Recent reviews by Let's Game It Out

https://youtu.be/_gSo-KumMTE

Surprisingly polished for a just-released early access game! Definitely one to watch if the premise sounds cool to you.

Overall the game has good visuals, a generally comforting atmosphere, and mostly intuitive game controls. I couldn't figure out how to rotate the view, which may not be implemented yet, resulting in some buildings being hidden (my fault entirely if I simply couldn't find it). You also have the ability to upgrade buildings and customize them a little which adds a sense of progression. You can also design your team's jersey. All of these things are great and I'd love to see them expanded upon for further customization.

As someone who doesn't follow soccer/football very much, I did find some of the goals confusing and can imagine a more expanded tutorial to be helpful, but in the end I was still able to muddle my way through with relative ease. One of the objectives that isn't particularly clear is how to guide your city to encourage more talent, though I think the answer there is you simply need to grow your city in a thriving way and talented youth will emerge to join your team due to people's optimal living conditions. I find that passive growth clever, I just wished I'd understood ahead of time.

At the moment, I think I was able to accomplish everything the game currently has to offer in about 5 hours, but I also ran into a money glitch that gave me a lot more money a lot faster, but the ending was the same: you create the best team on the planet while you also craft your city. I imagine more is still being added and I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Again, definitely one to watch if the premise sounds cool to you. Feel free to dive in early with the gameplay available or at the very least I'd say watch as it develops and maybe take the plunge later.

https://youtu.be/dFpYsnPavhA

As of writing this the game just released into early access and it's charming BUT pretty rough around the edges. For most people I would recommend waiting until a little later into early access, but to keep it on your radar.

I'm giving this a thumbs up because of its potential, but the early access launch version is super rough. A bunch of bugs, features not working, falling through the floor, that kinda thing. But when the game works, I found the mail sorting parts to be quite fun.

As it's a job sim around working at a post office, your day is filled with sorting mail, mailing/making packages, and keeping things stocked. You also have to take care of your (currently very basic) daily needs, like eating so your stamina is high enough so that you don't literally and spontaneously pass out.

Graphically the game is charming in a Minecraft kinda way. At times the bloom is pretty heavy.

The mail sorting mechanic reminds me of a more simple Papers Please, where you have to have an attention to detail for each piece of mail you're sorting so that you don't sort it incorrectly due to a damaged stamp or an incorrect address. You also have to handle parcels as well as order supplies (and food for yourself) which adds a lot to do each day.

Again, at the moment there are a bunch of showstopping bugs that get in the way, but I'm anticipating this getting ironed out as the game gets through early access. I'd recommend keeping this one on your radar and seeing how it progresses, at which time it may be worth checking out.

https://youtu.be/G9zmFroIjho

Really impressed! Both the minigolf game itself as well as the creator work rather well, especially for just entering early access.

I made a few different courses using the creator and I was very pleased with how (mostly) intuitive the toolset felt after using it for a short time and further impressed by the course customization allowed. Being able to adjust the size/height/width/angles for all objects is great for some really custom courses. Putting down putting green took some getting used to but once I understood it, creating paths and testing them was fairly easy. I also appreciated the terrain deformation tools as well as the amount of customization that can be done with water, be it colors, wave movement, and height.

That said, hopefully some more documentation can be made available as I did have to figure out some of the creator commands on my own. Equally great would be the ability to adjust key bindings, which is available for hotkeys when playing courses but not for the hotkeys when creating them.

Looking forward to see how this game improves over early access and hoping the game takes off and more people start uploading courses to the Workshop!

https://youtu.be/pz8tHqfsuqY

It's hard to recommend this one as success is so easy to achieve that there isn't a ton of challenge despite a lot of options on how to approach the game. There is also the thing about no supported English localization (English language is in there, it's just really incomplete and poor), but I don't really hold that against the game since right on the Steam page it says English isn't supported.

Basically you've got a bunch of camgirls and you can choose to manage them as much or as little as you want -- in my case I had them all sleep 24/7 and they built audiences without me having to do anything at all. But if you were so inclined you can have them dance, play games, chat with their audiences, etc.

The game does have a deluge of options for how to specialize your streamers, though ultimately I'm not sure how much they matter, though it's nice that they're all there. Since the English translation is poor, it's hard to understand exactly what the point of some things are. I never once fed anyone in 2+ years in-game time and that too didn't seem to matter, and I gave very few of them special skills and they were still able to build audiences.

It seems like one of the only factors that really applies is selecting the right audience at which point you build your streamers' skills around those, or at the very least try to choose audiences that don't make you actively lose viewership.

Visually the game is decent enough and reminds me of The Sims 1. You can also decorate the streamers' rooms, but again I'm not sure how much this matters, as I decorated them as horribly as I possibly could and was still able to succeed.

Ultimately it's hard to recommend this one mainly because it was so easy to win, and also because of the obviously poor English localization (though it does end up getting unintentionally hilarious).

https://youtu.be/niM_T0JHwek

If you want something really refined, maybe hold off for a while before purchasing. If you're cool with the game being rough around the edges, the blacksmithing in this game can be pretty fun.

It's really exactly what you expect: you're a blacksmith and you have to go through the process of purchasing supplies, smelting ingots, pounding them into swords, sharpening them, and selling them. You eventually can make specialty items with imbued magical powers as well as damascus steel.

You can also choose individual parts for your swords so they can look really custom, although at the moment they all look a little rounded, and you can create some pretty funny combinations wherein thicker pieces don't logically fit with thinner pieces of the blade, but I do appreciate that the game allows this.

Also at the moment there are some finicky physics issues where if you put an item down and you happen to walk over it at a certain angle that it might jettison you or the object into the air. Not necessarily a problem if it's you, but if it's the object and you can't find it again, that can be a bummer.

There's also some balancing that I hope happens, as right now it feels really difficult to sell off all your swords. People come by your shop every 3-5 minutes and have requests, and sometimes they ask for things you can't yet make. Would love another method for selling swords so I can keep the fun going.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this game progresses through early access. I think it has good bones and hopefully will only get better from here.

https://youtu.be/TVt5my65WL8

In its current state I lean more towards not recommending this game. I do hope that it improves and changes as the premise itself is neat, but the gameplay itself is fairly lacking, to the point where it's almost better to think of this game like a slightly more proactive idle clicker game than a tycoon/simulator game.

Surface level, this game isn't bad. You create a company, you grow it out, you create your own custom-designed, custom-named smart phones, and hope they're successful on the market. There's a whole lot of different options for phone customization and it's pretty neat overall to be able to do that.

My main issue is that without fail, you will ALWAYS be successful. The very first phone I made, I made it intentionally terrible and raised the markup on it as high as the game would allow, then manufactured as many of them as possible. Every single phone sold out despite its horrible price of like $1100 a phone and I was able to make exponential amounts of money and just keep doing that over and over.

Cut to a couple hours later and I had -- no joke -- sold over 34 quadrillion phones and made over 1 quintillion dollars. This would be awesome if it wasn't totally effortless. I also had like 8+ billion followers on social media before the numbers stopped working, which is, you know... more people than exist on the planet.

Which is part of the issue. The game doesn't take into account really any factors, nor does it seem to be affected by theoretical trends in phone tastes (I created over 20 phones that were literally the exact same except for the name, with an average rating of 5.8/10, and they all sold just fine). The skills of those you employ also appears to make little sense or have any effect on your phones or the sales of them.

You can also upgrade several things including your office as well as research things like better styles/equipment/technology for your phones, and also improve your marketing ability. It's a bit of a pain since every time you apply the research you plan to do, the game hits a loading screen for about 5 seconds, which builds up fast if you're trying to level things up frequently.

You can also develop your own OS, but I honestly never figured out how to use it. I upgraded it several times, and the research time for it is PAINFULLY long, like 5-10 real time minutes long when researching it with a fully staffed office, in the largest available office.

I did also run into some bugs, including not being able to get custom logos working and also some glitches in hiring employees (bugged out resumes). The game also has surprisingly long loading times between screens.

I honestly do hope this game improves and gets better. I really like the idea of the game and overall found the interface and visuals to be in line with what I'd expect from this type of game, I just wish that all decisions didn't feel ultimately trivial and the only goal to see how much money you can amass before the game simply stops tracking it.

If this game improves and it seems good, I'll be more than happy to switch this review to "recommended."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XETQ6Lef5Pw

If you loved the original TJ&E, you'll love this. If you're on the fence, still give it a gander. If you really didn't like OG TJ&E, this may not change your mind.

It's refreshing to play any game that's ultimately non-violent and exploratory, which is generally how I'd describe ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove as well as the original one. Back in the Groove is straight up the first one but shoved through a "modern gaming" machine with better visuals, good handling, and quality music.

I should mention that I haven't played the game multiplayer which I'm willing to bet is where the game really shines. As a single player game, the game is fun, but a little lonely. A lot of the funkier elements of the game are charming but I think will ultimately be hit or miss with some people. I do appreciate that they appear to have made the game exactly as they would have liked, and also one for the fans.

From what I can tell there are a lot of great easter eggs as well, lots of homage to the previous titles, and ultimately the game is a really solid experience. I encountered no bugs and the game feels super polished.

Again, would recommend to any TJ&E fan. If you've never heard of it, I say look over some gameplay videos and see if any friends love it.

https://youtu.be/LuQVJv3y7aM

Had a fun time with this one! Recommended if you like the idea of a simulator-ish, puzzle-ish, mouse-driven game where you spend most of your time performing the day to day tasks of a work-from-home chat support person. This game is pretty much what I'd picture "Papers, Please" to be like if it were about a tech support person in modern times.

The story quietly unfolds as you spend every in-game day helping people troubleshoot their phone issues via online chat support. You'll see snippets of story emerge via your work email and chat while you play, at which point you're able to make small decisions on where to drive the story, be it by helping hackers, the police, the company you work for, or yourself.

Having done chat support before as an actual job, it's eerie how accurate it can be in this game with things like juggling multiple chat windows and trying to keep track of what each person is saying. You're paid per support chat you take, so it's in your best interest to tackle as many as you can to rack up more money, which you can then use to purchase upgrades (or send to people when prompted in story moments).

The game smartly doesn't allow you to go off script very much and relies entirely on mouse control to select commands/ask questions from dropdown menus. Some conversations do end up a little wonky -- I've had some interactions that sound like two AIs trying to talk to each other where things don't seem to match up in a human way, but for the most part the conversations have great personality and you see a wide range of behaviors in the people you have to chat with.

Ultimately, I've had a blast playing this one, especially knowing that I've done only one of many branching paths and get to go back and see about choosing a different side on a future playthrough.

As an aside, I think I'm actually better at troubleshooting phones now. Thanks Tech Support: Error Unknown!

https://youtu.be/ofPMxNjxhVs

Loved it! For being in early access, I'm amazed at the amount of polish that already exists in this game.

The game is basically a medeival swap meet simulator with The Sims-esque building and a LOT of freedom in item placement. I found it really impressive that you could so accurately place items in your shop at just about any angle you could want. Ordering items to keep your shop running is neat and prices seems to dynamically fluctuate in a reasonable way each day, and the addition of being able to craft many items (and build better quality items the more you craft them!) as well as grow your own food are wonderful features. Modifiers such as differences in seasons creating different item prices/demands was also nice to see.

I ran into no bugs in over 6 hours of playing and everything worked as intended. There are likely a couple balance issues as I did manage to exploit a system (see my video for more on this) to boost my shop to maximum "appeal level" but this didn't ruin any enjoyment for me and ultimately if it's too easy to mess with, I can see it easily fixed.

Really looking forward to playing more of this and seeing what else gets added. A really relaxing experience and a lot of fun to build out your shop.

https://youtu.be/hRP09WNgYns

A little rough around the edges but a great start for a game that just entered into early access and I've had some fun with it. If you're looking for something super polished, consider waiting, but keep an eye out for this one as I can see it getting great as it improves.

Things I've enjoyed so far:
- A lot of ways to creatively build funny and destructive scenarios
- Potential for some interesting Rube Goldberg-like situations
- A lot of different vehicles, characters, and props
- Creating an army of hipsters and promptly finding ways to smash vehicles into them/blow them up with explosives/both simultaneously

Looking forward to seeing these things improve:
- Volume sliders for effects and music
- Different music as currently it's a really grating guitar riff that plays infinitely -- because of this I've played the game muted
- Better sound effects handling -- currently adding a lot of vehicles at once causes the sound effects to double on each other and it blows everything out
- Many situations cause vehicles to blow up prematurely, lose wheels, and otherwise never reach their destination
- Vehicles crumple entirely when connecting with basically any object -- a semi will get destroyed if it runs over a tiny statue, as an example
- UI could use some love. Hotkeys would be excellent. An undo/redo feature would be stellar. It's also really easy to accidentally select things in the world and accidentally start moving them around.

I know it seems like there are more "things to improve" than positives, but I do think the core of the game is pretty interesting. For that reason I'm giving it a "recommended" and at the very least, keep an eye on this one as it moves through early access.