Recent reviews by designed

get some friends
think how to solve issues
it will go horribly wrong
laugh together and try to salvage the situation

Pretty damn good, but some of the idiosyncrazies take a moment to figure out. If pathfinding is dead, just save and load. Love the atmosphere and details. Could be developed further but there is a live mod scene at least.

Great tutorial, relaxed pace and enough depth (hah!) to keep you hooked (hah haa!) for hours. Took me a second to find the size guide that also shows what the fish look like in-game, so less guessing from now on. Plus for having the cat option, minus for leaving it in the DLC.

Older game and needs a little work setting up on modern display resolutions but still above and beyond any alternatives. There's a sense of urgency that fits the simplified gameplay (balance attack and defend, basically) nicely. Killer graphical design and decent sound design, even if I remember the soundtrack being a little more doomy.

What a delightfully simple but complex newspaper game. A lot of micromanagement down to the toilet details, but most of the systems work well enough and UI supports the player quite well. I find myself going "one more issue" constantly. And working in the paper media business this is way more fun and rewards quality and deep stories well.

Tesla tower one way, napalm barrage the other way. With the whole squad dead, who needs enemies with friends like this? Just don't take any of it too seriously and take a step down on difficulty if it's not going well.

Takes a little to get to a community, be it a free company (guild), friends or something like Novice Network, but after that it's a snowball effect of "this is pretty good" to "must play more". Fairly nice balance of group/solo possibilities for major activities so don't have to be social all the time.

As someone who grew up with Settlers 1 and 2, this is it. This is the sequel.

Some of the economics are a little convoluted (Residence + Tavern + Fountain + Market Stalls + Tavern Tables, REALLY?!) but everyone will feel right at home. The animations and sounds are lacking a little flair compared to Settlers (no "yippee!" geologists here). Fishing would be a great addition, maybe even row boats for island hopping. Weirdly the new logic of leaving produced goods wait at the producer until needed makes me wish for the old Storehouse(?) to make a return - despite having more storage building options than ever.

Runs very well for an Early Access game.

The content is a little bland, but there is a lot of it. Some quality of life features are inexplicably missing, but I'm guessing they wanted to iron out as many bugs as possible before having any shortcuts or conveniences. No matter what Starfield is most likely the gaming event of 2023.

Lovely low stress story experience. The mail delivery is best taken as a relaxing time to listen to the radio. Some of the individual NPC stories and dialogue options are a little vague but it's easy to have a nice time in Providence Oaks. First playthrough was about 5 hours, not sure if there will be another to try out diffrent options.