Recent reviews by nothingpants

I can't really recommend this game. Even on Traditional (the "more relaxed" aka easiest mode with combat) the difficulty is punishing and cleansing a map is tedious with a single optimal strategy. Which is too bad because it has some nice mechanics and systems.

Basically the way to win is to rush a chain of lights over to where the corruption spawns and encircle it with lights within the first 2-3 game days. Then contain spawns with a couple of bullet towers while you rush town growth to supporting a bunch of crystal golems. Once that's ready slowly light creep into the corruption area until it's all gone.

Enemy strength increases exponentially over time and with corruption size, so containing it ASAP is basically the only way to win. Towers are useless beyond the first few in-game weeks and human military is too hard to replace so there's no real other options on offense either.

This is really too bad because there are fun systems of towers and walls and production and building and magic. Unfortunately none of them matter because you can't fool around if you don't want to eventually be overwhelmed by the corruption's power growth.

I can't imagine peaceful mode is much fun since over half the buildings and systems are useless if there's no combat. Custom difficulty lets you tweak variables that can slow the enemy growth but that only gives you more time to execute the one viable strategy. Sadly there doesn't seem to be a way to make the game more flexible.

A mediocre card game that is not actually a deckbuilder. You gain equipment that makes poker hands have extra effects, but the base set of cards never changes. However the game's biggest problem is it's just not interesting.

You are presented with a lot of choices as you play, but all that does is present a false sense of variety. There are only a few equipment slot and each has only a tiny set of options. Artifacts that provide buffs are offered semi-frequently but impactful ones are few and far between.

There are other minor issues - poorly themed cards (when only using 1-7 why employ clubs etc. when a more thematic choice like animals or elements would have worked) and poor writing (story is fine, but the banter was inane and endless so I ended up skipping everything). But really the only thing that matters is that the lack of deep choices means the game isn't fun to play.

There are many actual deckbuilders that are much more fun than this game. Or if you prefer the poker deck theme I'd recommend Aces & Adventures, and Balatro is currently quite popular.

A fun detective game with good deckbuilding turn-based combat.

The mystery solving element of the game is the best part by far. Finding clues and investigating leads are both very satisfying, and time management plays a key role. It's sort of like a more intricate game of Clue.

The deckbuilding, combat, and character skills are good but not anything special, which is totally fine because they mainly serve as the gameplay accompanying the sleuthing.

If you love detective games or if you like detective games and deckbuilding games then you really should check this game out. If you wouldn't play a game just to solve a murder mystery then the other game elements probably won't be enough to make this one worthwhile.

A fast paced magic-themed shooter roguelite, a fun iteration of the original.

+ Fun weapons
+ Many perk choices per run
+ Fast game pace
- Low room variety
- Low enemy and boss variety
- Early game a bit repetitive due to slow unlocks

If you liked the original this is an easy recommend, if you didn't it's an easy skip. Otherwise if you like boomer shooters (fast movement, fun gun variety, blasting rooms of enemies) and don't mind a bit of repetition you should give this a look.

Simple but fun, reminds me of old school flash games that did a lot with a little. Lots of different upgrades, some of them quite wacky, make runs feel unique. If you want a quick timewaster that's fun to come back to, this one's a winner.

Build your deck to build a city. Fun and engaging with interesting mechanics that force you to make choices about what cards to pick and how to place your buildings.

Pretty chill except the final victory quest which goes a bit too hard imo, throwing multiple disasters at you back to back to back. Great replay value but that rough finish is a limiting factor.

Really good entry in the Vampire Survivors genre. Classes have different playstyles and the unlock system for gear and potions is fun.

I really wanted to love this game, but the sign post system is just too awful.

Every single intersection needs a signpost or people get lost and complain. This means even if you do your best to limit intersections, dozens of sign posts are required.

Any time a new exit or line is added, you have to update every. single. one. It is a tedious nightmare.

Your station gets so cluttered with sign post arrows you can't see anything that's going on, and their giant icons cover up each other and anything else you need to click on.

And the worst thing is they don't even work. People will walk right under a sign with an arrow specifically for their destination and still turn around and walk the opposite direction. Apparently this problem is reduced by running the game in a slower mode, but since there's nothing to do except wait for people to finish walking that's akin to watching paint dry.

Building pathways, adjusting to new station layouts, managing kiosk placement, all of it is excellent and should make for a fun game. Unfortunately you have to spend the vast majority of your time managing a mountain of ugly directional arrows that don't always actually work, which ultimately makes it too frustrating to enjoy.

A solid base builder. Not a must-have to experience something new in the genre, but worth playing if you're interested in it.

The road system is quite different than most games. One bot moves one item at a time per road segment. I found learning how to use this system efficiently to be an unexpected but fun challenge.

The game is loaded with tons of charts and statistics which should make you happy if you love maximizing efficiency of a system.

The lack of road bridges was a bit frustrating especially since you can make train bridges. I also didn't like exploring the map - you have to turret creep the entire map since robots can't explore on their own.

The military missions involve rushing to put down as many towers as you can while rushing tower weaponry tech. I wasn't a fan but if you like tower rushing vs AI then you may enjoy it more than I did.

The early campaign does a good job of introducing concepts, but got repetitive in later missions. I wish I'd just done a random map after about 3-4 missions.

I found the train and boat systems to be very satisfying. I also really liked the ability to precisely control the flow of each building's inputs and outputs. I played a huge map and moving batches of goods between outposts was a lot of fun.

Really fun card game. Tons of heroes to choose from with very different playstyles. Ok encounter variety with well designed enemies and fun bosses. Runs are a little long but you can quit and resume whenever you want.

My favorite thing about this game is how it addresses the classic roguelite problem where more unlocks can mean less chance of getting what you want. Here you customize your drop pool, but there's also a required pool size which is big enough so there's still plenty of randomness in a run.

I also really like the "recoverable" health mechanic which incentivizes limiting the amount of damage you take at once and lets you refill a chunk of what you lost next fight even if you finish a level damaged.

Overall an excellent card game with solid mechanics and tons of fun build options. Great for players who want some control over deck builds while still having repeat runs feel different.