Out There: Oceans of Time

Out There: Oceans of Time

The successor to the award-winning Out There , Oceans of Time blends roguelike, resource management and interactive fiction for a space survival epic where death is one wrong decision away.

As Commander Nyx, explore a vast galaxy that is different every time you play, as you search for the Archon; a cosmic villain set on dominating the civilisations of the galaxy.

Encounter other strange lifeforms and learn to communicate, trade, and conduct diplomacy as you build a coalition of allies in your mission to find the Archon.

Recruit new members from the alien races you cross paths with, and build a team capable of traversing the cosmos. Manage your crew, your ship and its systems; the mission’s success is down to your decisions as Commander.

Experience a deep, branching narrative written by FibreTigre, dialogue by Christos Gage (Daredevil (Netflix, 2015), Spider-Man (Insomniac, Sony, 2018)) and beautiful interactive cutscenes illustrated by renowned artist Benjamin Carré (Transformers: Age of Extinction, Alone in the Dark).

Out There: Oceans of Time is developed by Mi-Clos Studio, the creators of Out There and Sigma Theory.

FEATURES

Navigate an expansive cosmos that is different every time you play.

Explore unexplored terrain and collect resources for your ship, and the next leg of your journey.

Recruit from a diverse range of Alien lifeforms, and build a team capable of surviving the furthest reaches of the cosmos.

An epic space-saga penned by FibreTigre, with dialogue from Christos Gage.


Read More: Best Resource Management Adventure Games.


Out There: Oceans of Time on Steam

Festival Tycoon

Festival Tycoon

I really like this game and I had it on my wish-list for a while coming up to the release date.

When I first started playing it really felt like a community driven game which is really nice to see, like what I mean by this is it’s not hard to get in direct contact with the developer to talk about the game and that’s pretty damn cool.

From being in the Discord server, the community along with the developer are both really friendly. Johannes (Developer) Is a really friendly and co-operative person and can take feedback really well and is on top of any bugs/issues very fast. His response time is a lot better than 90% of developers I’ve contacted and when I had an issue it was fixed within an hour. So that’s already a plus for me, even if I didn’t enjoy the game.

Real player with 44.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Resource Management Sandbox Games.


If you are reading this in six to twelve months time, this should be an instant buy if you play tycoon games. This is a fun and highly enjoyable tycoon game that I have had a fair bit of enjoyment out of. If you are reading this in October of 2021, my advice would be to wait six to twelve months. The base of this game is fantastic, it is a bit lacking in content though, and can become quite repetitive due to the lack of content (especially in the choice of festival sites), as well as a couple of bugs which do make gameplay harder to enjoy. This is quite typical for an early access game, of course, but it does need to be mentioned. However, unlike some other early access games, the developer is super on top of things and does a great job at communicating with the audience, so I have no doubt that there will be in the very near future new content to keep it fresh and challenging, as well as constant bug fixes. Overall, this should either be a get this game, or will end up being a get this game.

Real player with 22.7 hrs in game

Festival Tycoon on Steam

Siege Survival: Gloria Victis

Siege Survival: Gloria Victis

I first heard of this game during the Steam Game Festival back in February and I spent maybe 2 dozen hours trying out the demo before getting the full game.

Siege Survival is heavily inspired from This War of Mine, and incorporates many of the same looting and resource management aspects, such as base-building, scavenging the city at night, trying to keep your people alive until the end of a war, and more.

I think Siege Survival handles some aspects very well, even better than TWoM, such as:

Real player with 100.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Resource Management Medieval Games.


I really tried to like this game, I did, really. I think the hours speak how much I tried. I gave up a few times on the hardcore mode because while I didn’t mind a challenge, I didn’t feel like doing the siege again, but harder.

I understand, and it wasn’t a bad idea to try to mix This War of Mine and Medieval siege. But the problem is, well, you kind of lost the point of T.W.M. when you tried this. That war is shit, and stupid, especially as a civilian that has no horse in the race. When you’re the focus of the siege, forced to pick a side, and it’s so binary who’s right/wrong, the message is lost. It’s a typical story of “us vs. bad men” and that’s where you dropped the ball. The events are binary right/wrong as well, pick the obviously right/morally good choices and your rewards are a mood boost plus a benefit. Versus a mood debuff plus a benefit. Closest to “conflicted” I get to a decision is the rat event where you either go for the food that can make ~12 meals and get lightly scratched or don’t. You never talk to an Ismir raider to ask them why they’re raiding us, what they hope to get out of it, and what they say to justify it all. You meet one, but he’s too wounded to talk philosophy or reason which admittingly did amuse me when I thought of trying so with a notebook and pencil in my hands.

Real player with 50.4 hrs in game

Siege Survival: Gloria Victis on Steam

Meridian: Age of Invention

Meridian: Age of Invention

Tags: Clicker - Cooldown

Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library

TLDR: 12 Labors type. Redundant. Prefer flavor and themes from competition.

This is a priority clicking game in which you have a HQ and little workers run along pre-drawn pathways to clear obstacles and get ressources. This game’s mechanics are centered around having to micromanage the economy between the multiple buildings built on your hotspots by queuing courriers so they can move ressources to and from mines, and move letters and packages between houses. So, it is a less streamlined, clunkier version of what is usually done in this genre which is not a selling point. Additionally, there is a clash between some of the tile arts that have more of a hand drawn flavor as opposed to the 3D character models of your workers. All things considered this was not a very recommendable example of this genre and would recommend Weather Lords over it.

Real player with 12.4 hrs in game

Short version: 76%

Meridian is a super casual, lightweight time management game with next to no challenge whatsoever. But with such a cute art style and fast-paced levels, it really doesn’t matter as the game is incredibly fun!

Long version:

Time management titles are usually classified as casual games, but Meridian: Age of Invention takes that to a whole new level with how easy it is. Which is a bit strange, considering that it has a remarkable pace for its genre, but this combination of speed and the lack of challenge create a really enjoyable combination.

Real player with 9.3 hrs in game

Meridian: Age of Invention on Steam

rymdkapsel

rymdkapsel

It has been quite a while since I experienced time loss playing a game, but rymdkapsel did it for me. I got so into the game I played for 3+ hours without realizing. I thought maybe 40 minutes had gone by.

It did a couple things right for me personally to achieve that: enjoyable base building and management of units, despite the minimal approach + short, challenging, make it or break it runs to achieve various goals. The first level/difficulty of the game was a blast, easy enough to keep playing though challenging enough you will die, reassess your strategy, and start over a few times. Next level/difficulty is more challenging (I haven’t gotten all the achievements yet) but similar. Build, manage, gather and grow resources, power ups, fight enemies, die, reassess strategy, try again. It’s quite fun and sucks you in!

Real player with 12.1 hrs in game

On the face of it rymdkapsel looks like an isometric type tetris clone, but in reality it’s a surprisingly good minimalistic space RTS come Tower Defense game where you have to build corridor like capsules (that look like colored tetris pieces) such as weapon rooms, living quarters, kitchens, gardens, reactors and resource extractors. The aim of the game is to complete several tasks such as researching monoliths that once unlocked gain you extra attributes such as speedier minions, slower enemies, increases the range of your weapons or makes for faster resource production. Other aims are to complete all four monoliths within 45 minutes and to survive the 28 waves of enemies that get steadily harder as you progress. You race against time between enemy attacks to build your various modules. The sensible thing is to concentrate on aiming for one monolith at a time and building one each of the modules in turn till the cycle begins again. The sortest route to each monolith is the optimum so use the pieces that appear at the top left of the game field to decide when to build a new corridor. As your work force increases you can manage them via the task bar at the bottom of the game field, swapping minions between tasks as and when needed.

Real player with 9.0 hrs in game

rymdkapsel on Steam

Silmaris: Dice Kingdom

Silmaris: Dice Kingdom

Silmaris meets the bare minimum for me to recommend it; it took me about 12 hours to beat the game, then another 5 hours to exhaust all the various outcomes, or at least as many as I cared to see. After that, in my opinion, there is little to no replayability.

It was fun and an interesting story, with plenty of choice. I love the idea of dice rolls; its a good strategy and resource management game with (lite) elements of city/kingdom-building as well as the thrill of RNG. And yes, you will die plenty of times before figuring out how to best navigate the decision-making. For me, that adds to the joy of the eventual triumph. However, once you beat the game, you’ve probably seen all the events, and for me, the game is not enjoyable enough to replay after there’s no new surprises.

Real player with 21.8 hrs in game

I played this game for a time and for me it was enjoyable. You play a ruler in a city surrounded by five other cities. Two of them are hostile towards you at the beginning. The rest is neutral. Trying to either subjugate or befriend them is your main goal then. For this goal you have a pick out of a varity of advisors at your disposal. Additional to this politic part you can solve missions on the map, which can provide you with artifacts making your advisors stronger.

Everything works via dices you use in the game. You gain them by either letting your advisors collect more or earn them in missions.

Real player with 16.5 hrs in game

Silmaris: Dice Kingdom on Steam

Don´t Spill

Don´t Spill

The game needs a lot of improvemments on the UI and polishing in general, but it’s on EA so that’s understandable. The game idea it’s really nice, a mashup between mages and cooking. Has a lot of potential, so I’m leaving a positive review!

Real player with 2.1 hrs in game

Very different and the idea is good. It lacks a little bit of polish, but in general it’s pretty cool.

Real player with 1.5 hrs in game

Don´t Spill on Steam

Mr. Prepper

Mr. Prepper

I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t sure if I liked it the first few hours but boy did I change my mind. I was expecting to actually have to survive in the shelter I created and see the aftermath of the wasteland left after the world goes to hell and I was puzzled as to why this sort of game play wasn’t added in but it’s still a fantastic base building , survival game and I hope they’ll add DLC in the future, where you’ll actually be able to survive in the bunker or even get to experience what happens after landing the rocket .

Real player with 448.5 hrs in game

Mr. Prepper. A survival base building game that’s not about survival and not about base building but purely story-driven.

TL;DR: If you can get it cheap (10 USD/EUR), give it a shot. But if you want a survival challenge or expect another game like This War Of Mine, STAY AWAY. It has SO much unused potential. It could be so much more.

PROS:

  • Interesting story. Mr. Prepper is not your average guy.

  • The typical “just one more day” game design that sucks you in.

  • 3 (4) NPCs you interact with that are all kinda likable.

Real player with 27.6 hrs in game

Mr. Prepper on Steam

12 Labours of Hercules II: The Cretan Bull

12 Labours of Hercules II: The Cretan Bull

A set of four equally nice, neatly made (in every aspect) time managers. Slightly diversified (with new game play features, bonuses and surprises) to make each game a bit different, while keeping enough in common with the previouse one(s), which shortens waste of time and nerve on mastering the next game, that’s valuable. Repetative, yet it feels all right here, can’t remember myself being driven into bore even once. I beat all four games 100% on expert difficulty and still wouldn’t mind to see the fifth. Taken into account the fact that games like these are not my idea of fun (or they weren’t at least))) - what better recommendation could i give to a game. If you are looking for a highly involving and entertaining, not all that hard yet challenging enough game - check this one. Probably you will be pleased even beyond your expectations.

Real player with 85.9 hrs in game

Game Information

“12 Labours of Hercules: The Cretan Bull” is a Strategy game. The game was developed by JetDogs Studios & Zoomout Games and published by JetDogs Studios.

“The Cretan Bull” is the second episode of “12 Labours of Hercules.” Previous episode: “12 Labours of Hercules.”

The Game Review

Game Visuals

I want to mentioned that the visuals in the game is well done. The visuals can be adjusted in the game’s option menu.

Game Audio

I want to mentioned that audio for the game is well done. Even though the audio is somewhat simplistic and repetitive. The audio can be adjusted in the game’s option menu as well.

Real player with 35.1 hrs in game

12 Labours of Hercules II: The Cretan Bull on Steam

Cultures - Northland

Cultures - Northland

A classic game, one of the first videogames I played on PC. My friends dismissed it as a “cardboard-cutout” silly RTS, but despite all that, I still love the game.I’ve recently had the pleasant surprise to find it listed on steam, as I misplaced the original CD, and bought it at a slight discount to see if it still runs (windows 10 64bit). Gotta say, I had to fiddle with the resolution and graphics settings a bit, but I got it to work, and it was worth it.

A few ways in which this game differs from other strategy games: left click is only for selection; placing buildings,setting work areas, taking various actions and whatnot require right-clicking. All subjects have their various needs (if played on easy or normal difficulty) that need to be satisfied. Vikings require signposts to be placed around to go to faraway places. This need can be bypassed by scouts(who place the signposts) and military units.

Real player with 39.1 hrs in game

Childhood game, therefore my review might be subjective.

Very good, old school RTS game with colorful graphics, simple rules, many campaigns and no need for DLC’s. There could be more main missions as well as side missions apart from those at Skirmish mode.

Let’s not forget that the game production is dated as of year 2000, the 2015 is the release date on steam, not the actual production time. As of year 2000, the game can be easily compared to old The settlers or old Anno titles.

Although few aspects of the game could be more extended, such as main heroes. Great example here can be Spellforce series or even Warlords Battlecry where the main hero can use spells, have certain attributes as well as the inventory.

Real player with 34.9 hrs in game

Cultures - Northland on Steam