Secret Government
I really want to like this game, and in a lot of respects I do. I actually wish Steam had a middle option between the binary of recommend: yes/no, and the last thing I want to see is the devs give up on this due to negative feedback. However, I’m sure most people would be disappointed by the game in its current state, so “no” it is.
It’s a great concept and it has a lot of promise, but the game is incredibly game breakingly buggy and there are some very obvious gaps where development just never caught up to what was planned. The developers have stated their intentions to keep working on the game, and I really hope I can rewrite this review into a recommendation at some point. Outside of the issues, what the devs were going for is very apparent, and I would love to see it more fleshed out. There is one circumstance in which I would recommend this game that I will include at the bottom of the review.
– Real player with 90.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Illuminati Games.
Let me level with you: this is a thinking person’s game. Though its aesthetics reminds one of the Europa Universalis games, if you lack the patience to tackle your goals in a subtle, clandestine way, you will suffer. Unlike the EU games, you cannot simply go up to a ruler and order them to go to war with another country, nor can you simply go to the citizens and order them to support your newly created political party. In fact, it is best if neither are aware of your existence at all as they will crush you if their Awareness of your Brotherhood is high enough and it doesn’t necessarily have to reach 100 first for them to start weakening your Brotherhood.
– Real player with 54.4 hrs in game
Shadows Behind the Throne 2
Remember “That Which Sleeps” the kickstarter game that promised that you could play as Cthulhu and corrupt the world and a million other things, but then the dev took the money and ran and never delivered.
Implausibly Shadows is not only the game that was promised, but it delivers. The graphics are a little off and the interface is a little confusing, but goddamn is it fun to corrupt and dismantle several civilizations until eternal winter falls upon the land. There is a lot of room to grow, and here is hoping it keeps growing.
– Real player with 119.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Lovecraftian Games.
Great game. It’s a bit like Ruinarch, if you’ve ever played that, except on a strategic level. Lots of variety in the ways you can take down a kingdom. Very replayable and it’s right up my alley.
That said, it’s EXTREMELY rough. As EA as you can get while still being playable.
- Kind of a crap, poorly thought out UI. For example, saves are placed in alphabetical order instead of chronological order where your most recent one is at the top. You might have 7 autosaves, and the one you’re looking to load is save number 3, halfway down the screen and you have to look at the time to know that’s the one you want. I called my manual save aaa, so it will be at the top of the list. That’s a small thing, but there are a lot of poorly designed UI functions like that and it impacts the level of information you get from the game.
– Real player with 39.5 hrs in game
Best Election Simulator In Russia!
Who is your admiral general communist oligarch in the bright Russia of the future?
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Putin? And his aquadisco, pouring Novichok on everyone in the neighborhood?
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Or Lukashenka and a gang of security officials?
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Navalny and his swarm of drones and protesters?
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Or Trump on a posh aircraft carrier and his highly mobile rednecks on pickup trucks?
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Or with unique mechanics completely out of control George Floyd and his hordes of activists?
Explore and dominate on a generated map
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Loot and spend on strategically important buildings, or just buy a golden toilet brush for your luxury pirate yacht.
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Each faction has its own line of development, so bring women and electoral votes to the yacht to get new opportunities, glorious pirate!
For example, a couple of votes of friendly fellow citizens and Trump is already airstrikes enemies and bombing cities.
However, it is even easier for Putin: carry two women and you have a great personal bunker.
Unique cell mechanics
At the start of the game, all cells are closed like a card back.
Open them and get unexpected turns.
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Maybe it will be a nuclear rocket?
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Or garages with a gop-stop?
Unit characteristics
Each unit earns experience in the course of the game, whether it is killing, women, or collecting votes.
In the future, the player distributes points for new characteristics in the improvement tree.
Some traits can be obtained by examining undiscovered cells. For example, a university has a chance to give a “Red diploma”, which gives + 0.001% to damage.
But the characteristics are not always SUCH POSITIVE! A unit that has been imprisoned has a 50% chance of receiving the “Buggered” debuff.
Find cards and strengthen the regime
Examples of cards:
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“Legalization Of Prostitution”: 5% chance each turn that 3 random units will gain the characteristic “Prostitute” and start generating income when attacking.
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“Nepotism”: First and permanent income from oil + 100%.
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“Gopota Government Support”: 5% chance every turn that 2 loyal riot policemen will appear near the city.
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“A Feast In Time Of Plague”: 5% chance each turn that 1 random unit will become a cannibal and start supplying food to the city with each kill.
Beware of the indigenous people!
So, the traffic police inspector will bankrupt the rednecks in pickup trucks, which have a movement range of two cells.
And the gopota, when attacking, has a chance to take away a weapon or object, including the NUCLEAR!
Do not forget that it is possible to subdue these crooks by priests and oligarchs. By the way, send juggernaut bears to attack with RPG and nuke!
Combine faction, regime and cards wisely
For example, Putin’s milestones such as “Bunker”, “Resetting Presidential Terms”, and “Coronation”, which provide good bonuses, go well with the “Clone Sovereign” upgrade of the Monarchy regime.
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy 4X Games.
Evil Cult
Evil Cult gives the player control over a Cult which tries to take over key figures in society to spread its influence and complete the Final Ritual, before any of the competing cults.
Generators generate resources, making them an obvious prime target for expansion, yet the easier (cheaper) to influence Adepts increase the probability of gathering Virgins, which serve as resource wildcards and are of course necessary for rituals as a sacrifice.
Sects within the cult allow for some optional micro-management. However, the player’s attention is mainly directed at the expansion on the map, resource balance, and awareness of the Investigator.
– Real player with 15.9 hrs in game
This game represents a very niche and rare computer game genre: the cult simulator. There are only two games I know of in this genre: 1. Evil Cult, and 2. Cults and Daggers, which is also available on Steam. This game has great potential, and is being improved with expansion sets. I highly recommend this game, which also has an excellent soundtrack.
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
Shadows of Forbidden Gods
TLDR - Great, unique Lovecraftian turn-based grand strategy game.
The player takes on the mantle of one of multiple eldritch gods with different play styles, bent on bringing their particular brand of apocalypse. The first unlocked god is the most simple - She Who Will Feast, a giant snake that focuses on corrupting heroes and rulers through “enshadowing” them. She starts weak, without a real worldly presence, before awakening, destroying civilised lands and ultimately eating the world. Other gods include Iastur, the Laughing King who focuses on spreading madness to all, Vinerva a god representing nature’s bounties but with a serious catch, Mammon (unreleased at time of writing) who offers great material wealth for the small price of eating people and Ophanim (unreleased at the time of writing) who offers mankind salvation from the aforementioned enshadowment but at the cost of their autonomy.
– Real player with 23.7 hrs in game
My plan to destroy the world was foiled but its okay because I can change the chosen one’s name to Ligma Balls as a final act of primordial malice
– Real player with 19.7 hrs in game
Electioneering
So I found this game in my qeue (a bit by surprise). And since I really like political-sim and strategy games, I decided to give it a try. Yes, it is really early access but under it’s surface is a good strategy game. You have to constantly run polls and ads, so you win over a state on several topics. But at the same time keep an eye on your money. First few turns took a bit of figuring out what to do, but after that I found the perfect strategy. Won my first game fairly easy with 430 - 108 electoral votes. I do hope they add more elements so there’s more gameplay.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
Good game in development. A bit pricy for the state it is currently in now, but I trust that as updates come out and it leaves Early Access, the game will be higher quality. Definitley a good game if you’re into political stragety.
– Real player with 3.8 hrs in game
SteelPinion
SteelPinion is a steampunk turn based tactical strategy game with a dash of autobattler. Deep fleet customization synergies can be created or disrupted by the modding community. (NOTE: This steampage will be updated frequently as development continues)
An Alternate History
Experience a conspiratorial retelling of history where steampunkery,
chivalry, and explosive elemental weaponry prevails. Procedural spice flavors every encounter with new unknowns in the otherwise hand-crafted environments. Meet three warring factions with distinct technology and heros.
Tactical Battles
Combat in SteelPinion is a mix of well known tactics game genre staples, with a new difficult to implement mechanic - simultaneous turn resolution.
Position your airships well, allowing your best armored angle to withstand opponent’s salvos; all the while exploiting their exposed angle.
The advantage is not always as simple as “get behind and shoot em” since players may have altered an airship to their liking and your dismay!
Unique “Steamflakes”
While we want the game to have a low barrier of entry and will have some preset faction fleet configurations; players are encouraged to branch out mixing faction components and create a strategy that wrecks.
Speaking of which, salvage wreckage from other players and add their components to your own fleet as a reward for your victory.
Don’t worry if you lose, your engineers back at the shipyard can literally work miracles and bring you back from a pile of scraps. (Reminder to hug your nearest engineer buddy… umm on second thought, don’t do that).
Sit Down
Sitting can be exciting when you are customizing individual ships components/subsystems and pilot abilities that work together. Use a deck building approach when designing your fleet for a cozy unrushed experience.
Flip Tables
Hate customizing? Just want to see stuff blow up before putting on your pajamas? Then use player published presets to get by and smash our inferior AI (you’re better than AI right?).
Know Better Than Us
An ole saying “the customer is always right” has conflicting reception. We know that players inevitably will surpass us in playtime, eventually knowing the metagame better. So we want to make absolutely sure that the metagame is always in the hands of the player. A carefully integrated repo will expose public mods, automatically making them available in the game for playtesting and fun - woohoo devOps automation!
Friendly for Kids
That doesn’t mean “made for kids”, however, you can safely play this in front of your favorite young mind without fear. The game’s violence is steampunk machines blowing each-other up. Just like a little boy crashing a tower.
Get bailed out if you’re an underdog
You are admiral, and you should live with the consequences of your bad commands - or not. Get bailed out by allocating more engineers to repair your desolate fleet. Everyone knows that assigning more engineers speeds up delivery time! In the same way, you can order around your lackeys to “just get it done” and they will; there is no punishment for being a bad tactician, but there are rewards for being a good tactician.
Oversight
This game is something truly special. It’s smart and sophisticated, with fabulous yet understated art and music. The gameplay is very satisfying, and it makes me feel like an evil mastermind even when I lose! Play this game, you won’t regret it.
– Real player with 2.4 hrs in game
Aberration Analyst
You are an analyst in a very secretive, underground organization. Scour tabloid headlines, police reports and other sources in order to locate supernatural threats to the safety and sanity of your fellow citizens.
Players have various tools at their disposal in order to achieve their goal.
Tabloids are a great place to start looking for information about monster sightings and attacks. Unfortunately, the tabloids also have two major weaknesses. First, they are almost totally unreliable, and should not be trusted by themselves. Second, their availability is limited, only ten headlines are released per day. Still, they make a good place to start identifying possible monster activity.
More reliable than tabloids, reports come in two varieties, Police and Coroner. Reports are available for each city, but will cost money to access. They provide factual information, but will not mention monsters or anything that might threaten the reporter’s credibility.
Selecting your team is an important step in the process of monster research. Make sure you try to identify the type of monster you are going after, otherwise your team may not be properly prepared.
Lore is collected as a player progresses through the game. Each attempt to take down a monster will result in small, but helpful hints that will make it easier to identify possible monster activity.
Crash The Core
A wonderful little rogue lite and deck building game. The UI is fairly basic but the mechanics are great which is bigger deal to me than shiny UI. I like the monster art and it in just the few days I’ve been playing the publisher has updated it, and fixed some things/issues. I believe it is a tiny or even one person maker of the game. So given the great mechanics and publisher seems to be wanting to make improvements, IMO it is by far worth the price! I always want to support small/indie developers, and this game so far been great fun!
– Real player with 19.6 hrs in game
It’s nothing revolutionary, but it definitely has its heart in the right place. I had a good time playing, and especially enjoyed it considering the price. If you’re a fan of roguelike deckbuilders, this’ll familiar but fun. The Summon and Item system makes for some interesting synergies. Just be wary of some annoying bugs and balance issues, which may or may not get patched out by the time writing this. Again, nothing phenomenal but pretty alright considering it’s their first game.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game