Recent reviews by Fuzzball

A great city builder with excellent presentation and UI. But the game’s main appeal is its use of morally dubious scenarios to influence how you play. Difficult at first, but once you get the hang of its mechanics and plan sensibly, the end game in some game modes can become trivial. So the challenge then becomes seeing if you can still win without compromising your own morals…

A sensible building on top of Civilisation V, bringing in new gameplay features while solidifying existing ones, all with pretty clear presentation and explanation.

Some people don’t like the new aesthetic style, but for me it helps differentiate the feel of the game from its predecessor even when they have the same core building blocks. Civilisation V had a “looking at the grand scale of civilisations as eternal phenomena” style, accentuated by its classical score. While Civ VI’s focus on a board game aesthetic makes each game feel like your own personal journey through history, and this is backed up with its mechanics that factor in your actions from past ages.

A beautiful little game to just sit and experience. The genuinely kind community will always make you feel better with their heartfelt messages and advice.

Thank you so much to the developers and players for creating this wonderful space and making it flourish!

The best Total War game I’ve played, simply because it has a great UI and explains itself very clearly. It also has a wonderfully varied set of factions, who not only have wildly different units and battle strategies, but also unique campaign map mechanics and goals.

Creative Assembly have really put in the time and effort to refine this game further and further over several years, adjusting mechanics that didn’t work well, and updating the playable races from the previous game. This is such a step up from the previous game, that the only reason now to own Total War: WARHAMMER is to use it as DLC for this game, allowing you to access the huge combined map campaign, and play as the first game’s factions. It’s not a very nice business model, but the resulting complete game is something very special.

I did not expect to like this game as much as I do. Despite loving all of Supergiant Games’ previous work, when they announced a roguelite dungeon crawler being developed in Early Access I was sceptical that they were just following popular trends. However, upon trying the game once it reached Version 1.0, I was delighted to see the developers have brought their unique style to create something truly exceptional.

Supergiant have used all the lessons they learned from developing their previous games and combined it with community feedback to create a wonderfully engaging combat system, filled with endlessly customisable options. You feel a constant sense of progression while playing, with no run ever feeling wasted. On top of this excellence, the beautiful art, music and an always evolving story make the down time between runs some of the most enjoyable parts of the game.

This is, mechanically, Supergiant’s best game, and has quite possibly replaced Transistor as my personal favourite of theirs. It is without a doubt my Game of the Year for 2020.

This game makes my brain hurt. That means I'm getting smarter, right?

While the task of deducing the sixty fates of this doomed ship’s crew may seem overwhelming at first (especially in the unfamiliar British maritime setting), if the player sticks with this title they will find it to be a masterfully created detective game. The unique visual style may grab your attention initially, but the satisfaction of gradually piecing together the clues of this game’s mysteries will keep you hooked until the end.

With this and Papers, Please, Lucas Pope has shown himself to be a game designer to be revered in the same way as Jonathan Blow or Hideo Kojima.

An excellent follow-up to FTL: Faster Than Light. While that previous game left a lot up to chance, this one distinguishes itself with a well-designed UI that clearly telegraphs every single action of gameplay. There is never any ambiguity as to what challenge you are about to face, nor the resulting consequences of any decision. This clarity is a breath of fresh air amongst other strategy titles, and in some ways turns this game into more of a puzzler.

A charming visual style, atmospheric soundtrack, variety of gameplay options and unique challenges for unlocking further content all add up to quite possibly make this my Game of the Year for 2018.

Supergiant Games shines bright once again, cementing themselves as the most consistently excellent developer around today. This will probably prove to be their most divisive game so far, as the strange “basketball” gameplay won’t be to everyone’s tastes. The gameplay takes some time to get used to and is difficult to master, but the varied character abilities and skill progression reveal plenty of mechanical depth.

The wonderful visuals, music, characters and story merge together perfectly, delivering an enthralling, personal journey. The game’s writing is top-notch, and incredibly well paced, with character relationships (between each other and the player) developing at what feels like an utterly natural speed. This is also a title with gameplay ideally suited for short, twenty minute bursts, facilitated by a story that can be progressed one step at a time.

A game full of endearing characters living in a strangely relatable sci-fi world. While the visuals aren’t especially stunning the augmented reality system used by the game’s characters has a wonderful style. As in Gone Home, Fullbright demonstrate their considerable skill in subtle environmental storytelling, with the objects placed around the Tacoma space station telling small stories that are never stated out loud.

The uplifting narrative that sees the best in people when they are working together is very much appreciated.