Train Valley

Train Valley

I thought this would just be geometric puzzles.. figure out how to lay the tracks. But the creators took this into account by throwing an array of constraints at you:

A. Budget (both too much and too little)

B. Physical Constraints.. both “immovable” and “purchasable” where you pay to use the area

C. Scheduling Challenges.. not only the ones thrown by the game but a “must do” quantity of add-on trains you add at your choice of times in your game play.

D. Time Constraints.. each “location” has limited time to accomplish your work

Real player with 693.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Resource Management 3D Games.


This wasn’t what I was expecting. I was expecting a game like transport tycoon made more simple and kid-friendly that I could let my niece play when she came over. (She likes trains.) Instead, this game is basically one of those traffic-manager games, although it does feature pausing. Space is severely cramped, forcing multiple trains to share the same tracks since there isn’t room for the parallel tracks you’d normally use, and so managing traffic flow and multitasking are the name of the game.

Real player with 32.6 hrs in game

Train Valley on Steam

Train Valley 2

Train Valley 2

I loved Train Valley and although I initially preferred it as I play more of TV2 I realise this game is a bit better. It’s addictive laying tracks and trying to get the correct trains to the correct stations, upgrading them so they carry another carriage and go that bit quicker, and buying more trains so I can shift goods and people more efficiently. It’s easy to stuff up a single track route to have trains crash or go into the wrong station - but that is all part of the fun and puzzle aspect of the game. Striving to get 5 stars on each challenge is also always achievable (in my plays anyway) but might take you a few goes, which means a little bit of replayability for each map.

Real player with 593.3 hrs in game


Read More: Best Resource Management Casual Games.


Create goods via different stations that rely on each other! Good gameplay, supported by a friendly community.

Solve the puzzle!

Every level is a puzzle: several towns require goods in order to finish the level. Those towns produce workers, which are required in most crafting stations. For instance, if the town needs glass, you first send workers to a sand excavation station. There workers are converted into sand over time. The sand then is transported to the glass factory, along with a new supply of workers. Finally the glass is transported to the town. The ratio is always 1:1. So before you start the level you can calculate how many workers need to go where.

Real player with 299.0 hrs in game

Train Valley 2 on Steam

Melodramatica

Melodramatica

Very clunky. would probably be better as a top-down game, as character gets stuck in walls, walks EXTREMELY slowly, NPCs block you character, and makes it difficult to chase down the other characters to interact with. tutorial does not explain much either, having to walk frustratingly slowly around to figure out what needs to be done. eventually figured out that you needed to enter to top left room to assess a dresser to equip costumes - if this was not to be covered in tutorial prompts, at the very least, the rooms should be labelled clearly.

Real player with 4.5 hrs in game


Read More: Best Resource Management Casual Games.


This game is obviously still in early access because there are some obvious areas that need some TLC, but looking at the rest of the game… I have no concerns that the team will fix these. It looks absolutely fantastic!! It’s worth playing this just to walk around the theatre, even if you don’t want to play the rest of the game lol. The art is so gorgeous.

The main thing you’re doing is just talking to your actors and sending them around to do things, which is fun because they all have their own personality. Some actors like some things more than others. But where it really shines (and what I want to spend hours on) is everything else leading up to the show. THERE IS CUSTOMISATION!!!! You get to dress up your actors which automatically makes this a good game. You get to craft stages for the shows you’re putting on. And watching the actual shows is ALSO super rewarding. Lots of really fun “small” things to do that lead up to the big performance.

Real player with 4.1 hrs in game

Melodramatica on Steam

Dread Nautical

Dread Nautical

Fun game, if you can get over some annoyances. The story is good. The battles are fun.

Bad things:

Low replay value.

Part of your party can get stuck outside of a room when you get “ambushed”. This makes for the annoying practice of “rushing characters into a room at the start of a fight”. Gotta do that as fast as possible… and it is very silly and annoying.

A threat system starts up when you hit floor 10. The game is way more fun without it. I don’t want to think about how to collect loot after a battle in the least possible amount of steps (because threat goes up with every move) It doesn’t make the runs more interesting, it just makes it more annoying, and you have to keep going straight towards the exit on every map.

Real player with 45.2 hrs in game

Dread Nautical bring tactical and survival challenges to play. you can search for supplies and gears. you can choose if you wish to engage the enemies or sneak pass them to complete the floor. I find this game to be fun and challenging. Also who and how many survivors you recruit affect your gameplay in term of food and dividing resources.

Real player with 21.9 hrs in game

Dread Nautical on Steam

Jigsaw Jolt: Neural Style 1

Jigsaw Jolt: Neural Style 1

Features one hundred jigsaw puzzle images enhanced using AI style transfer. This gives each image a fun, quirky, and unique look. The puzzle images are specially selected to provide the high saturation of detail needed in a jigsaw puzzle.

The puzzle program has an open approach which allows you to find your own fun and customize the experience to best suit you. You are not limited to a specific progression path, or way of doing things. You can mix and match features to get the most fun and challenge out of your puzzle solving adventure.

The puzzle program uses a standard maximized application window rather than a fullscreen display. This makes it ideal for solving puzzles while also using your computer for other tasks. Whenever the puzzle screen loses focus any dynamic and timed elements are automatically paused, and will resume again when you switch back to the Current Puzzle tab page.

How To Use The Puzzle Program

To begin solving a puzzle, just click on one of the puzzle images on the Puzzle Selector tab page that is displayed on program start. The puzzle will be generated and displayed on the Current Puzzle tab page. You can customize the features that you want for the puzzle on the Settings tab page. The Help tab page provides you with all the information you need on customizing and solving puzzles, and on managing the program.

Most controls within the program also have quick-help buttons ‘?’ next to them which provide pop-up help information about the nearby control. This makes it easy to get the information you need, right when and where you need it.

You can find the buttons that let you switch between tab pages at the top of the screen. Next to these you will find a row of control buttons that give you control options for the current puzzle, let you save and load puzzles, and let you quickly exit the program.

Puzzle Program Features

Save and reload puzzles. Once a puzzle has been saved it will be autosaved once per minute and whenever the puzzle is closed. You can also set puzzle files for completed puzzles to be automatically deleted.

Save and reload puzzle settings profiles. You can have as many of these settings profiles as you wish. This allows you to create your own challenge modes, and easily switch between them.

You can select the number of pieces you wish to have in each puzzle. 24 to 216 piece puzzles are available.

Puzzles are generated on-the-fly when a puzzle image is selected. The puzzle is created using vector drawing techniques and the amount of randomness used can be controlled via the Settings tab page. This lets you customize the look of each puzzle.

Move puzzle segments (single pieces and interlocked multi-piece groups) around by clicking on them with the left-mouse button to pick them up and to put them down again. You can also hold down the mouse button to drag and drop puzzle segments. Once a piece is picked up it is considered to be captured and dynamic elements are turned off for the piece. If a segment is dropped near another segment that it can interlock with then it will do so.

Two workspaces are available to solve the puzzles in. You can switch between them using the right mouse button. Puzzle segments can be easily picked-up and dropped from one workspace to another and you can complete the puzzle in either workspace.

Pieces can be set to optionally be manually rotatable. The pieces will be randomly rotated when a puzzle is generated and can be manually rotated using the mousewheel. Pieces will only interlock once both they and their interlocking piece are at their correct rotation.

Puzzle pieces can optionally be set to move dynamically, rotate dynamically, and attempt to evade the mouse pointer when moving. They can also be set to make random direction changes to prevent clustering.

Rotating forcefields can be enabled for pieces. These will have small gaps in them to allow the mouse pointer in past the forcefield so that a piece can be captured. If the mouse triggers the forcefield then the piece will be locked while the mouse pointer is over it. You can also change the rotational speed of the forcefield to change the difficulty.

You can enable a health ring for the mouse pointer. This will decrement in health while a puzzle segment is picked up, forcing you to optimize the puzzle solving process. The health and health scaling are both customizable. The health meter applies a soft-limit on solving a puzzle that still allows you to complete the puzzle if you run out of health. If you want to use a hard limit then just close the puzzle when the health runs out.

A countdown timer is available to create timed challenge modes. The amount of time allowed is customizable for each number of pieces. A grace period is applied when the puzzle is created or loaded and after returning from a pause. You can combine this mode with the forcefield mode by optionally applying a customizable forcefield detection penalty. This applies a soft limit similar to the way the health meter works.

For some extra help in solving a puzzle you can set the completed puzzle image to be displayed as a faint image in the background on the puzzle screen. This feature can be enabled and disabled at any time.

The program will automatically pause dynamic and timed elements when the Current Puzzle tab page loses the focus. To pause, just switch to a different tab page, or to a different window.

Note that, due to the high number of optional settings combinations, you may find that you need to tweak some of the health meter and timing values to create challenge modes that work best for you. You can save the settings profile you create and reload it at any time once you have it set the way that you like it.

Jigsaw Jolt: Neural Style 1 on Steam

Let Them Trade

Let Them Trade

Let Them Trade is a minimalistic trading simulation in which you build a network of towns. What’s particularly special about that is that this network is only used by AI-controlled merchants! So it is in your best interest to keep up the towns' supply and demand of their resources, and pocket a big part of the traders' coin - via tolls!

Note: Let Them Trade and its Steam page are still in an early alpha state. Everything is subject to change. Wishlist the game and press the follow button to stay informed about future updates! Also, feel free to follow us on our various social media channels! :)

Explore the World!

What riches does nature have on offer for you? Where are the strategically best places for your cities? Explore a world rich with many different resources and choose the best ones to kickstart your economy!

Build Your Network!

Build trade routes between cities, overcome natural obstacles such as wild waters and soaring mountains, and be on the lookout for evil bandits. Only with wit and ingenuity, you will be able to build a trading network that maximizes your merchants' profits - and, in turn, your wealth!

Let them Trade!

Interact with a multitude of trader characters! Each with their own personality, their own field of expertise and of course their own preferences on where to spend their money. Butter them up and make their life as easy as possible:

  • Fend off bandits by hiring knights in shiny armors

  • Optimize trade routes so they pass by their favorite resources

  • Adjust tolls to make them happy - no one likes tolls! Don’t feed the toll! Just make sure that you don’t come away empty-handed!

State Of Development

We just finished the prototype. Now we’re searching for a publisher!

Special Thanks

…to the FFF Bayern for funding the development of the game!

Let Them Trade on Steam

Isles of Cubes

Isles of Cubes

Great puzzle game. Took me 5 hours to get to the last level the developers have created thus far!

Real player with 5.3 hrs in game

Great puzzler!!! less than 30 minutes played and in love so far. Will write a more comprehensive review after more hours played! - Just buy it 3 I purchased on a whim and already can tell I will get many hours of enjoyment from this.

Real player with 2.8 hrs in game

Isles of Cubes on Steam

Progress Game

Progress Game

I love this game. People are forgetting that this is still super new and wont have a lot of content. I am sitting at 90 hours on the game so far and love hitting those high numbers. To the reset complaints, I mean it only takes like 2 hours to get back to the max anyway so its not worth the stress over that. Also resets are common in alphas and betas and these children new to gaming don’t seem to understand that.

EDIT- I have hit a wall on floor 1318 of the infinite dungeon that after I beat the enemy whos health bar does not budge until death my game crashes. I however have fixed this by just going somewhere else on the map. Can’t wait for more!

Real player with 131.2 hrs in game

As of writing this review I am level 842 and have played for ~38.2 hours.

Progress game is a game about.. Well, progressing. You kill enemies to craft better gear so that you can kill even stronger enemies. You get points which you use to update various different stats & much more. There’s currently 7 different zones to explore and conquer.

You can play through the “main game” in about 2-6 hours but if you still desire more there’s a zone with infinite amount of enemies for you to slay!

You might think Progress Game lacks content, but you have to remember there’s only 1 developer working on it, and for free!

Real player with 99.3 hrs in game

Progress Game on Steam

Age of Darkness: Final Stand

Age of Darkness: Final Stand

This game is simply a amazing and addictive game for RTS and tactical RTS gamers. By default, there is a pause feature allows you to queue unit actions, building construction, and tech research. You start with a small group of units and a hero. From there, you need to explore, expand, and exploit the land in order to survive waves of nightmares that attack from large dark crystals during death night at which you will suffer a malice during the night. If you survive, you may choose a blessing that will be with you the rest of the match. There are five death nights, and a final stand. The final stand on the highest difficulty is 80k enemies that attack from all the dark crystals. You have ranged, melee, and siege units at your disposal, as well as ballista towers, and flame bellow towers. Your economy management consists of farms to produce food for villagers, which in turn are used for housing income, and resource collection building, as well as units. Your units have a tech tree you can utilize to offers advancement as well. A green fog encroaches the land on death nights, which cannot be removed without building vision, or you survive the death night. Enemies vary from crawlers, slow, weak, but can be a challenge in number, to giant hulking crushers with massive hp and damage.

Real player with 336.9 hrs in game

The Gameplay

Picture this scenario:

The days go by while you’re out exploring the map and expanding your base while those blue dots turn into red dots… one… by… one… And on the last day now with only 4 minutes on the clock you realize that the enemies are attacking from the worst possible spot.

You scramble together some defenses and you’re happy with the towers, their placement but you’re a bit short on the wall department but you’ve got 15 units guarding in front so it’s gonna be fine… Right?

Real player with 72.8 hrs in game

Age of Darkness: Final Stand on Steam

Kainga: Seeds of Civilization

Kainga: Seeds of Civilization

i previously did a hastily anger fueled review after losing my thinker to walking into the water and ending my game but after another 14 hrs can say nothing has changed and my thinker had died a few more time this way. The road map will be very delayed to add new content as alot of the games current content needs alot of bug fixes, i’ve never played a game with so many bugs early access or not i’ve played plenty of pre release games too with less bugs then this.

Do not buy until Dec/Jan and even then unless rolling in $ wait for a sale. the sheer amount of bugs and stuff that just doesn’t work will turn you off the potentionally great game

Real player with 37.2 hrs in game

This game has so much potential but really needs to be balanced in order to stave off some real frustrations. The RNG aspect of the game really works against the player in most cases, and the enemy tribes start off ahead and are a real hindrance to get your tribe out of the mud. They attack or demand tribute almost immediately, and 9 times out of 10 despite how big the map is, you spawn right next to them. Aside from the tutorial there’s no “starting area” to get your feet wet and learn the game. One map has half of the inspiration areas inaccessible (including the inspiration that allows these areas to become accessible, the other map has hardly any resources, and if you don’t “draw” the right tech after inspiration, you’re screwed. Because of all of this, it took me 20 attempts to pass the first challenge. A third map is unlocked later, but is harder still.

Real player with 32.6 hrs in game

Kainga: Seeds of Civilization on Steam