Attack of the Earthlings
In Attack Of The Earthlings you embrace the opportunity of playing the oppressed alien natives simply protecting your home planet from the ruthlessly ignorant human invaders, as you claw, stab, pulp, and pulverise your way up the corporate ladder of the Galactoil company and put a halt to their invasion.
Integral to this game is it’s sense of humour, akin to Borderlands and Portal in the video game world, and Office Space and Mars Attacks in the film world, with Galactoil (the corporate representation of space-faring humanity) as a pseudo-functioning corporate hegemony operating with a casual disregard for employees coupled with an ironic motivational propaganda machine in a modern office-space environment. There are so many little touches incorporated into the level design alone that really imbue this humour and help world and character-build in what could otherwise be seen as a very short and superficial game. This humour is also more obviously threaded through the hapless characters and their dialogue and interactions with each other and the AI/robots throughout, which as you play gradually reveals more of the antagonist’s motives and frustrations as you pick them apart and upset their plans (or just overhear comedic character monologues and watch as robots respond benignly to your presence).
– Real player with 14.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Indie Games.
So what can i say about Attack of the Earthlings really? Well let me start off by saying this game has a ton of personality and it will make you laugh at times. If you’re a Sci fi fan like me, you’ve probably tried one of those classic sci fi horror/action games where you’re playing as an astronaut on a space station trying to avoid getting eaten by some alien scum. Well in this fun and exciting strategy game it’s pretty much the exact same type of scenario but you’re playing as the aliens. There’s not really much of a story to this game. Basically a massive company and it’s rich owner has decided to mine your planet for resources cause why the fuck not? And you, the leader of the alien race doesn’t exactly allow outsiders inside your territory. So you do the most rational thing and start assassinating the average joe workers of this massive company, then use their biomass to produce an army of lower lifeforms under your command to assassinate even more humans! :D You can create 4 different unit types and they’re all totally unique creations with special abilities that fit different playstyles. In the beginning i thought i had to use all 3 different evolutions (Out of the 4 creatures you can spawn 1 of them is the default non-evolved alien drone) but it turned out that you should really only stick to the xenos that suit your personal playstyle. I didn’t hear about this game from some big youtuber, or anything. I just happended to get it recommended by Steam one day and thought ‘‘hey that’s a neat concept and it’s on sale!’’ There’s also a small progression system in the game that allows you to upgrade your units and give them new and improved abilities. The game takes about 11-12 hours to finish if you’re just doing a casual playthrough and you fail a few missions (Like i did) Each mission is really fun cause no mission has the same objective. There’s no difficulty options in the game, and there’s unfortunately no new game+… This is the bad part of the game, you see you can’t replay levels unless you have an old save file right before the level you want to play. If you don’t then you need to replay the level until you get to the level you want to replay. However there is only about 7-8 levels in total so it’s not like getting to a specific level is hard. Each level feels new and unique due to each level having it’s own objectives that are all totally different from one another. Overall i’d give Attack of the Earthlings a solid 7/10. Would recommend, even at full price if you’re into strategy games and don’t mind the low difficulty. Now go out there and nom some humans :3
– Real player with 13.9 hrs in game
Don’t Get Bit
First experience with a turn-based strategy game - so much fun! Just the right amount of challenge to keep me coming back for more. Felt like I was cruising along with ease until Level 23 - things have slowed down, but I’m muscling through - I’ll help Cassie & Co. beat those zombies yet!
Love the narration and story - can’t wait to see how it ends! Drawings are fantastic, to boot!
– Real player with 33.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Indie Games.
This is the first time I have ever played a turn-based strategy game, and I love it!!
This has been a great intro into these types of games. I’m in the middle of my second play-through of “Don’t Get Bit” and it’s just as entertaining as the first play. The story is very compelling and brilliant! I love the voice actress. I love everything about the look of this game too. It’s so unique and cool!
“Don’t Get Bit” is challenging and always keeps me on my toes; I have ended up playing it for hours with no knowledge of time passing. I have screamed in frustration when my strategy has ended with me turning into a blood smear on the board, but it just makes me more determined to beat it and show the game who’s boss.
– Real player with 16.8 hrs in game
Inkulinati
Inkulinati is an ink-based strategy game straight from medieval manuscripts, where a rabbit’s bum can be deadlier than a dog’s sword.
Take your turn in Inkulinati duels filled with unexpected tactical depth (and humour!). Embark on an ever-changing journey, build your own bestiary, defeat medieval superstars and collect perks to unleash special powers.
Become a master of the Living Ink, grab your quill and build your unique strategy time after time so that you can be named the greatest Inkulinati of all time!
INKULINATI IS INSPIRED BY REAL-LIFE MEDIEVAL MARGINALIA
700 years in the making, finally these bizarre art pieces can come alive in a video game and show that medieval people also had their “memes” and that they laughed from the same silly things that we do today. You’ll see sword-wielding rabbits, dogs with spears, trumpets lodged in bottoms, human-eating snails, and more. Much, much more…
FIGHT LIKE AN INKULINATI
Inkulinati are a legendary group who battle one another on the pages of medieval manuscripts. They fight by drawing Beasts with the Living Ink. Thanks to this magical substance, those creatures come to life and an epic battle ensues.Move your Beasts across the battlefield, perform actions on or with them, make tactical use of obstacles and collect more Living Ink to draw new Beasts which allows you to gain an advantage over your opponent.
MULTIPLE DEADLY (AND BIZARRE) BEASTS TO UNLOCK
Donkeys playing trumpets with their bottoms, bishop cats vanquishing heretics with prayers, heavy but deadly snails that eat units alive, and more. Much, much more. They all have their special skills and are waiting for your command.
SPECIAL, BATTLE TIDE-TURNING ACTIONS PERFORMED BY THE INKULINATI
It’s not just your Beasts that can cause havoc and damage. Use your fists to smash your opponent’s units, draw obstacles to create barriers, relocate your units with a move of your finger, or explode your troops to create pure, pure chaos. Just remember - your opponent can do it too.
ADAPT YOUR TACTIC TO EVERY BATTLE
Each Inkulinati has its own army, with different Beasts, who in turn, have different abilities, strengths, and unfortunately, weaknesses (or fortunately - depending which side you’re on). But it’s not just the armies that can influence who will win any given duel. Each Battlefield is its own domain, with its own particular dangers that you should watch out for, and opportunities that you can use. You will have to use your wits and adapt your strategy to beat the opposing Inkulinati’s army on each specific Battlefield.
A SINGLE-PLAYER CAMPAIGN
Uncover the mystery and secrets of Inkulinati and face such opponents as Death, Dante Alighieri, and more. Go out into the world and start your adventure! Fight the biggest Inkulinati masters in the land, tame the untamed Beasts, build your ultimate army, try to bring back your Master from the clutches of death, and most importantly, finish your grand quest with the biggest party that the middle ages have ever seen! Howza!!!
CREATE AND DEVELOP YOUR OWN CHARACTER
As any aspiring Inkulinati Master, you will get to create your own Tiny-Inkulinati. During your journey you will learn the secret techniques of drawing new Beasts and Inkulinati Hand Actions, allowing you to choose the composition of your army. You can be a brave knight that has no fear and will send his loyal troops straight at his opponents. Or perhaps you would like to play with a bit more tact? In that case, you can be a nun who with the power of prayer can confuse her enemies and heal thy own servants. Those styles, and more, are waiting to be discovered and made your own. Express yourself!
EVERY BATTLE HAS ITS OWN STORY
To mark every battle in history books for all future generations to see, a procedurally generated text describes the dramatic (or hilarious) events in detail just above the battlefield.
LOCAL PVP BATTLES
Inkulinati will bring you back to the Golden Era of hot-seat mode.
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Medieval Games.
Suits: Absolute Power
Coming from someone who has also played the first game, the level of improvement in this sequel is absolutely incredible.
-Unique dialogue for quite literally every interactable object in the game
-Amazing and unique battle themes for every enemy
-PHENOMENAL art style that you’ll see with all the different enemy designs (and their corrupted versions)
-And a much more engaging story that further develops the characters as well as expanding on the setting from the first Suits game in such a great way
– Real player with 24.0 hrs in game
This is coming from someone that hasn’t beaten the game yet, but really have been enjoying the game and definitely recommend, but just to give my opinion right now… (although not the best reviewer but want to give a good rating for the game too!)
Comparing between Suits: A Business RPG and this game… I can tell the devs really put a lot of work into this game as well as continuing to do so as, if there is a bug spotted in the game they will fix that ASAP when they see the message for it (and if you report it on their Discord, they’ve fixed bugs in literally less than 5 minutes after reporting it!)
– Real player with 21.2 hrs in game
Margonem
Oh boy. This is weird to review. First off, this game is a niche Polish browser MMO. Lots of people on the original web Polish servers. Not so much here. As you can imagine, there’s not a lot of international players. Most people (who already played/still play the Polish version) are Polish. Not that it’s a bad thing, but the population is incredibly low.
For the game itself, it’s fun. It might be nostalgia speaking, as I played this game a lot when I was younger. Playing it now after so much time it’s still as it used to be, with some improvements in graphics and the UI.
– Real player with 147.9 hrs in game
Plusses and minuses in equal measure I think. But for me personally more on the minus.
Some of the plusses:
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Simple and neat graphics.
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Sandbox nature of the map is evident, and this gives a positive ‘adventuresque’ feel, which I like
Some of the negatives:
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Text too small. Waaay too small.
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Every other thing you want to do in the open world requires you to pop over to the Premium Store and burn a hole in your wallet. Don’t tag it as ‘FREE’ when it clearly isn’t - there is definitely a ‘FREEMIUM’ tag available I’m sure.
– Real player with 145.1 hrs in game
Wicked Lands
Set in a weird, post-apocalyptic, fantasy world that resets every few days, you take control of what is left of a former village and a hand full units of ragtag peasants.
PLAY SMART
Test your skills with fluid, fast-paced, tactical combat that challenges your wits and creativity. Exploit the terrain and discover powerful synergy effects to slay your enemies.
LOOT & PLUNDER
Equip your units with hundreds of wondrous items, from animated skeleton arms to shields made out of a giant’s toenail. Buff them with delicious food such as midge eyeballs or a tasty rat tail tartar. In a world where nothing persists, everything has its use!
NOT YOUR EVERYDAY FANTASY WORLD
Withstand the stare of a Void Gazer or die trying. Meet the Gnomish Mushroom Guru and his followers. Experiment with summoning demons or gamble at a pixie casino.
LIFT THE CURSE
Find out why this world keeps resetting again and again. Permanently upgrade your village, acquire ancient artefacts and defeat legendary bosses. Do you have what it takes to fix time?
ALWAYS A NEW CHALLENGE
New combinations of items and enemies and random generated maps provide a fresh challenge each time you play.
Empires in Ruins
Edit: The developer is super chill, and is looking to patch out the bugs soon. This is still a hard game with hit-or-miss writing and an imperfect UI, but serious props to anyone who can indie dev something this complex. Check it out if there isn’t something in the review that’s a dealbreaker for you.
This is a very “yes, but…” recommendation.
Empires In Ruins is a thing I should like. It’s a tower defense with a 4x strategy layer, and where you can econ yourself into an easier TD situation, or TD yourself out of a bad economy.
– Real player with 27.9 hrs in game
**This is a short excerpt of my longer analysis and review (available in English and German). I would recommend reading the full text or watching the YouTube Video (German Voiceover, many subtitles)
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Empires in Ruins Test / Review
Empires in Ruins Review – Conclusion and opinion**
For an indie game of a small team just entering early access, the game is already surprisingly polished. The campaign includes a very entertaining story and for strategy fans an appealing game depth.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
Probability Race
Probability Race is a futuristic racing game. You must use logic, math, probability and luck to win the championship. Play a great variety of minigames and compete in turn based races every day. Unlock abilities and race your way to victory in this platform/stragegy/turnbased game.
The Shrouded Isle
My my…this is certainly a game that casts cynicism upon religious belief, is it not? Apparently “ignorance” is a virtue, boys and girls!
So what the hell IS this game? Well, it’s a strategy game/management simulator, in which you basically have to keep a bunch of aristocratic houses onside, while finding one poor soul to sacrifice every season to the mighty deity Chernobog! (A sly reference to a certain Ukranian nuclear power plant disaster, perhaps?) To do this effectively, you must interrogate potential candidates and keep abreast of their various vices and virtues, in order to decide who is most worthy of such sacrifice, and who is more worth keeping around to undertake morale-boosting tasks. But be careful! Target a single house one time too many, and there might be nasty consequences…
– Real player with 16.0 hrs in game
I got this game at launch. The premise seemed strong, the art direction was compelling, so I took the jump.
Positives
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Simple to learn - the mechanics are easy to get used to. The fundamentals are not bad, so you don’t need much time to get going. The important thing is how you apply them.
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Very hard. Go into this expecting to lose but have fun. Treat it more like a choose your own adventure crossed with XCOM or Darkest Dungeon.
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Art is amazing. The minimalistic use of colours looks top notch. The game allows you to switch between colour palettes, as well, so you can go with whatever feels best. I believe the limited usage of colours was a strong choice in making the game look a bit otherworldly.
– Real player with 9.2 hrs in game
Fatal Paws
Is your cat a murderhobo?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5cDk-cDNiI
If you want to be spoiled, go ahead and watch my video. Fatal Paws puts you into the role of a jaded teacher who picks up a stray cat from another planet. Dive into Pokemon style cat-vs-human fights in-between an overly dramatic plot that makes about as much sense as a bad horror movie. As a tribute to Fickle Sickle’s cat, it’s touching. As a game to buy, I can’t recommend it. But if you decide to, there is a cat video waiting for you at the end.
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game
OMG this game is so fun and so cute. If you are a cat lover you will enjoy this game.
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game