Recent reviews by blueimpb

Sadly, just not ready for EA. Running this on a widescreen, no matter what the system resolution is set to, clips off the outer part of the UI -- including where the "settings" button allegedly is. Start and Back on your xbox controller both instantly exit the game. Escape immediately exits the game. Clicking in the black bars on the side of your screen where the settings button is supposed to be immediately exits the game.

It seems like it might be a fun game but it's hard to tell.

Like everyone else is saying, it's Dorfromantik, but with a few changes and different mechanics. Which is great! If you liked Dorfromantik, this'll make you happy in the same way.

Great, puzzle-oriented city builder. You need to place and balance house, resource, park, and other blocks to satisfy conditions on the blocks and evolve the city. You can choose several challenge paths (focused on sheer size, or housing quality, etc). As a pattern-based city builder, it's reminiscent of Islanders.

The graphics are pretty, it's challenging and satisfying, definitely pick it up if you like the sensation of finding a layout that "fits".

This game looks like it should be great -- a city-builder / factorio hybrid. The mechanics are intuitive if you like these genres and the UI is polished.

At first I thought I'd really enjoy it. But very quickly it seemed stale and empty. It's somehow a pale imitation of several familiar games, but there's just no reason to do anything. It's just not fun.

Death's Door is an isometric third-person action game -- not a genre I play as much anymore. But something about the beautiful, engaging graphics and exciting but well-managed learning curve make this game a joy to start playing. There's also some light puzzles built into the levels that integrate nicely with the action. And it's got lots of character development options too.

I wanted to get into this game -- the art style is unique and enjoyable, it's an ambitious project -- but there just wasn't anything to the gameplay. I was just clicking through an elaborate animation. There's not much in the way of "puzzles" at all, not in the early game anyway. More of a zen experience than a game.

So -- Factorio. I started playing Factorio pretty early in development, two years before Steam release; I have over 1600 hours logged since the Steam release and I figure about as many before it. This game is Factorio. They've just copied every single mechanic (except enemies) and rebuilt it in a new engine. It's beat for beat the same game, to the extent you'll find yourself using your favorite smelter layouts including the power poles.

And yet! A lot of little QOL things are nicer (you have the equivalent of construction drones from the beginning, e.g.), the graphics are an entire generation better, and while I'm only a few hours in, the promise is of far more late-game content than Factorio ended with. It might simply be a larger, newer, shinier Factorio. And without disrespect to Wube, that's great.

I've played lots of city builders over the years but not one with the precise logistical mechanic here. The logistic system consists of a graph with edges connecting nodes; a worker stationed at each node can go get an item from a connected node and take it somewhere it needs to go, or put it at its node to be passed down the line.

Most of the gameplay consists of building and expanding one (or more) of these graphs for maximum efficiency. It's often clumsy, frustrating, and very, very slow. However, at the same time it's very easy, to the point where this could be considered a Casual game.

By complete coincidence, after I finished this game I played another one with the exact same logistics mechanic. I didn't know that going in. That other game is structurally very similar to this one but far more fun, interesting, challenging, and focused. Go play The Colonists instead.

This game is a whole lot of fun. It's very well-polished, doesn't seem at all like EA. It's 2D survival crafting like Don't Starve, but it's set in a zombie apocalypse and you collect resources by smashing things.

Very strongly recommended for people who love laying out train systems and routes. Very intuitive and powerful building system, lots of cargo and passengers to move. The graphics are great -- very smooth, immersive. Loved seeing the old train equipment in the early scenarios.