Recent reviews by Jdog

Wait for the polish. Its a great concept and has lots of potential but after reading some additional reviews I fear the grindiness of the game keeps going into the mid-late parts of the game.

The main issue with this game is you spend too much time doing things that aren't running a tavern and having tons of restrictions that force you to slow down.

Total review notes below but I think what would help fix this game is...

Depth of story: Allow story to replace some of the grindiness
Make it all about the Tavern: This is a game that feels like 30% tavern game, 20% waiting game, and 50% grinding for materials or waiting for orders or crafting etc. It feels like its artificially padding the length of the game to make up for a lack of depth. So, either add a super interesting story with interesting characters and remove the grind. OR Double down on the Tavern aspect and let people go ham on it. Allow tons of hiring, additional tavern locations, a progression system that allows you to move to new towns that serve higher end clients (unless thats already a thing).

There are lots of things you could do with this but those are just some of the things I would advise.

PREVIOUS NOTES

Im sure thing get different and better as you go. Initially I greatly enjoy the concept. Some feedback though. For a Tavern game, it takes a decent chunk of time to make any kind of brew. Again I think things definitely improve as upgrades become available but so far the beginning of the game has felt like a chore at times and is not always clear how to make things. Like the experience points don't let you know how to earn a specific color. A hover effect to get information on certain parts of the game built into the UI would do this game wonders.

Example: Unlocked Mead, no obvious way to know how to make Mead or what was included in the recipe for Mead other than honey and I only knew that part because I knew Mead was made out of honey. When you unlock a recipe it should give you a guide as to what that includes.

Like I was saying, the exploration part feels pretty okay but as of right now it feels like its just a time eater trying to find all the ore spots, wait on them to craft, chop more down, get fuel when you run out, refill the buckets of water, harvest, smelt, and assemble from scratch.

I hope it becomes less tedious as I get upgrades and hire staff which is my guess as to what is gonna happen but for now, the beginning has been between awesome and Meh.

Definitely worth playing if you like the genre and if its on a semi-decent discount.

Texas Chain Saw Massacre is exciting, intense, and could use some improvements. Worth playing? Lets review.

POSITIVES
1) Despite all thats been said below, I do enjoy the game. Its fun and exciting to play with friends and it gets me on the edge of my seat pretty consistently. It creates a great atmosphere of horror and I love that. I think there's definitely room for some balancing and tweaks to make the matches a bit more even but in general I think the games worth getting. More so if you have like minded friends who will also enjoy the genre.

FEEDBACK
1) Mechanics feel geared towards the family at this point. Double locks, traps, insta kill hits, sounds coming from hiding places making them essentially worthless, and a recent patch gave the killers an even bigger head start.

2) A maxed level Grandpa should do 3 yells in a row that auto-reveal you, and then be dropped back down a few levels. A maxed out Grandpa is essentially a game over.

3) Feels like theirs cheating or exploits occasionally. I'll be hiding in a dark corner and a leather face will charge straight to my position without hesitation like he knows I'm already there. I've spent entire games just roaming from hiding spot to hiding spot with a leather face constantly charging my exact position.

4) When you run through a door, you should never have to turn around to make it close without putting you on the wrong side of the door. You can do this with wooden doors but not others and that just feels weird.

5) This game, from a survivors perspective, is all about staying together. Thats one of the only ways to win. Communicate, work together and win. The issue is, the second someone is caught, everyone near them has to book it or hide wherever possible since you all can't move down similar paths without someone dying guarenteed. This isn't an issue if you can allow people to ping each other or communicate somehow. Maybe do a trail of personal items that helps people follow or get back to their friends. But yeah its extremely hard to stay together or work together without memorizing the exact paths on each map which seems extreme.

This game is the definition of beauty in simplicity. Its straight forward, fun, complex enough to encourage you to play more, and the second you think the game is "easy" the SNKRX slaps you into reality.

I've played this game for quite awhile and honestly, this price for this quality of game is outstanding. Feel free to buy this asap. Especially if you enjoy intermittent single level games.

UPDATE: I want to like this game. It is SO close to being a really great banger of a game, but the frustration from the rogue-like genre brutality with ZERO reward or progress just makes for a long long long road to success for any level. Inflating the play time to ridiculous amounts, most of which feels intentional. If you want the game to be brutal like a rogue like then give some kind of progression post rounds so my two hours of HARD fought survival (just to lose to one zombie getting to my town) doesn't feel like a complete waste. To give a good example, its like a dark souls game in its brutality with the exception that you have to spend 30 minutes to make a single hit. If there's mods for this game someone show me please haha


While the mechanics are fun and exciting at times the pacing, on the other had, can be compared to a 1990's AOL loading bar when it reads "Estimated time complete, 999 years".

Pro's
-Fun base builder mechanics in general
-Realistic consequences to letting a zombie "sneak" in. (Which I wouldn't mind IF you could save or have checkpoints)
-Fleshed out and complex build tree and generally varied strategies.

Con's
-Extremely slow pace
-Non-Base building "missions" are slow-paced, clanky, and overall even more frustrating then the slowness of the base-builder campaign missions.
-Gruesome punishment fo r losing a mission with no checkpoint ability or options to save mid-mission.
-Penalties for losing encourage you to stop playing rather then try again.
-Related to "slow pacing" it can take hours to complete a single mission on normal difficulty and afterwards you have hardly anything to show for it. You might progress one research item on the tech tree, maybe two.

Overall:
I've played about 15 hours and in those 15 hours there has been little to no change in the game play. It feels like grinding on the level a 9-5 job would hit you with. The sensitivity of loss is so fragile that a single mistake, a single zombie finding its way into your base cans be the end of the mission immediately, WHICH I'M OKAY WITH. What I am not okay with is the lack of saving or checkpoints. By removing these features, increasing the gameplay time to at least 45 minutes to 2 hours per mission, and then adding on-top of the that extreme ease of losing a mission you're left feeling frustrated and like you've done nothing but waste your time.

I wouldn't recommend this game because it cost too much and misses the mark and point of any good game. Its fun but progresses so slowly that you feel unaccomplished by achieving any kind of benchmark. A gameplay design fundamental is to 1) reward your player to encourage them to continue playing. You spend hours perfecting a mission, because the game is designed to make you perfect your play or suffer a loss and get penalized and forced to repeat a mission, and once you finally complete the mission that took so long to finish... whats your reward? One new item on the tech tree that increases your food 20%? The time/frustration levels are not equal to the payoff and makes the game a literal grind to complete and for this I'd give this game a 4 out of 10. If it was based on the base-building mechanics alone I'd say a 6 out of 10 but the flaws are too great and too frustrating for most people to play this game all the way through on normal difficulty rating.

Fun game, interesting mechanics.

EDIT: Some feedback after about 50 hours of gameplay. Please make the frequency of vehicle spawn based on the zone. IE if the zone is literally on the opposite side of the map from you, then vehicles should naturally spawn on that side of the map furthest from the zone. Not to make it easier, I like the challenge of the game it's what makes the game fun and exciting. No simply because I've spent most of my Pubg time running, looking for vehicles, and then 15 minutes later, dying by the zone. The zone seems to go to the further possible position from you, not to mention the red zone has spawned on-top of my almost everytime this has happened. As if your game is literally trying to sabatoge me. I know its not. and the it's silly to take that seriously. Just know that spending 2 hours of my day holding the "w" key down just to die anyways is not a game. It's a running simulator. Please for heavens-sake, spawn more vehicles towards the ends of the maps where the zone is furtherest so you don't royal screw every player on that side of the map. I'm not going to do that again, next time I'll just leave the match and start a new one XD save me 15 minutes of literally doing nothing.

Love the game, love how intense things can get and I love the survival action theme it portrays. I have and will recommend this game to anyone I meet. The UI reactions could be better (Like when you try to climb over a small fence, gotta get it juuuust right) Their are moments that are so exciting and other moments that and full of tension as you execute the ambush you layed out perfectly, Landing on the roof of an apartment and hearing someone run recklessly in the complex while you got a nicely loaded shotgun... recipe for both tension, action, and sudden-- relief from successfully surviving.

Now let me tell you what I didn't love. I don't love how the 3 crates I worked hard to earn and buy with the in-game money you earn, were all desparado cases, the ones you have to pay money to get. I mean, comeon, I already bought your game and am recommending it everyone I know that has a PC, why do you have to keep "randomly" giving me the case that cost money. It's petty and shows and underlining greed behind the design which I get. You gotta make money, and in the end the game is designed to entertain and to produce revenue for the publisher. But there's a point where it just becomes-- exhausting.

Stardew valley is the missing link in a modern gamer. A developer took a generous amount of time and effort into making a game completely based around player experience. He designed a game that didn't have micro transactions, didn't require you to spend extra money for extra content, and didn't oversell the product.

Stardew valley has a rich play centered story and content, with interesting alternatives to the classic day to day of farming. Whenever I started to feel the grind from hoeing, seeding, watering, harvesting, repeat. I could easily hit an in game even, or I could go fishing, gathering, I could even dive all day into the depth of the mines fighting and gathering great materials.

When you get board with one aspect of the game you can easily switch to another without having an impact on your farm. Though that also brings up one of my few critics. Stardew Valley is so much fun and really an amazing game, but the replay value is semi low. The story could use some work with more ingame events, more events with your love interests and friends. I want to jump back into the thick of it but I know that once I start I'll end up spending 5 hours playing and not really accomplishing much after a certain point.

All in all I'd give Stardew Valley a nice 9 out of 10. Its a must buy for any Harvest Moon and maybe even Rune Factory fan. Honestly I'd pick Stardew Valley over Harvest moons latest releases anyday as of now.

Also something important to remember is that the developer is semi alone, yes his producers are assisting him with technical aspects, but the develop in large is up to (For the life of me I forgot his name XD) but "the" developer takes his time making it as polished as possible. This is good and bad, it keeps your audience waiting large amounts of time, and the hype for the game has died down a bit. Though, like me, I'm sure there are plenty of dedicated fans just drooling over every bit of intel they can get on new patches, updates, and content.

Ok so this game is really fun. Like really fun when you're with a group of friends on skype. The problem is that there are SO MANY BUGS. It freezes, it glitches, it crashes, it takes FOR EVER to find a match with me and my friends. Then when we finally get the game to work, and then after waiting 20 minutes for a match, we finally find a match when guess what? The game kicks my friend for being a cheater?! He's in the same room as me and we hardly ever play this game, how on earth is he a cheater???

This game is fun don't get me wrong but its so close to not being worth the minimum of an hour it takes to get everyone connected, to find a match, and to finally get in game.