Recent reviews by Buntkreuz

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197977146636/screenshot/2458480342532426830/
I had a seizure/10







I played the Demo and had a lot of fun with it.
The gameplay is pretty simply in and of itself. Move forward (with branching paths and shortcuts etc) and kill stuff to refill your life.
What had me like the demo so much was the overall quality in presentation.

When the game launched, i was at first put off a bit from the quite steep price compared to, for example, Post Void, a game i also enjoyed enough to play through.
But then i thought that i liked the demo enough to anticipate the release, looking forward to play more and deeper into the content, so i still gave it a shot.

After only 5 minutes i felt the price was worth it.
The quality in all areas is top notch. It oozes details and style. But its not just glamour and bling covering up hollow gameplay.
It really lives everything it does.
It comes with Anime Cutscenes, Synth Pop/Electronic Music and fun, detailed and interesting visual presentation.
It doesnt bombard you with pointless effects and lighting to trick you believing its an active game, it places all the effects and details in a way they make sense being there.

This is also true for the gameplay.
The game offers about 8 or so difficulties, including a permadeath mode, something i wish more games would have (looking at you Amid Evil), as it motivates me to replay once im beyond normal mode (im a pleb).
Even if i never manage to beat it.

The gameplay itself is deep. You "climb" 10 stages of killing robot dudes. After each stage you get to choose an upgrade, which is a new weapon or an upgrade, adding more time, allowing better combos to gain more time, or more ammo in your magazine etc.
The clue here is, which is why i think its great, you can specialize or go broad.
I started with a 25% larger magazine and went up to 75% during my first run.
But i could also have added other stuff for better combos.

Theres also style upgrades, like an upgrade that your protagonist does oneliners.

Ending a run, allows you to pick one permanent upgrade (like keeping the last stage upgrade for the next run or adding lvl2 weapons).

So theres enough depth and replayability from that alone.
The gunplay also is varied, having melee, dash, kick, environmental damage and headshotting.
The game features several chapters.

I can fully recommend it, at this price, its incredible.
It convinced me after just 10 minutes that this is worth the price.
Its not just Post Void, its a far more expansive Post Void with 500% increased production value, style and quality.
Its a bit less of a drug experience asking you what you do with your lifetime and a bit more content rich.
Still questioning my life choices, but with more stable mentality.

Manure Loards

I will just list a few things here to give you an idea of what you might find and how it runs, so you can make a more informed decision:

I run the game at:
Ultra, with DLSS On, WQHD (1440p), locked to 60fps.
My System Specs are:
RTX 2080, Ryzen2700X, 16GB RAM DDR3, Installed on SSD (2 years old)

The game maintains a stable 60fps when starting a new game. It dips slightly by 3 fps when constantly zooming in and out from max zoom out to max zoom in.
Nothing noticable.
Unlocking the FPS had me go between 57 and 110, moving the camera around a ton and going wild, it maintained stable performance.
Theres a sharpening option that i maxed, it maintained the FPS as above mentioned.

I set DLSS to Quality, theres also Balanced and Performance as well as Dynamic.
Quality had the above mentioned results.
The typical unshard image a lot of games with DLSS have was not present.
Using the Sharpness option further reduced any potential unsharpness in the graphics and picture in general.


Testing:
Panning the camera so i can see the entire map horizontally dips it down to about 50fps.
To be expected, considering that this means maximum load on the hardware compared to panning the camera so i only can see small fraction of the ground/area (panorama view versus birds eye view).
For normal gameplay, that means i run it on a stable 60, even when wildly moving the camera around.
DLSS looks good, sharp and without any noticable problem after 10 minutes of messing around.

Mind, i have not tested performance on high density cities with a lot of moving entities, no combat and/or when particle effects come into place (smoke etc).
So keep in mind, that performance is default starting the game with nothing and longer play can lead to a reduced performance, depending on how well the game manages the additional load of animations and particles.

I have played the Demo though and back then the game also maintained a stable 60fps with at least 40 villagers and a lot of buildings.
Considering that this version is newer, i assume its also better performing.

Options:
Tons to mess around with.

Borderless, windowed and fullscreen
Any modern resolution.
FXAA, TAA, FSR, DLSS, XESS including presets (dynamic DLSS for example).
Vsync
Framerate limiters
Several general settings regarding shadows, grass, lighting etc.

The game looks good.
For a strategy game allowing this level of zoom in and out, the overall quality is worthy of a 2024 game and outclasses a ton of games easily.
Together with running a stable 60fps on my hardware (i would classify it as medium range Hardware), i would say its very well optimized and offers a lot of options to customize your experience and performance.

You get 3 Scenario Presets, that range from "Relaxed Building Only (no combat)" to "Be Fast and get ready for War" and one inbetween.

It features settings so you can define your own experience, do you want Bandit raids or not, how frequent, how is economy going, what victory condition do you want.
It lacks combined settings, so you cant for example set several victory conditions that you have all to meet until you win (like Conquering the entire map and then growing your city to a certain size).

It features 9 Character Portraits. Two Women and 7 Men of different appearences.
It offers several dozen Symbols, Backgrounds and other stuff, to customize your own Banner.
You have a ton of options there to to go wild, you can save your creation, load it and even load your own textures.
Easy to spend an hour customizing there.
It has no option to upload your own individual character image/portrait.

It shows that there might be a way to load custom scenarios or maps as there is a window for that, but its locked to "early access map" right now.

The game features a tooltip based tutorial.

You dont choose your own starting position (which was a bit of a let down to me personally, but maybe i find a workaround for that).

Thats it for now.


Pro Tip:
Setting Shadow Quality from Ultra to High got me about 30 fps more.
Yes, that much.
Shadows are generally a good source of performance without losing too much visual quality in return.
You barely notice the difference between Ultra and High, but you will notice 15-30 fps more especially in the long run.

Tough one.
I think its overall good, but the reason i gave it back and would rate it negatively, is because of the combat that sets in at around stage 20,
Up to this point i enjoyed it and by luck made a break before entering the Nest.
The firefighting part, solving "puzzles", fighting fire etc, was really good.
Basic, with more potential, but fun.
But already at the first fight against some wasps it made a full turn and developed into a game i wasnt really looking forward to.
Still firefighting, but with bad combat inbetween.
Cant properly shoot the Wasps, due to the restrictive Shooting Angles that are fine for firefighting, but not for fighting a flying enemy.

I expected a different game. Thought it would go full into the firefighting theme and didnt mind the way it developed with a hidden research base.
More like a horizontal "Firemen" (SNES), with more abilities and gadgets along the way and fire gaining more and more quirks (as it did, like with electricity being added in the first stages).
Maybe fire becoming more resistant, needing specialized gadgets and such.

But thats not it and the forum gives away, that theres a Bossfight with Wasps that im not keen to experience.
Would have prefered it stayed mysterious and fascinating, while also rooted in reality (firefighting, not giant wasp monsters).

So its a refund for me after just an hour. Sadly.
If you are ok with clunky combat, go for it.
Artstyle, controls, sound, map design etc is all good. But enemies, not so much.

A bit meh.

Story is cheesy and honestly, i think the entire premise is a bit dumb, feels forced and unfun.
Graphically its also super basic. Units dont give good feedback, shots land and a unit just vanishes.
Ground textures are bad, as is the overall quality of terrain/the world.

The focus seems to have been lighting and lightsources.
Not particulary interesting.
A lack of infantry makes this even more boring to me, but thats highly subjective ofcourse.

Performance isnt all too good too.

Overall, i had more fun with Planetary Annihilation. Which is weird, as the company behind that was absolute garbage.
But i would recommend PA over this one.

If you are totally out of a large scale RTS, give this a try. But to me it felt soulless and boring and theres better alternatives.

Sidenote: Still too many bugs for a game this old. Started the campaign fresh, the Nexus i had to destroy glitched around graphically, i have the game set to "English" but i still get german voiceovers (that are bad).
Thats two bugs/problems in just 3 minutes playing the game.

Its not bad, but the unlocking of characters is.
Its sometimes pretty hard to kill a boss but you need at least 10 shards to unlock only one of the characters, which become more expensive too.
I mostly just manage to get to the second boss, which means i get one shard after like 15 minutes of play.
Feels grindy that way and im locked to the starting character, which isnt my playstyle.

Overall the content versus price is nice, but i still feel it misses unused potential.
I like the mechanics with weapons, but there seem to be too few ways to actually influence the rest of the mechanics.
Like, i feel i have too less mana to actually be able to play most of the cards. Drawing a card needs you to spend one mana, you have 4 and some cards cost up to 8 (they have effects that reduce their mana costs, but still tend to be at around 2-4 if you havent focussed your entire deck around them).

I think drawing is a bad mechanic. A fully refreshed hand would work far better.
Actually, just turn the mechanic around it becomes far more interesting.
Draw a new hand every round, but you can spend one mana to keep a card in your hand so it doesnt get discarded.
Would also be logical, to spend your energy to not forget.
But that way i typically manage to perform like one action per round, sometimes two.
Wished there were some ways to increase mana.
Rewards for killing enemies are also not so well done.
Most of them are one time use food items, with questionable effects. You can then pick between 3 card options, or you dont pick any.
Didnt feel very rewarding.

Im a bit torn. Its not a bad deckbuilder, but also not good enough to have it replace the actual good ones.
It doesnt replace anything i have, but also doesnt provide anything new to justify its existence alongside other deckbuilders.
I literally already have one similar to it, Fate Hunters, which is similar but more fleshed out.

So its a general yes, if you never played a Deckbuilder or need a cheap one for fresh air while getting a break of a more fleshed out one.
Otherwise, skip if you already have deckbuilders in your library and you like to play them.

Could be good and fun, but its a refund for me now.
The gameplay is pretty much like T-Minus 30 plus They are Billions. You build stuff that gives you resources and you balance all of that out to expand.
So far, so good.
But its a complete visual design mess.
The UI uses different types of symbols, some are pixelated to unrecognizability (like the symbol for military buildings), then theres one spread thats a quite clean and clear cut high resoluted symbol of a flask (research menu) and the next is a mix of pixelated with clear outlines (Civil Buildings).
The entire HUD is just outright awful.
Do you remember the Slay the Spire Devs early sketches of his card art that he had to completely redo because they were total placeholders and looked so incredibly bad that no one would have expected otherwise?
Its like that, just for Menus and HUD/UI.
Grey boxes, bad resolutions and pixelated where it doesnt work well, blant, untextured, mixed symbol types and styles, bad font and colour usage, unclear informations and bad information flow.
Dont mix Vector graphics with sprites please.

I couldnt tell whether that little marine on the left side of my screen as an indicator of a sidemission being on the left side or something else.
I found out its apparently the counter of how many units i have.
My HABs are going disabled for some reason. I have power, they are connected to the base, they have water, but they show a lightning symbol indicating they have no power.
My reserves are full though and my energy income is constantly positive.

It also seems to have issues with higher resolutions. Because when im watching the gametrailer, it looks quite detailed and high resoluted, but while playing its rather unsharp and muddy.
I assume that due to me using WQHD?


All in all, the entire design of Menus, use of Fonts and such coupled with the muddy, unsharp look makes this a no from me for now.
I hope future updates will completely overhaul the design on fonts, menus, coloring and UI design.
Its unintuitive and super ugly.
I love pixel graphcis, but here it seems like the dev couldnt decide.

I wished it was more looking like "Flooded", a game that also went with a mix of pixelated graphics/sprites and clearer outlined 3D buildings.
But that looked good and the UI was fine.

I already had these issues in the demo and that caused me to uninstall it pretty fast.
I just hoped that was resolved with going early access.
Put more effort into menu and UI design.
It made a game i would love to play and thats totally my thing, to something i wouldnt even touch.

Should be Early Access, honestly.
Has a level editor but no way to share levels.
The amount of content is kinda laughable. I was confused that the upgrade guy in the level only offered the same 3 upgrades to me, but thats because the game only has like 12 and i simply had the rest already.
6 Characters, that arent too different, wasted potential especially as they dont feel really unique and theres a lot of possibilities left untouched.

It also didnt feel overly challenging, theres only one mode it seems (at least i havent unlocked any), no endless mode and the worst of it all, no Coop.
I could pretty much fire up GTA2 and have multiplayer.

You have to unlock the basic upgrades for every character.
The problem is, they are the same for all of them and none are especially interesting (more damage, faster shooting, more health).
And yet again, unused potential.
I would have had the urge to replay and try different builds, like a "only-car driving and max out every car upgrade until a taxi is a tank"-playstyle.
Or having a dude thats great with bikes and melee.
Driving isnt too fun anyway, the town is ridiculously small and you get blocked by wood fences.

It runs fine, it sounds ok, it plays smooth.
Its just not a lot of game, not a lot of choice, not a lot of variety.


My recommendation:
Add workshop support
Increase city size at least by 400%
Add more modes with special twists (Racing? Gungame? Contract Killer? Search and Destroy? Survive? Endless Mode?)
Add coop, with a twist (maybe with a mode where you compete for score or who finishes a checklist first)
Add more perks that are fun but also exclude others if you pick them
Add a few more distinct characters.
Add more ways to finish a round (maybe connected with more modes)
Increase price to 9.99€ once thats done.


I like the general idea or a very physical explosion driven game like this, but it entertained me for an hour and then i was kinda done with it.
Without the content and mechanics to allow me to try out different playstyles and be challenged or attempting different modes,
This isnt that fun enough to have me return.
The price is no point in its favor, if that means sitting on barely two hours of motivating and refreshing gameplay.

Would be a good basis as a start into early access to achieve all of the above in a two year roadmap.
But as a full release, i kind of expect more.

Bulwark seems to be a game that is as if you took Islanders and thought you wanted a bit more but without increasing complexity.
You still mostly just build for the visual appeal and less because you need it.
And the expanded features are also all pretty basic, like basic trade routes, basic factions relationships, basic combat encounters, basic events or quests.

Its like it took all the typical features of other games of its kind, but only on a surface level.
Theres theoretically nothing wrong with that.

But i see that maybe some people are just bored of it.

I personally am not sure its for me either, as i expect more challenge and "goals" from my city builders.
I love the open world implementation here, but am bored of its interactions with it.
Since theres only 3 resources, exploring other islands holds nothing of interest.
Its just that small island with stone, build a mine on it, connect harbors, done.

The positive about the complexity of a game, like lets say Anno, is that a new Island holds new selections of resources that you have to deal with.
They all come with their own restrictions and conditions, one has metals and coal, but doesnt hold any value for crops.
And you need to not only create cities but also combine their strengths through exchange, all while others do the same.

And the "Goals" come from me and my own expectations:

"Do i want the much better island over there that my opponent picked earlier, because i decided to pick this one?
He has wheat there, that i could need to boost the production of that island i picked over there.
But theres pirates in the way, so would need to deal with them.
Or i settle on this island, produce cannons and create more ships to protect my transports around the pirate nest."

See thats plenty of decisions and each decision is the substitute of a goal i created for myself.
I want to boost the production of an island, so i need the island of an opponent.
I cant deal with the opponent via warfare, so i need to build relationship and trade what i need, until i can.
I also need to deal with the pirates, i need more firepower, i need to settle on a new island and create more units.

One step after another, one goal after another.

In Bulwark, thats missing.
You seem to have the world, but its "empty".
The lack of resources on one way makes it clean and straight forward, on the other way also boring to produce stone, wood and iron and not fish and vegetables, then process fish and vegetables into fish soup.

Theres no harvesting of wood and then processing it into furniture.
The appeal to explore and make decisions, is something Anno does well and Bulwark should have been inspired by it.

The appeal of exploration in a game like Anno comes from the fact, that there are different islands with different conditions.

You find an island and then you tell yourself, to keep on sailing to find the next one, as it might be a better island with a better resource combination.
And you find that island and then you push further OR you dont, because you fear your opponent picks this one.
This makes exploring so fun.


Bulwark scratches close to just be a visual tool.
Less a game, more a sandbox visual city sculptor.

Thats fine for many, many seem to like these cozy games and for those, get Bulwark.
Bulwark is the evolution of cozy building.
Its the middle ground between "i just want to create" and "i want to experience".

It just isnt enough gameplay for people like me, who expect consequences, expect decisions and choice, expect reaction from the world towards my actions, expect more things to take care of.

It misses like 10% more gameplay to heave it from a cozy to a casual city builder.


Personally i would like to see unique islands compositions, randomly assigned to the islands of the world when starting a new game.
Each unique island would have a unique resource or effect, that i could control, trade, exchange and use.
Like lets say an Island of Artillery Engineers, that i need to supply with iron to get a buff on my ships.
Maybe islands with unique resources like Fruits, to boost my workforce.

And i would wish for factions to be more like me, expanding, preparing, claiming, exploring, defending what they have, when our conquest endeavors meet in the middle.


But then again, the game might be too limited to allow for something like this and maybe you would say "then go play Anno", and maybe you would be right and i should.



Hence me recommending the game to a certain audience.
Beware, its not much (complex/deep) game, but if thats exactly what you look for, go for it, because what game is there, is great.

If stuff like Townscaper or Islanders is exactly yours, but you wanted a bit more out of it, this is your jam.


If you think that this will scratch your Anno-vibes and please you as a city builder management trade politician, DONT.
It has the basics for that, but doesnt go anywhere with it.
Go and play something else, like Farthest Frontier or the like.

The Developer is dope. If you have feedback and wishes, get to voice them and hes open to discuss and listen.
That alone can warrant a purchase for many.

Absolutely boring, badly aged, not good sounding shooter.

Fun and def. recommended, but also very overloaded.
The planting etc has so many sectors and each seems to have conditions and also provides climate conditions and then everything you want to plant also has conditions for the zone, but i cant really see well what has what.

Like lets say, i wanted to place a bee hive area. The game says all my climate zones are too cold.
Ok, but where do i see how cold each is?
The game then spams animals and stuff at you and each comes with its very own conditions and i apparently have to not only look into each sector to support plants of different types (so i have sectorswith different plant types), but also seem to have to meet plants with animals and bacteria.
Its just too complicated because its not well visible. To me it is hard to figure out what sector has which climate currently or when that climate is changing.

Im merely spamming buildings that increase atmosphere and Oxygen etc, but i dont really see or understand when i reach a new level or what my goal with that is.
It seesm to emulate what Terraforming Mars does, but TM had clear scales that showed what i have to reach (like 20 Water) and where im currently at.

Terraformers is a fun game, i like the city puzzling etc, its very solid.
But information flow isnt too good and should be improved.