Recent reviews by Jinx Cat

A fun autobattler with a nice tabletop RPG aesthetic. I haven't tried the PvP mode, but if you're interested in a PvE autobattler with a healthy Roguelite splash, I can definitely recommend this one. It's not perfect, but for me it's a good little game to play off and on for a run or two here and there - and it's still fun to put a good amount of time in one sitting on it.

The art is pleasant, the style and feel is lighthearted and fun, and ultimately it's just a nice experience. While there's always an element of frustration to losing a run, especially if it seemed to be completely out of your hands (RNG is still RNG), the general vibe of the game helps soften it and makes it easier to move on - either to another run, or just to whatever you're doing next.

There are some aspects I don't like, - some traits (namely skeleton) feel weaker than the others, some events feel a little simple and like they could use another look over (Ba'Naal Caverns events for example), and some units (like Deshrett) feel extremely frustrating at times - but ultimately none of these impact the game to such a degree as to really hurt my enjoyment of it.

Ultimately I think once I get enough of "regular" play, this is a game I'll probably still come back to here and there, like other Roguelite games (Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Vampire Survivors, etc.). While not a particularly high praise to be put in the 'I'll keep coming back' box, it should be noted that at 32 hours I'm still not really burned out of said "regular" play, and the game still isn't (currently) out of EA yet. It's got room to grow, and I find it be extremely well worth the price of admission.

Very fun im-sim like game. The basic systems (stats, spells, equipment, AI, etc.) are relatively simple, but they come together in a very satisfying way, leading to an illusion of complexity (but in a good way). Casually, there's a fair amount of fun in exploring both the zones and the systems, giving you a lot of small 'ah-ha' or 'oh cool' moments. The emergent interactions in how the AI reacts to certain things - and especially how they can be manipulated in certain ways - is really enjoyable to watch and play with, and can lead to some fun discoveries itself.

The story is... well I'll be honest, I can't really follow it. I couldn't tell you what that means for the quality of the story, it just flat out escapes me. The way it reads, it's either by someone who used hallucinogens at least occasionally as inspiration, or someone with an EXTREMELY good grasp on English and poetry, possibly both. The prose is beautiful, but extremely strange and heavily influenced by pagan and occult views - and from a much farther delve into them than I ever got during my time in those circles.

Fortunately, you don't have to wrap yourself up in the story to enjoy the game. Controls are very tight, systems generally are generally fairly straightforward, RNG is constrained to how NPCs roam and not things like combat, hitboxes are mostly accurate (and usually inaccurate to your benefit more often than not). The zones aren't so massive as to be troublesome, but they're a good size and have some bits worth exploring for.

Casually, I got my first ending in a bit over 3 hours - 3.3 on Steam's playtime. Took me a while after to get the second (of two I'm fairly sure), and I haven't even touched the free DLC that's supposed to be a sort of NG+. I did, however, start speedrunning it, and it's been a blast routing and rerouting as I learned new stuff and got more consistent at the route.

Highly recommended to check out if you like im-sims, but definitely prefer to go at it blind if possible. A lot of the fun for a casual player will come from discovery and exploration. Not everyone likes getting killed by triad over and over while trying to go fast like I do.

Oh and finally, trans right.

Pretty simple and straightforward, but surprisingly addictive. The additional areas/content has taken the game from a 3-4 hour full completion to... well honestly I haven't fully completed any of the additional content, but it's certainly a lot longer now.

Admittedly a lot of this game is waiting for timers to finish, but if you like Cultist Simulator's loop you might like this game as well - and it's cheap!

Highly recommend this for people who enjoy SotN-era Castlevania games. The movement feels VERY close to SotN, to the point I started to speedrun it (emphasis on started to, boss fights aren't all brain dead so it was too hard for my simple platformer brain to learn the strats for).

Excellent game. More forgiving and quicker runs than Slay the Spire, but no lack of depth from that ease of play.

Got this game like 7 years ago during 1.2. Played it to death, then put it down. Spent $20 on pre-ordering Starbound. I still play Terraria occasionally. I hid Starbound from my library.

Legitimately one of the best games I've ever played. I'd never played any of the Harvest Moon or Rune Forge series before playing Stardew, and I was very happily surprised when I tried it. It's made me look into the other series' games, opening me up to a new genre of games I didn't know I enjoyed.

The basic combat/gameplay is fairly simple although still quite fun, and the progression is done very well. The story is great, but the soundtrack and the voice work done for the narrator take the game from just being 'good' to 'incredible,' and it's easily one of my favorite games ever.

Update Jan 16 2013:

I've been occasionally playing this here and there (heavily modded) over the past year or so, so I think a small update is due here. Ultimately I still do not recommend this game, as they really have yet to solve any of the major feature creep issues they had like a decade ago, and it's extremely unlikely they ever will - not the mention the UI is still obscenely clunky. This game can still be fun, and if you have friends you can probably squeeze more enjoyment out of it, but it just misses too many marks. I would say instead of a strong 'stay away from this game' review like I had before, I'd say this is just a more general 'if you're on the fence, just skip or wait.'

If you're fine with traditional roguelikes, check out Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. The subreddit is probably the easiest way to find your way to a download, /r/CataclysmDDA. I have a lot of qualms about the direction the main devs have gone with that as well, but I find it way easier to determine long-term goals in that game than I do in Zomboid, which is what gives survival games their real longevity.

Old review below:

Bought this game on their site before it was available on Steam. They promised NPCs within a couple year. 7 years later they still haven't added NPCs. Or the singleplayer stories they promised. Or the updated models they promised after that. Or vehicles, or any number of things they promised over the years. It had a lot of potential all those years ago, but now? Now it's just a reminder of what inexperience can do to a project. Feature creep and refinement creep - refining a feature over and over - killed the game, a game that was already going off the rails with a bunch of other poor design choices.

Very interesting mix of puzzle and strategy, surprisingly quite enjoyable despite how grindy it can seem. Working out exactly how to get all the resources you need into each village can be a challenge, especially on some of the shorter length games. The fact that there's an extensive unlock system can be a little bit of a pain when you're missing the one resource you need, but on the other hand it does make it feel like you're making progress as you play though each game.