Desolation Tycoon
The world has ended, but life moves on. Your home is a wasteland scoured by winds blowing in from a caustic sea. Most large mammals are extinct, and insects have filled their roles.
You are a merchant traveling this land in search of profit. Each character you play starts with a randomly generated history and traits. And eventually, each character’s career will come to an end — whether through successful retirement or tragic death.
The game remembers everything you do, and the world is persistent across characters. As a consequence of your actions, civilization will slowly grow and rebuild. Accomplishments accrued across any number of characters will unlock new cities, new crew units, new challenges, and so on.
There is no fixed storyline. Instead, you have a setting, a set of gameplay mechanics, and complete freedom to do with that what you will.
Core features:
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Travel, trade, and defend your cargo from dangers.
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Improve your skills through usage.
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Find and explore places that are worth plundering.
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Build relationships with city notables, and co-operate with them on various schemes.
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Rebuild a persistent world across multiple lifetimes.
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Make trade-offs in encounters that are purely decision-driven, and avoid grindy minigames.
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Enjoy a high-information user interface that doesn’t ask you to remember things unnecessarily.
Example challenges:
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Local climate calamities.
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Giant insects, bandits, and much worse.
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Each character will automatically retire if they live long enough; this does not leave enough time to develop all possible skills.
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Networks of supply and demand are randomized between playthroughs.
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You can’t stay in a trade route rut, because trading with the same cities too much will make it less profitable.
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You and your crew can become injured or sick — and possibly die as a result.
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The locals that you trade and scheme with have minds of their own, and may betray you.
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Performance-enhancing symbiotes may seem like a great idea, but can lead to unfortunate side-effects.
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Oh, and there are also demons. They complicate everything.
This is not an action-oriented game. Time doesn’t pass unless you’re doing something, and there are no real-time challenges. Instead, gameplay is strictly about the making of intelligent trade-offs in an open-world setting with many potential courses of action.
Read More: Best Sandbox Pixel Graphics Games.
Star Traders: Frontiers
Ok, I have been on Steam for 10+ years. I have purchased probably about a hundred games during this time. This is the first time I write a steam review for the game, which by itself might tell you something… :)
TLDR: This game is really amazing. Assuming of course that you enjoy turn-based combat and very deep strategy games.
Now, turn-based strategies (and RPGs) have always been my two favorite genres in computer games, and I’ve played majority of the most well known titles in these genre over the last two decades. Star Traders is not the best game in this genre. But it is one of the top 5, in my opinion. Of all times.
– Real player with 506.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Space Sim Games.
Star Traders is an engrossing and highly detailed sandbox simulator that’s grabbed my attention in the same way that the original version of Sid Meier’s Pirates did back in the 80s, when I was still playing on the C64. This is a slow-paced game with an emphasis on planning and crew management, and really sells the feeling of having to manage a complicated starship with lots of interacting systems. It’s a constant exercise in balancing different priorities. I can pay this game a high compliment in saying that in the course of just a few hours, I usually find myself making several dozen difficult and meaningful decisions that require a lot of thought – and then I can clearly see how the consequences of those decisions play out over time.
– Real player with 249.3 hrs in game
Epic City Builder 4
I really do like this game. Its very easy to pick up and feels like the kind of game il be playing for a very long time.
Im 28 hours in at time of this review and im am very happy i brought this game. Its like city skyline….. but fun
– Real player with 63.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Diplomacy Games.
Had an issue with not be able to save my capital but the developer was on it and issued a fix. I have spent alot of time well spent.
– Real player with 25.4 hrs in game
Silk
Very nice game! Hope the developers will update and expand it though
+Huge open world for hours of exploring
+Simple mechanics of gameplay - easy to learn in minutes
+History notes makes journey immersive
+Handful of ways to beat the game
-No background/ambient music so it is pretty quiet
-Some pieces of map are empty
-No marching armies, caravans etc.
– Real player with 34.9 hrs in game
Silk is a compelling adventure strategy experience - not a genre name you see very often, and what a shame. The importance of picking a sensible route can be paramount, the threat of storms, raiders, wild animals and dead ends feel real and intense, and the feeling you get when you realise you have hit a dead end and have to turn back is a marvellous frustration.
It also means the satisfaction you get when you bring a caravan of silk back home is magnificent. The smalls joys of exploring a world in which every step matters, finding special locations, taking hidden treasure and fighting each small battle are immense. The feeling when your advisors reach a high enough skill level to start to really make the most of your surroundings is superb. A great adventure strategy title, definitely worth your time.
– Real player with 14.2 hrs in game
Caravan Trade Tycoon
Erased my entire game. Also pretty monotonous because you just go from town to town without events. I never got attacked.
– Real player with 24.4 hrs in game
good game , but still have need more fix, high price
– Real player with 18.6 hrs in game
King of Retail
TL; DR: A great concept that has been executed pretty damn well. There are a few bugs and complaints, which I detail below. But, I don’t think there’s any issue that should prevent you from enjoying this game if you like simulation-type games.
The devs, or dev, has put a significant amount of sweat equity into making this game. It’s not a AAA game, its an indie dev. This goes to show you that even with a limited budget, games such as this are possible to make and we’re all the better for it.
– Real player with 108.8 hrs in game
Okay, 101 hours in and I thought I should leave a review as this game deserves it. It’s been a while since any game has captured my attention as much as King of Retail has and always gives me that urge to really want to play it at every opportunity. My niece has been watching me play and now has a store of her own too, she’s only 10 and has understood everything really well. I really need a second PC now! lol
It’s currently in Early Access but has plenty of playability and I really look forward to future updates. The next one apparently brings a ton of new female clothing.
– Real player with 104.5 hrs in game
Shoppe Keep 2
TL;DR: Don’t buy this product. Instead, go buy yourself a cheeseburger because at least it will leave you feeling more full than any amount of time with this unfinished husk would.
Now, with that put aside here is a gloomy review thrown together because I’m bored and have nothing better to do.
My first encounter with the Shop Keep series was when I was granted a Keymailer key for the first one. I reviewed it, it was honestly a pretty good game but of course as anyone remembers, it was very limited.
– Real player with 42.3 hrs in game
I have played since release. Here are my views so far.
PROBLEMS:
Few problems so far. Things I’ve ran into are:
• Textures did not make the shop look different (fixed by re-logging)
• I moved 5k of water into a chest, and it all dissapeared. Maybe the count was too high? If so the game should say so. That was 15k of money down the drain for me
• For the farm, the client cannot ready the plots or plant seeds or see the plants grow. Only the host can for some reason (fixed this by re-logging)
– Real player with 28.6 hrs in game
Merchant of the Skies
First of all, let me say that this game is a great-looking interesting bite-sized experience. If you are looking for TTD in clouds, this is not that game. It’s a “tycoon” in a very shallow sense of the word. In fact, it’s incredibly hard to describe this game with nowadays expectations other than a “trading game”.
It will not have you coming back to replay again and again, but it will captivate you for a session or two. It’s like a great meal at that new place you are trying out. You wouldn’t necessarily keep ordering it again, but you do not regret the experience. I bring up a lot of mixed points below, but keep in mind that it’s all still held together impressively solidly and does not break apart.
– Real player with 44.5 hrs in game
A niche merchant game with the challenges of completing tasks and finishing five ultimate goals to complete the game. The story is about a you, a merchant who follows requests from an uncle and various other characters, using a airship. Different to the usual games I regularly play, but I love it for the fantasy elements and challenges.
The story is odd in a way where it has five main goals, the last one is the restoration of the botanical garden, while the rest are more like side-quests in this adventure world. How you adventure is by flying an airship across to floating islands, you examine the different tasks, refuel, and can buy or sell items. I really like this due to my obsession with steampunk themes, the fantasy world which is floating while working, as though it is a job. Additionally, you get to know the world a little, like the uncle and a couple of characters that want to go to tourist places, but not as in depth in the case of getting to know your crew. It is a single player game, but it is how you want to play, making profit and buying islands in order to fulfil requests and keep your business a float. As for the art, I love it, pixel art can be simple but make so much detail, and with that sort of colour palate, it is up my street. The little wacky details like the singing carrot, the octopus that has a rapper hat on, all of it adds to the personality of the game. You can upgrade your ship too, making it easier to travel and transport cargo, which is helpful to complete more side-quests to bring in the profit. If you cannot gain profit because of your output on workers and fuel, then the bank will pay you off once, then you are in dept, you will need to pay off the bank or go bankrupt. An interesting way of teaching people about the real world and dept, but it forces you to do some unplanned action by juggling the main story to side-quests, making it challenging.
– Real player with 24.1 hrs in game
Nebuchadnezzar
While inspired by the classic Impressions city building games, it would be inaccurate to say Nebuchadnezzar is just a reskin of Pharaoh. The game has its own mechanics that are distinctive such as the beautifully worded caravanserai or the planned market/bazaar walking routes (as opposed to the annoying random wandering of sellers in the Impressions games that required the use of roadblocks). There are a ton of resources in the game and the tiered housing levels have an interesting intertwined dependence on how these resources can be collected.
– Real player with 62.0 hrs in game
Probably the closest any game has come to recapturing the old Impressions City builders (Pharaoh, Zeus, Emperor, Caesar etc).
This type of city-builder game focuses very heavily on production and distribution of goods to supply your population, where a mistake in logistics management can cause the whole city to come crashing down. If you’re expecting something more like a SimCity or Cities: Skylines, you might end up frustrated with the strong presence of logistics management aspects and harsh penalties for making mistakes in that department.
– Real player with 61.4 hrs in game
Croppy Boy
It’s fun little game to mess around with.
The controls are a bit weird and will need awhile to get used to.
Controls :
included W A S D and Z (for tackle people, they’ll drop stuff on impact but.. it costs you stamina, will talk about this more later.)
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A for dropping stuff you have (will drop crops first, then seeds)
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S for tool actions (for watering crops, plow dirt, and seeding)
//it depends on your selected tool (choose with 1,2,3 or 4) also sickle is pretty much useless since you can cut glass without it.//
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
A cute, fun farming game with unique gameplay that makes it a great game to play in short bursts with a group of friends. If you are looking for a serious farming simulator or some ultra-complex strategic multiplayer game, this isn’t the game for you, but if you just want something that you can hop right on, spend less than 5 minutes learning the controls, and have fun – definitely check this out.
It’s also free-to-play without a cash shop for overpowered items or paywalls restricting what you can do. Definitely refreshing to see a game like that these days, given much worse games in the free-to-play category often try to shake you down for cash these days.
– Real player with 6.6 hrs in game