Recent reviews by Summercat

This game...

The graphics are wonderful. The voiceacting by the Storyteller sold so much emotion. The story was... not what I was expecting. At any turn. Which is rare for me.

It took me three hours to play through, approximately, and get all but three achievements. And I think I might go back and go for 'em.

This story made me snicker. It made me cry. It was a wild ride, and when I closed the book, I felt.

I felt.

Satisfied.

It's a good idea, but needs a whole lot more content to be worth it.

This is a fun and relaxing strategy game. You're given a hand/deck of cards, and place down buildings. Buildings give gold based on terrain bonuses and adjacencies, and you get more cards when you finish quests, and also when you reach certain income threshholds.

The round ends when you run out of cards.

Look, I had some honest suggestions for this game when it was still in demo/early access and the devs actually listened! Either they were on the same page I was with further features (I suggested terrain modifiers and stuff, that got in), or I'm just that awesome.

.....that and they put in otters. OTTERS! THE FISHERMEN HAVE TO DEAL WITH OTTERS EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I don't have a problem.

Okay, I do. That problem is lack of otters.

A lack that First Days of Atlantis does not have.

:3

Ultimately, Per aspera does exactly what it sets out to do.

It has some wonkiness, as well as a few issues that have been resolved from patches, but the gameplay is there and feature complete.

The story is nice, the voiceacting is top notch, and I've sunk nearly 50 hours into it as of this review, with several of those hours having passed without realizing it.

Some Distant Memory had about 2 hours of gameplay. Well, I don't want to call it 'gameplay', because there was no fail state, no fail condition. There were no decisions to make.

Bought at full price, providing two hours of distraction, in one sense I cannot recommend this game...

...enough.

I cannot recommend Some Distant Memory enough. It's not a game, more like a movie, or a visual novel. It's... well,

When the credits started to roll, I was already in tears.

I recommend this game if you have the patience to read a book.

Help I can't get the music out of my head its too relaxing and this game too engrossing

Having read some of the recent negative reviews, I felt compelled to leave a positive one.

Eco is built with a specific playstyle in mind, that of the 'Micro-Multiplayer Onling Game', as opposed to Massively Multiplayer. The server is meant to be persistant, with long tasks running while you are offline. In addition, plant growth takes more than 24 realtime hours for the fastest crops, sometimes 48. Trees can take 3 to 5 days. You're not going to get that sort of duration playing on a local server that's only up when you're playing.

So, play on a server! Find one that's only a day or two in and pick a niche. And do pick a niche. Cooperation and specialization are encouraged via the skill system, with the cost to open a skill tree increasing as you open more skill trees, with the specific rate of increase according to the server setting, which will limit how many skillsets most people would acquire. Unless you're like me and spend a lot of time doing tasks like mining, which earn you skill points.

There's no combat or death in Eco as it's meant to be cooperative, but actions do cost 'calories' to perform, which you get by eating stuff. All foods have some rating in Carbs, Fats, Proteins, and Vitamens, and there's a formula for how many skillpoints you get from just food based upon the total value of your diet and how well balanced it is.

Food and farming is an interesting chain and I'm only just starting to learn how to properly farm. Hunting is with bow and arrow, and unless you don't mind using a lot of arrows I suggest learning the Hunting skill tree to increase your damage - It takes like 6 shots at base to down a bison.

Farming itself is fairly complex as you can't just farm things anywhere - all plants have a temperature and moister range they like, so you have to find the right place to plant. Plants themselves can disappear or die out entirely if not careful - if you harvest all the trees in an area, they're not going back. In addition, high polution can reduce the suitability and thus your yields.

Oh yeah, pollution. Lots of activities once you get to metalworking cause pollution. Early metal refining creates toxic tailings which you need to dispose of properly or they pollute everywhere. Even advanced technology creates pollution as it's used, although with enough wind turbines and solar arrays you can have electrical power without pouring smoke into the skies.

There's a player government and player economy - and as it has to do with people, it's hit or miss. Laws aren't well documented, and the servers I've been on have had very minimal player activitiy thus far, but I have an idea of what to expect.

Is Eco worth the price?
Honestly, yes. There's still a few bugs and a lot of potential content, but Strange Loop Games seems to have a good workflow and idea of what they're doing. New mechanics are being added, and their coding staff is on the ball. I reported a very weird edge case that caused a crash due to attempting to repair a spawned item that had no cost, and the bug was addressed with a dev saying they fixed it - within 48 hours.

As of this review I've got 146.8 hours on record. That's under 21 cents per hour, and I'm still addicted to it.

If you like open world multiplayer crafting games, I recommend Eco.

Just don't jump onto a developed server and expect things to be newb friendly. My current server is 8 days old and we've already chewed through most of the easily found veins of ore, and one player (cough cough, me) has a monopoly on rice.

....which I only did because it amused me, not that it was valuable.

238 hours on record. I can't stop playing, except to switch to Crusader Kings 2.

And that's before the anticipated 1.3 patch.

When I played Homeworld 2, I was peeved at the storyline and plotholes in it, compared to the first game, Cata, and my own developed headcanon. I was also overwhelmed with so many things, so many options, but it still felt like a Homeworld game.

Deserts of Kharak also feels like a Homeworld game, but as opposed to 2, I do not feel overwhelmed with options and the need to multitask so many things, and most importantly, I am enjoying the retcons and changes to the story. "The Clans were United, and an Expedition was Sent", from the original opening can gloss over so much. A few changes along the timeline to make the Northern/Southern war at the same time of the Expedition really is fine by me.

The unit chatter is back and better than ever, I like how the game encourages you to conserve units, and having a Concordat Cycle that helps but does not fully hinder if you get it wrong is a bonus. Terrain for combat is starting to get interesting, although I feel this system and engine would be better served if licensed and adapted to another setting that has way more map and terrain variety.

I have yet to complete this game, but it's become a very nice routine thus far to play a mission or two before getting ready and departing for work. Having no interest in playing multiplayer, the weak AI complaints fall upon deaf ears here.

Of course, I'm playing on the lowest difficulty and getting my arse kicked at times. It's been a long while since I tried to play an RTS straight, having been over on Paradox games for the longest time. Tactical isn't my forte, Strategic is - yet Deserts of Kharak is fun and enjoyable, and unlike other games it feels like it's helping me learn how to properly use units and tactics. The missions might be getting harder, but I feel that I'm getting better as well.

I don't think I've any complaints for this game at all.

I've been playing Rebuild since the original launched, and it quickly made it to one of my favorite games.

This isn't about just living another day, this isn't about killing zombies, this is about Rebuilding (corny, I know), and that sort of thing always appealed to me in post-apoc style.

I can't think of a single downside for this game, at all.