Crayon Physics Deluxe
Crayon Physics Deluxe has a unique art style and a different philosophy from most puzzle games. From the beginning, the game tells you, “It’s not about finding just any solution. It’s about finding the awesomest one.” This perspective makes progression much different and will challenge your creativity a lot. As you unlock access to new islands, the levels become very difficult. Throughout my experience, I relied on a few different techniques to pass these levels and it still took a while to get my solves just right. Despite this, I had the most fun during the rare moments when I actually came up with a creative draw to solve levels that went beyond the standard lines, hammers, and square solutions. This is an old game but I was really surprised to see their own playground feature which relies on the level editor allowing access to play user-created content, years before the Steam Workshop was introduced to the gaming world. If you love puzzle games and find this child-like presentation attractive, there is plenty of content to explore to your heart’s content. Game on.
– Real player with 12.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Physics Games.
At first, I thought the game was too simple, but towards the end, I found myself having a lot of fun coming up with solutions. However, I eventually ended up getting frustrated and stuck to the same solution almost every single time. (Which was making some kind of pulley system with string to launch the ball anywhere and prayed it hit the target.) Looking at other people’s creations on YouTube, I would have preferred more tutorials for mechanics such as springs. I found that there was simply too much trial and error.
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
Aurora Dusk: Steam Age
I bought this game yesterday for the $7.00 sale and have 31 hours as of posting this. Certainly feel I’ve already gotten my moneys worth and really hope this game continues to grow in content and perhaps have a sequel one day.
PROS:
~Almost everything you do lvls up a skill; farming, woodcutting, everything… character creation gives you a bonus in certain things but even a dwarven tank with armor making occupation can master magic, farming, or w/e just depends on how much you use it.
~The sheer amount of skills is staggering.
– Real player with 1824.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Tower Defense Games.
UPDATE: Negative Review status is no longer accurate, but neither is recommend. Though I find it fun, I am nuetral toward this game. Mainly because a couple old bugs still havent been fixed that are quite annoying to me.
Keep in mind this game isnt finished. Id only buy it if you want to help beta test and support the developer financially. If you have read the negative reviews thus far, you will have found out that none of them even played beyond the tutorial campaign. Even in its current state the game is still surprisingly quite fun and addictive. EDIT:The game is in much better shape now. No more freeze ups or crashes(at least for me)
– Real player with 427.8 hrs in game
Human Resource Machine
That was a blast! It was quite refreshing to play a less-than-hardcore programming puzzler for once.
You new job is at an old-timey skyscraper. Since computers haven’t been invented yet, the engineers solve problems by running letters and numbers around on tiled floors. Given an inbox full of stuff, your task is to write a small set of instructions that give the bosses exactly what they want, in the precise order they want it.
What the game doesn’t explicitly tell you is that you’re writing some of the simplest useful algorithms in assembly code, such as multiplication, sorting, and alphabetizing, using logic that’s very similar to what you’d use if you were doing it for real. And it’s all presented in a clean, responsive interface and Tomorrow Corporation’s signature creepy cartoon artstyle. It does a wonderful job of presenting the art of writing algorithms as a series of simple, elegant puzzles.
– Real player with 37.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Automation Games.
A small puzzle game based on the basic math understanding and the very basic programming commands which you’ll be using to solve the riddles. Plays quite nice, but gets a bit over-the-head tedious in the long run, thanks to the late game process, where you need to put in motion 50-100 strokes of code (and maybe several hundreds of iterations) to get the work done, thanks to the lack of program commands. But that is only true about the latest stages. At the start, the game is really nice, and it is still quite nice till the end despite the amount of the codework you have to do with so little tools as you get there.
– Real player with 28.0 hrs in game
Contraption Maker
I used to like this game. A lot. I won firts place in one of their contests, and second place in another. For which I received reward in the form of steam games. Contraption maker is a great example of a game that never stops growing. Even now, they keep adding new content to it.
But… things havetemporarily changed.
Top Meadow and Game Dev Castle took over the development and publishing of the game, and I get the feeling that they don’t really care about the game itself anymore. They look at things from a rather business perspective which is bad for this type of game’s health. I am talking about DLC packs, and the fact that they ruin this game’s fun of uploading and sharing contraptions, puzzles and mods.
– Real player with 205.6 hrs in game
If I think about my earliest days of video gaming, back before I got into my classic platformers like Sonic the Hedgehog, the title that stands out to me the most (amidst many education-focused games) was The Incredible Machine. A game that tests your ingenuity to solve puzzles, and your imagination to create them. Many of my fondest gaming memories from those days came from T.I.M. I got this game when it was in alpha, and the fact that I got to play any part in this game’s development, even just by messing around with the parts and reporting bugs, is something truly special to me.
– Real player with 37.8 hrs in game
Little Inferno
Little Inferno is a charming one.
If you had any previous experience with World of Goo, you should know exactly what to expect out of this little piece’s flavor and aesthetics. For many small games, there is a point where, for the sake of keeping up with the challenges the gameplay introduces, the player’s mind effectively strips away the colorful facade of it, revealing the core mechanics to be yet another twist on an ages old arcade, which it is perceived as from there on. Here, that’s hardly the case.
– Real player with 18.6 hrs in game
=+{Audience}==
☐ The guy who plays the game in the ads
☐ GD Auto level
☐ Nick JR game
☑ Casuals
☐ Have a bit of experience in the genre
☐ Experienced players only
☐ Veterans
☐ Pros
☐ Gamers
=+{Graphics}+=
☐ 1x1
☐ Camera is a potater
☐ MS Paint much?
☐ Scrunches up your face
☐ Bad, but not too bad.
☑ Balanced
☐ Good
☐ Glimmering
☐ VR Game
=+{Controls}+=
☐ Mixed
☐ Arrow Keys or WASD
☑ Player controls with cursor
☐ Passable
☐ Bad default binds
☐ Two major controls
☐ How do i even play this?
=+{Price}+=
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
Game Dev Tycoon
Game Dev Tycoon is one of those games that may look sort of boring from an outside perspective (Unless you decide to be a complete memelord on a Let’s Play or Livestream) but playing the game is a really satisfying and simple affair that is both equal parts trial and error, and also thought as to what does well.
You’ll need to think about what focus you put on each game, trying to think about what sort of aspect works well for what game, for the topic and genre it is. You do it right, and you get the satisfaction of watching those money and fan counters go up. But it’s not completely up to you to figure it out, as you play and as you create game reports in game, Game Dev Tycoon will keep notes on what works and what hasn’t worked meaning if you have the capital to try again, you can at least make another attempt at it.
– Real player with 70.0 hrs in game
Fun for a good while. The actual system for designing games seems frustratingly inaccurate and arbitrary at times, mostly the “how much effort should we focus on area X and area Y of making the game”, but it does have a lot of fun moments in spite of that. If the devs were still working on it, a lot of these issues could likely be fixed with some quality of life improvements, but they’re gone now. With the game as it is, solid 7.5/10 from me.
– Real player with 33.4 hrs in game
Crashlands
My playtime: 73.8h (based on steam, 100% achievement)
Grindy Achievement(s): Yes (~3 achievements).
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (~29 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): Yes (~2 achievements).
Intro
Crashlands is a game where you have to gather resources, kill enemies, and craft items to defeat bosses.
Pros:
-
4 difficulties
-
3 game modes
-
Unique bosses
-
You can finish quests in any order that you want
-
A lot of craftable items, including the ones used for decoration purposes
– Real player with 73.8 hrs in game
It’s one of those games that make you wish that Steam had a more complex grading system rather than the binary one. Crashlands is a game that reminds many (including myself) of Don’t Starve. In my opinion it is to Don’t Starve, what American remakes are to European original films. It’s goofier and more flashy, but in the process loses the idea of what makes the original so genius.
Gameplay
Crashlands drops you into an alien world, where you need to craft and help the locals to retrieve the packages lost during the crash landing. You have to scavenge and hunt mobs for materials that allow you to craft better gear and challenge harder mobs. It’s actually fun for the first few hours, until you notice, this is it, that’s basically the whole game. Just grind to craft another workstation, another weapon, another armour. It might have been okay as one of the possible activities, but it gets really old when it’s the only activity available. And you have to do it a lot. There are 35 levels of equipment and they increment in twos. This means, the same gameplay loop has to be repeated around 17 times, that’s at least 10 times too many. It’s also possible to ‘domesticate’ pets, until you notice, that it’s basically another part of the crafting system as the domesticated pets create materials which you’ll need to create your weapons and armours with. It doesn’t really help that the design of most of the gear is rather uninspiring. You can have the same sword/axe/helmet/etc. every 2 levels. I mean, it looks different, but the only actual difference is that it deals a bit more damage than the same item of the lower tier and a bit less damage than the item of the next tier. Only the gadgets and devices are a small breath of fresh air, at least some of them offer interesting, new mechanics.
– Real player with 38.7 hrs in game
Strain Tactics
tl;dr - if you can endure the clunkiness of the UI, frustrating game mechanics, poor tutorial and lack of instructions/familiarisation in the early stages of the game, you will enjoy the squad-based controllable tactical experience that is unique in its own fun way. One of few games I played where a poor initial impression ended with a “definitely recommend” review.
Coming from games like Door Kickers and Running with Rifles, I was interested to see Strain Tactics recommended within the game genre. My initial impressions were….disappointing. After the first 2-3 tutorial levels, you were just dropped straight into the battlefield with little to no understanding of what to do next other than “kill no less than 42 strains per mission to avoid base invasions, keep killing until you prove worthy then join the final assault”. This becomes a pattern as the game mechanics are often explained a few short texts; reading the hints at the outpost/talking to the helibase crew provided very little extra knowledge. For example, the demonstration of your starter troop’s morale and traits system did not showcase what its benefits/drawbacks are (granted Combat Engineer’s 50% damage reduction trait isn’t visible). I only understood it when I had the first-hand experience of seeing my Decon blow two squadmates to pieces with a panicked shotgun discharge, or seeing Inka’s Xenophobia execute my medic who was only scratched with a minor infection who CLEARLY had decon pills (we’ll get back to Inka later). The game is littered with consumables, weapons, items, or troop unlocks which does not make the distinction of which one to use, keep, or sell off. Stats such as max weapon range vs detection range vs optimal attack range had me confused for hours. You pretty much have to learn by experience and if it doesn’t fit your playstyle, well too bad keep playing until you unlock the next thing and hope that one works out. Not only that, despite the game telling you troopers will only fire at the optimal range to reduce friendly fire, you will have the ominous experience of “Did your piss-poor just friendly-fire your squadmate again??!”. Couple the brain-dead AIs with poor pathfinding and a UI designed for mobile games, the game just creates an unrewarding learning experience that showed its fun potential…but missed its mark and in no way comes close to the two games I mentioned above.
– Real player with 67.2 hrs in game
Strain Tactics is RTS strategy, set in a post-apocalyptic world where bodybags are pokeballs and human trafficking is an acceptable business practice.
I’ve played a bit and will probably play some more. I recommend this to anyone who likes squad based strategy games. Included below are a bunch of pros and cons that I’ve come up with in about two hours of play. The game is fun, but is held back by UI problems (which makes it seem like it was for a touch screen primarily). The only time I found the UI actually intuitive was the Heli weapon fire screen, where the UI and big buttons were actually not that bad.
– Real player with 62.0 hrs in game
Drafting Tales
I now have enough time into this game and two completions so I feel like I can make a good judgment of this game.
First off this is decently entertaining. It’s the sort of game you play while binge-watching shows. It’s not the sort of game you sit down to play every night for months on end. They’re are no fancy graphics or animations when you complete a task its just click click click on a mostly never changing screen. There is enough clicking that you feel like you’re doing something and enough progression that you feel like you’re not wasting your time but its not going to hold your entire attention. Think of a mobile game that you play while sitting in a boring meeting at work. This is that game. It’s good and enjoyable you just have to go into it knowing what kind of game you’ll be playing. I’m particularly fond of trying to do a ‘speed run’.
– Real player with 48.7 hrs in game
In its current state: cannot recommend.
This game is basically Game Dev Tycoon but where you play an aspiring writer instead of a game developer. You can write articles, short stories, non-fiction and novels. Genres and themes are unlocked through an XP requirement that becomes far more of a chore because you can only earn considerable amounts of XP from large and unprofitable projects like non-fiction and novels.
Main reason I cannot recommend Drafting Tales is because the game is about as fair and balanced as Fox News. With each year that goes by, inflation goes up considerably (price for vacations and rent) but your earnings from a publisher don’t, meaning that you’ll struggle to even afford rent before long. Another problem is that large projects as previously mentioned, are unprofitable. If it takes 8 times the time to write a book compared to an article or short story, and also a significant investment into a vacation because writing that book will drain your stamina, the book had better make several times more in revenue than a short story would. Unfortunately it doesn’t. At most it makes about twice as much as a medium length journalistic piece.
– Real player with 14.5 hrs in game