresh money, make your city better for life, and manage city sectors as best as you can.
Government Sectors
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Trading: - Sign a contract with other cities (AI) when you have less than N amount of resource, buy M amount of that resource, and vice versa.
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Education: - Decide what to learn, how long, and when to start people’s education.
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Medicine: - Improve the health of the citizens, and their lives.
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Culture: - Improve the knowledge of the citizens. And be a more attractive city for foreign peoples.
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Tourism: - Make money when you attract tourists. Build Hotels. Some of them can decide to continue to live in your city.
Develop Your City
Knowledge (Technology)
Investigate new products for future production and unlock new buildings.
Production (Resource Management)
Choose what to produce from the Factory profile.
