Recent reviews by devyn

There's something just so authentic feeling about the retrocomputing theme in this game - I started playing Solitaire while waiting for a game to "download" and ended up just playing that for a decent chunk of time. The game in general is a collection of smaller games that are pretty clearly Zachtronics games, so you kind of know what to expect (although there are some curveballs!) but if you like that and also want something that feels like an immersive retrocomputing simulator, I think you'll enjoy this. The pixel art is gorgeous by the way, but probably a little bit too good to be period accurate :)

It has really intriguing puzzle elements that go beyond Factorio, but it's a lot more chill without any time pressure. I really love how modular it is - instead of just totally freeform blueprints on a single grid, there's basically two levels, with the platforms and space belts being another layer of composition, so you can build really self-contained modules that do specific things which feels great

From the pictures you'd think this was just another Pokemon ripoff, but it's actually really just a very solid and well-executed multiplayer survival crafting game with creature collecting that uses a Pokemon-like aesthetic.

There's clearly a lot of inspiration from many, many other games, and it all comes together pretty well. The game's systems are really quite intuitive, and there's a lot that feels nostalgic about it all too that reminds me of MMORPG games of the 2000's.

There is a reason why this game has become extremely popular so quickly. I think if it were just a Pokemon-like game there's no way it would have this much success. It's well-designed, fun, and feels like something created by someone who has more interest in learning from popular games from the past than trying to experiment with something entirely new, and I can appreciate that.

I know this game is getting review bombed because of the poor performance on launch, but honestly this is a legitimate improvement over the original game, even if it doesn't have all of the features. I am having so much fun with it. I've been able to be really creative with the design of my city while at the same time I've had a consistent challenge keeping up with demand as the city grows.

It is interesting to see how the economic factors play into each other, and for a while my population growth slowed dramatically as I neglected to satisfy the massive amount of commercial and industrial demand that had built up - industrial tenants were complaining about high rent, and unemployment grew. This is definitely much more challenging than the first game, but it also never really feels like the game pressures you into having to deal with the problems immediately - nothing catastrophically collapses, you just won't be able to expand until you deal with that.

I'll also say that this just isn't a game that *needs* high frame rates, and so by turning off some of the more GPU hungry options but still leaving detail and texture options on high, I've been able to get a fairly playable experience. Yes, it will be better as they improve performance, and I really question the default settings they chose... but it's still fun.

Overall, if you liked Cities: Skylines, or you like other kinds of massive scale system simulation games, I think you'll probably enjoy this.

I've never played a FromSoftware game before and this is incredible

Lots of fun if you like exploration games. Running pretty well for me at 4K on 980 Ti. A little bit of minor stuttering.