I had waited until Starbound officially came out to look at it - after all, I'm not a big fan of early access products and to have to restart because progress gets erased, things like that. The wait for this Terraria-meets-space game has been a bit long, but the final product is interesting. I can't say that I enjoy it as much as I did Terraria - and it is no secret that I saw pretty much everything in Starbound through this comparison. Maybe if I had infinite time and patience, I would've given more hours to Starbound, but as it is, I think I'm done with it.
Reigns is one of these weird choose your own adventure type of game mixed with some kingdom management on iOS with a little of a rogue-like flair where you make decisions by swiping a card left or right, affecting your kingdom in four categories, with the immediate goal of not having any meter go too high or too low. There is an overarching story that expends as you find new cards and unlock more characters, and while I haven't got there, I presume that there is an ending to reach at some point. I had some good time with it, but ultimately grew bored.
Crucible Mode is the first DLC for Grim Dawn, a game I have enjoyed very much. A battle arena for this ARPG where you could - according to all documentation I've seen on it - start with a fresh level one character? That sounded like a good idea! That being said, I was sorely bummed by it, even if I gave it the time to try and see if there was any enjoyment to get out of it. Sadly, there wasn't much. Bad design decisions made the core concept fall flat for me.
Human Resource Machine is a great puzzler on iOS from the World of Goo and Little Inferno people. In theory, it's a game where you put commands in a box to take inputs and produce outputs defined by the game in order to solve puzzles. In practice, I find that it's more or less a game where you code in assembly language and while that might not be the cup of tea of everyone, I really enjoyed it!
I had barely played the original Metroid 2 on gameboy because, for some reason, the audio and graphics scared me when I was a kid, so this remake seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to see what's up with this game. While it's an interesting project, there are some choices that I didn't enjoy, and in general I can't say that I've been hooked by AM2R. Some stuff in it feel like it would never be in a 'real' metroid game, and some stuff was just plain too frustrating.
Unmatch is a puzzler on iOS where you need to move hexagons around so there are no matches between them. These matches occur when sides of the same colors are adjacent, so you swap them around until no hexagon is matched with any other. The game adds a few more mechanics over its long level list, but the core idea always remain the same. I've completed it - although not perfecting every level - and I really enjoyed it!
Even after about fifteen years in computer science, I'm not really sure what 'hacking' entails. Hollywood hacking is one thing, opening some file with an hex editor and changing values here and there is also a form of hacking, is Hacknet showing a form of hacking that exists? Are there port-scanning tools that you can run on remote IP addresses to break security and then get root access in remote computers? No matter, my curiosity aside, Hacknet is really neat, I'm not sure if it's 100% accurate, but it does use some unix shell commands, makes you do hacking missions with an interesting storyline and makes you feel really happy when you type that final command to finish a hack while looking at a timer counting down.
Gem Hunters is one of those games. It's a puzzle RPG where you need to match tiles in order to damage enemies, which after a few turns will attack you. This one brings the subtle twist on the genre that enemies have elemental weaknesses and resistances and that you get random gear that you can upgrade from chests. Inevitably, after a while you hit a wall where you can't defeat the enemy without paying some premium currency or grinding a whole bunch, needless to say, I wasn't impressed.
EDF 4.1 was released on PS3 a while back, but getting a smoothly running version with fast loading times made me quite happy. Playing it by myself on the PC isn't the best experience, but technically, it runs way better than any other versions. I was also pretty happy to see a 'real' EDF on PC after that last one they'd release that was strangely different. Is EDF a perfect game? Not at all, some of its issues turn into fun features and can be entertaining for the beginner, but the core of the game is a bit unbalanced and frustrating in parts, especially if you're playing alone.
The Firm is one of these very simple but tightly created game where the number of actions you're expected to do is very low, but the pressure builds up and you make mistakes and complexity ramps up progressively until you ultimately lose. I had a good deal of fun trying to unlock the various power-ups you could get, but getting the last one was a bit too much grinding, so I stopped. I'd still recommend it, tho! It's a neat timewaster. Sorry for the lack of screenshots, my work process ate them.
Super Chibi Knight is a zelda 2 inspired game, which is interesting, but the execution is kinda lacking. The game has its charm but I really didn't have fun playing it, so I think that I gave it a fair shake, but poor controls and weird difficulty made me just stop after only a few hours.
Space Marshall is a neat action RPG on iOS where you play a space cowboy that goes after various criminals using guns and explosives. It's not entirely perfect, but I had a good time with it, especially since the mix of twin stick controls and touch screens doesn't always work. I could see this game work on other platforms as well, but it doesn't detract from the experience; A nice shooter with unlockable gear and replayability - perhaps a bit too much.
Reign of Bullets is a great little shooter with customization and a good progression system. The game isn't completely without flaws, but I think that I've enjoyed it much more than many other things I've played recently, and the simplicity of its core gameplay added to the complexity that can stack upon it via its many systems create an experience that while a bit reminiscent of old flash game, is totally fun to play.
A Firelit Room is a graphical overhaul on A Dark Room, a game I've reviewed earlier, it improves a bit on the gameplay as well and makes it a bit more bearable. While it improves on some systems, I feel that it worsens the experience in other ways. I enjoyed the idle aspect a bit more, but world exploration and overall upgrades were even slower this time around; Worse, some of the new UI changes made the game even less playable.
I wrote a huge review and Chrome crashed as I hit save?! Thanks chrome.
Because of plenty of reasons, TCTD isn't a game I've enjoyed, don't buy it. These reasons include a boring story, boring gameplay, convoluted systems, too few interesting side activities, a huge world for no reason, forced multiplayer and forced online. That'll teach me not to save more often.
_PRISM is a really neat little puzzle game that reminded me of The Witness in some ways; you start in a puzzle 'zone' and do some easy puzzles to learn the rules and everything, then move on to more difficult ones, rotating giant things around, trying to get to their core. It ran kinda badly on my iPad 3, but that's starting to be the norm these days; Maybe I should upgrade at some point?
Looty Dungeon is a glorified Crossy Road where you move forward and try to complete quests to get coins in order to buy more characters and keep doing that forever. At least in this version, the different characters have different abilities, but the game doesn't control well, the progression curve isn't fun and I don't have much positive to add about it; Needless to say, I haven't played it much.
Overwatch is great, it's one of these Blizzard games that you can see yourself playing for a good while. First forays into the first person shooter genre from that company that I like so very much, Overwatch is the remains of a cancelled MMO project where you play a cast of colorful and various characters with different abilities and playstyles to shoot your way to victory in a handful of maps with predefined objectives. The characters are great and the gameplay loop is so polished that I didn't hesitate for a second to give this game a perfect score in my book.
Tree of Savior reminds me in many way of Ragnarok Online, some of the mechanics are updated from Korean MMOs of old, some of the control options are brought to today's standards - while still keeping some weirdness - but most systems feel a bit dated. Obtuse skill systems, stat systems that shouldn't be, grinding baked in my aspects of the game and some bugs impacted my experience, but overall I think this is a nice MMORPG that should satisfy anyone with a craving for these old-school experiences.
Maybe Doomsday Clicker is a neat game, but it ran like butts on my gen 3 iPad. It's a bit boring to review a game poorly because of performance, but if I'm allowed to buy it on my decide and if it's 'supported', it should at least run well. Doubly so for an idle game, moving the menus around shouldn't be a time-consuming effort, with each clicks taking a few seconds to register properly. It's kinda of a shame, because at the same time, some systems in DC were interesting.