Space Choice: Data Analyzer
A really fun fleet combat game. Mechanics are heavily simplified from other games like Gratuitous Space Battle, where you only need to make a decision from a small set of random choices for ship+weapon, permanent upgrade, or temporary boost.
A little too easy to amass an overwhelming advantage though. Lasers are plentiful and scale up really hard (though even the anti-fighter variants are prone to poor accuracy against fast fighters). Beams have perfect accuracy against fast moving fighters, and share the same upgrade with repair beams. Bullets are like lasers, but bypass shields. Fighters/mini-fleets are much better than large ships since they carry multiple copies of the same weapon. Large ships are only good for front line tanking, while the fighters do all the damage/stun/healing/point defense. Concentrate your upgrades into fighter health, laser/beam/bullet damage, large ship health/shields, and eventually you will be invincible in the later half of the levels.
– Real player with 12.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy Experimental Games.
It may be free but it is very fun! I love the basic gameplay but you have to make the best decisions in split seconds really. I made it through to the end on normal and only had one loss and got to continue.
If you are a good decision maker and can keep track of multiple things at one time, this is the game for you! Picking is done between 3 choices for you. First you pick your ship and then different things come up such as, type of weapon for the ship you just choose, or a type of global boost or boost for your own ships. The choices come fast and furious. While you are reading your choices it helps to keep your peripheral vision on the action to help you determine if your choices are working.
– Real player with 12.2 hrs in game
Dictators:No Peace Countryballs
Absolute banger of a game for less than a greggs sausage roll, played over eight hours in just three days and completed the game. Was very fun, started as Lithuania but that didn’t go well and conquered with Bhutan. Game will get worse once completed but it is still fun to choose a rando country and try to win.
Would love if you could add multiplayer modes or a way to add the territory that you just got to your own country. Like a border-adder. Still a great game and for only 79p, 8.5/10.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy Indie Games.
Dictators:No Peace Countryballs is a wonderfully average economy management/grand strategy game. Originally made for phones, and it shows, the game is still decent enough on its own. You just have to make sure your army/navy/air force numbers are kept up so you can conquer other countries. You also have to make sure your colonies' armies are kept large enough to repel rebel or foreign invasions, lest you lose them. The gameplay is very simple, repetitive, and manages to both snowball and be a grind at the same time. However, for the asking price, the game is okay. Certainly not the best, but it is fairly good. I recommend you go after smaller African and South American lands, like Trinidad, the Bahamas, and Lesotho first, as their small starting armies can easily be crushed by you with little investment, and they make for good starting points for your empire.
– Real player with 7.9 hrs in game
Istanbul: Digital Edition
It’s really cute. There’s something really pleasant about mooching about and filling one’s wheelbarrow and planning things and working out how to get your assistants back and just enjoying the mechanics. I enjoyed it more playing as a beginner against another beginner and exploring. I first thought there wasn’t enough interaction but actually the two lira cost to visit somewhere where one’s opponent’s assistant is standing can be subtly quite depleting. I really like it so far after two solo games and one online with a friend, who also liked it.
– Real player with 42.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy Indie Games.
Istanbul is a new addition to my list of favourite games. I do not own the physical game but cannot imagine how it could be different from this digital version.
Gameplay is turn-based on a 4X4 grid. You move your game piece around the board, selecting your own route and performing a different action on each of the 16 tiles. The object of the game is to be the first to collect 5 rubies through the collection and sale/trade of goods. You can initially carry only a limited number of goods and travel only a short distance, but your abilities are augmented throughout the game by purchasing wagon upgrades and mosques. There are many paths to victory and the ability for some mild interference amongst players. I find the game a good mix of strategy with plenty of tactical decisions, and I like that you have control of your own fate and play style.
– Real player with 30.4 hrs in game
Fibbage XL
A really simple game to get working. You can have up to eight players (on phone, pc, tablet - all at the same time). You just need one copy of the game and access to internet. A real hit for parties and lazy evenings in. Cheap at the price i’d say. :-)
One tip if you can: Hook up your main pc to a television with an hdmi cable (or some such). Get the narrator and the questions up on the big screen and everyone else can sit round on their devices to play. We even had one of them answering questions from upstairs whilst they were looking for something.
– Real player with 31.4 hrs in game
Fantastic party game - am yet to find a group of people that haven’t enjoyed it! The optional parental controls are a nice touch too, so know of the family are left out (although just because the questions are family friendly, doesn’t mean the answers stay that way…)
– Real player with 22.8 hrs in game
SiNKR
yet another single-buck minimalist puzzle game, reminiscent of the excellent hook, then it introduces hade-like elements, then portals. the 60 levels should take about an hour or two to complete, but from around 40 a few require timing to pull things off. wasn’t expecting that, so I can’t whole-heartedly recommend it, but it’s pretty cool otherwise, the music and sound effects complement each other well and there are separate volume sliders for them. no undo button, the game wasn’t designed with that in mind, but it’s not really necessary. the aesthetics are nice too, except the 3d objects floating in the background, which you can turn off. I think it’s a worthy addition to one’s puzzle collection.
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
SiNKR is a minimalist puzzle game that has enough puzzles and differences in mechanics to keep you really occupied for a while. The game’s idea is simple, there are hooks on the end of lines in each level, and you goal is to hook the appropriate shapes (circles or squares) into the properly shaped receptors. Initially the game is rather easy, but there are plenty of challenging levels to look forward to. There are a total of 9 zones in the game, and I am currently stuck on one of the levels that really has me scratching my head for a while. Fortunately there are guides out there, unfortunately I refuse to look one up.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
12 Labours of Hercules V: Kids of Hellas (Platinum Edition)
The following review applies to all games from the “12 Labours of Hercules” series. Even though they have different themes, they all have the same gameplay style and overall quality.
The “12 Labours of Hercules” series has extremely captivating resource-management games, with beautiful and enjoyable graphics, sound effects and soundtrack. Even though they are casual games, they offer some challenge if played in difficult mode. The achievements are relatively easy to get - by the time you finish the game, you’ll probably have gotten them all, or at least have just a couple to complete.
– Real player with 46.9 hrs in game
I really wish Steam would add more than just the thumbs up and thumbs down. How about a ‘up yours’ rating, ‘you can kiss my’ rating and a ‘meh shrugged shoulders’ rating. This game falls more to the meh side of things. While I have followed the previous four instalments of the 12 labours of Hercules, I’m now left with disillusionment where they are going with all this. This fifth game adds nothing new whatsoever and just feels like a stepdown dlc in comparison to the fourth masterpiece. For one thing the story to this one is that there are zombie children and Hercules has to juggle fruit in front of them to snap them out of it. SERIOUSLY? What the HELL does this have to do with Hercules and the 12 labours? Completely lost me now. Change the name to suit. How about ‘The 12 drug induced illusions of Hercules’. That would make much more sense.
– Real player with 33.0 hrs in game
Rivalry
This game is 11/10 IMHO.
The developer is kind and considerate.
If you enjoy messing with ragdolls this is a game for you.
It’s worth more than it costs.
Great hotseat multiplayer, pass the mouse back and forth, drag your body parts and weapons around trying to hurt the other player’s ragdoll. Your turn time limit is based on your bodily movement, allowing you to control your turn time in a fun and fair way. You control your approach and positioning.
Only thing I could compare this to is Toribash, but this is much easier for new players to pick up and play, while still having an advanced level of play available for skilled players.
– Real player with 50.9 hrs in game
This is a really good 1v1 hotseat game.
its fun, short, strategic chees like game.
players take turns to move their body and weapons to kill the other player.
each movement counts, and theres a lot of psychology behind. it has a good selection of weapons to choose, and a good strategic variety.
Just dont expect anything singleplayer like. and nobody plays online.
so its a good game to play with a friend in your house, probably drinking something.
– Real player with 17.8 hrs in game
Gazillionaire
Who knows how many thousand hours I put into this game when I first got it back in 1995?
This game was “indie” before I ever knew what that even meant - it’s a labor of love from 2 programmers (who founded LavaMinds) & every aspect shows this.
Gazillionaire is a space trading game where you start up a shipping company and do your best to out-trade your alien competition, while having to deal with many unforeseen challenges like storms, pirates, crew accidents, moral decisions, & tax increases.
– Real player with 415.6 hrs in game
This game invokes memories of my Dad’s old Pentium, a Windows 98 loading screen, and me lamenting that I really should have picked up that haul of Jelly Beans one planet ago.
The game is a very basic trading simulator, perfect for kids to understand “buy low, sell high” and “no plan survives contact with reality”. For Adults it’s very pop in and play, simple, and I’m curious as to why this wasn’t a mobile game after all this time.
Graphics are basic, the music repeats, the sound effects are simple, but the gameplay won’t horribly break your computer. I got it on discount I’ll admit. I once paid full price for a CD of it back in the 90s.
– Real player with 24.0 hrs in game
Triple Town
“Triple Town” is a unique Match 3 game where you build as big a colony town as possible by matching three or more objects. These objects can evolve into others by making appropriate matches (e.g. three Grasses make a Bush, three Bushes make a Tree…three Trees make a Hut…and there’s more after that! ;-D). Matching more than three items, or mathcing certain high-end items will gift you different goodies that improve your score or other parts of the game! What you’re given to place each time is random, but you can place these objects in any free space you want (with the objects melding where you place the last item in the cluster), so there’s more strategy involved than the average Match 3.
– Real player with 101.3 hrs in game
Triple Town is a game I’ve gotten a lot of value and fun out of, so the short answer is: yes, I would recommend this game.
There is something oddly addictive and yet very relaxing about playing this game. It is simple match three turn-based game, but the last item you place becomes the next tier up. So three bushes = 1 tree, 3 trees = 1 house, so on and so forth. It becomes a game about managing the precious space you have, and there is something very satisfactory and rewarding about putting in that one last piece and watching your board transform into a new thing you haven’t seen before.
– Real player with 85.8 hrs in game
Castle Must Be Mine
**** UPDATE ****
If you are an Index owner, or a Vive owner using Index Controllers like me, you would be wise to steer clear of this game as I don’t think the developers are going to fix the bugs this game has with the setups I’ve mentioned. The game plays OK for a few minutes but then every time you interact with a tower location the framerate takes a massive nosedive and it becomes almost unplayable. As you are constantly building and upgrading towers, especially at the higher levels, this game is, for now, unplayable with Index Controllers. I guess it still works OK with Vive wands or an Oculus setup, so I’d still highly recommend it for owners on those systems.
– Real player with 70.8 hrs in game
Not just an incredible tower defense game, an incredible VR game.
Heat-of-the-moment tower defense works when there are just enough (or maybe slightly too many) tasks to keep track of, and this title strikes that balance well - with VR in mind. The use of clear audio cues, the act of collecting money, tower layouts/spacing, the micromanagement of the hero, the varied manual defense options on the top of the castle; all of these things make you forget about VR and simply concentrate on managing the virtual table. Suberb!
– Real player with 19.6 hrs in game