Recent reviews by Qeyleb

SO good. I've liked every game by Tom Francis so far, and I'm really glad to see this one turn out as amazing as it did. It's like a cross between XCOM and Into the Breach, with an interesting setting and funny storytelling. It's very forgiving, almost too easy if you just go for the primary objectives, because you can predict what the enemies will do at the end of the turn AND it lets you rewind every move that round. But there's plenty of bonus objectives that are optional which give it plenty of replay value. I think it's clever how it's able to tie in this rewind ability to the magic system of the world/story.

It's turn-based, on a grid, 'isometric' but freely rotatable camera. Most of the time you're breaching a room (kind of like XCOM Chimera Squad) and trying to figure out the best way to clear out enemies in as few rounds as possible. As you unlock new or expanded abilities, you discover more ways to have the actions of a character combo with the actions of others. A lot of things involve knockback, and it's a lot of fun to try to maximize the number of enemies knocked out of windows.

The worldbuilding is very interesting -- what would the world look like, particularly law enforcement and military actions, when magic is somewhat commonplace? The story is clever and the dialog is hilarious. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the twists, and I genuinely care about what happens to the characters, even the snarkiest ones. I find myself putting off the last mission because I don't want it to be over.

Little developer known for silly top-down games somehow pulled off an amazing co-op third-person shooter that outdoes triple-A official Aliens and Starship Troopers games. I am amazed. I haven't had this much fun since Halo, or this much fun with airstrikes since Mercenaries.

There is NOTHING quite like the joy of successfully drop-pod-ing onto a scary giant bug that's charging your teammates.

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I love this game. It's pleasant and clever, the soundtrack is catchy, and the characters are memorable and unique. It's also fairly short but very replayable. I played the demo 10+ times.

The gameplay is deceptively simple and surprisingly easy to pick up -- I'm not great at the usual deck-builder games, but this one I find myself doing well enough to try Hard and Harder difficulties. You play cards to move, shoot, apply statuses etc. and you know what the enemy will do next turn. Movement is one-dimensional left/right, and movement happens between 'columns' that also contain weapon fire, if that makes sense... for example, you see they're shooting down the left-center column, maybe you can move a space to the right to sidestep it. Or maybe you raise your shields, or maybe you stun them, or maybe you take the hit and fire weapons, or perhaps you just don't have any useful cards this turn.

Each character has different cards and a different style. For examples, one focuses on shields, while another is about movement and card drawing, yet another favors shooting and power transfer. The characters have great personalities, chatting back and forth during the fight and remarking on things that happen. There are other characters to unlock. Each enemy you defeat gives you some cards to choose from to add to your deck, belonging to a specific character. Later you get some artifacts that upgrade your ship and have some cool synergies with the cards (such as: every 3 'blue' cards gain a shield).

It's totally worth $20! I've certainly already gotten my money's worth.

Never thought I'd see the day. Never expected it to live up to any expectations. But yes, it's what I wanted. It's not GROUNDBREAKING, but that's ok! It's PLEASANT. We get another chance to go to that world again and play in a familiar way... there's a few tweaks, a few changes, but it feels familiar and pleasant, and that's wonderful.

My only minor complaint is that Earl Boen couldn't play LeChuck again, but eh, he's 81, I don't blame him. Everybody else is voiced well, both familiar and new characters. So far I love how they've treated the story, both acknowledging and hand-waving the previous games.

Haven't finished it yet. I'm purposefully 'rationing' the game so I don't blow through it in a week.

I backed the Kickstarter (in advance at PAX!), but was only cautiously optimistic. This is everything I hoped for. They pulled it off -- they invoked the spirit of the tabletop game without holding too tightly to the rules and statistics, and managed to make it fun again. To me it feels like a good middle ground. It's not perfect, but now with official modding support the door is wide open for me to make my own balance tweaks.

And to think, the mercenary campaign (and even voice acting) was all stretch goals -- the original plan was just a simple skirmish game! The intro is beautiful. The campaign is excellent, both in story and feel. Much like XCOM, there's a struggle to stay afloat at first, holding on against the odds, making decisions about what to spend money on and hoping you don't get into trouble. My only minor complaint is that I had expected to need to keep track of ammo expenditure in the budget, but in this game 'ammo' is just a 'component'... wonder if that can be modded too? (sounds difficult)

I'm currently putting off the next story mission in favor of collecting all the mech variants I can salvage. Gotta catch 'em all.

I saw this game at PAX two years before it came out, back when it was called Enemy Starfighter. He had an Oculus Rift developer kit and a much shorter line than the Oculus booth, so I said why not? I was BLOWN AWAY. The combination of the sound, music, art style, even the font, felt like a hybrid of all my favorite space sims from my childhood. The presentation inside the Rift really enhanced the experience -- I could turn around and see the back of my cockpit chair; look to the side and there's a screen showing objectives; look up and there's a couple wingmen in formation...

I liked it so much I stood in line again (which was rapidly growing) to try it again, and even got to talk to the developer while waiting. Very cool guy; big ideas and yet very approachable.

Well, I finally have both the game and a way to play it in VR. The sound is still incredible, especially the music (now available as a free download!). The sound effects have a nice oomph, the cockpit noises are immersive (including oxygen mask breathing noise), and the radio chatter is cool. The missions are disappointingly short but still fun and replayable. I keep hoping he'll add a mode or expansion like his original idea for a dynamic campaign, though I know it's not easy to do.

I was pleasantly surprised by Vessel. Here is a platformer puzzle game with a unique mechanic and an interesting concept, but also balanced enough that it isn't too hard for the likes of me (see: Braid). I first tried it at PAX, and was very glad to see it in the Humble Indie Bundle #6.

You have a backpack/nozzle device that fires different types of liquid, and you have these unusual 'seeds' that make living 'Fluoros' out of liquid. The type of seed determines what the Fluoro wants to do -- push buttons, seek light, attack things, etc. Using combinations of these seeds and liquids, you navigate levels full of buttons and levers and such. As you progress, you acquire new devices and can even upgrade your existing ones. It's also cleverly both linear and non-linear -- you can often skip a puzzle and come back to it later, and you don't need to solve ALL the puzzles (but if you do there's bonus rewards that you can spend on upgrades).

This game has a fun steampunk style, smooth animations, beautiful music, and lots of polish. Even tiny touches like the sloshing sound of your backpack when you jump. Everything meshed together well. I liked it enough to get ALL the achievements. It wasn't TOO short, but I wish it could be a little longer!

This game feels familiar... it feels like Portal! Kim Swift was lead designer, and it shows. Sure, it doesn't have the writing of Portal... but that bar is so high.

They really poured a lot of love into this game. Little things aren't necessary to the gameplay but enhance the setting and put a smile on my face. Paintings change according to the dimension -- go Fluffy and everything is pink and soft, maybe wearing a bunny suit... go Heavy and everyone wears leather and spikes. Quite silly! It's also fun to hear John de Lancie's voice.

The whole game has a 'relaxed' feel... I've been pacing myself, playing a level or two a day, and it feels right. Puzzles are straightforward so far; kind of a slow start, but this makes it accessible to people who haven't played Portal. It's inexpensive, very family-friendly, and is the sort of thing I'd be glad to recommend to everyone from my 8-year-old cousins to my 30 year old friends. There aren't many games out there that can boast that!

This is a game of a style (had I the time and the talent) I have always wanted to make. It's a very pleasant combination of genres. The closest game I can think of that would be similar is Starscape.

Shoot asteroids for resources, kill ships for xp and crew. Defeat a new type of ship and you get their blueprint. Get enough of that blueprint and you can build that ship. Blast your way through blockades, or trade and bribe your way past.

The loadout interface is surprisingly easy. It's fun experimenting with different components and weapons on different hardpoints of different hulls. Do I add a way stronger blaster and hope I don't run out of reactor power in the middle of a fight? Do I prefer speed or maneuverability? Cloak or shields? Bombs, drones, torpedoes or missiles? Tracking turrets or forward-facing sheer oomph?

The middle-end of the game gets a bit grindy, but the collector/completionist in me still has plenty to do. The developers are cool and keep adding stuff!

I bought this the day it came out. From an actual store, at full price -- I was that excited about it.

You know Theme Hospital or ...well any of the Theme or Tycoon or similar games where you build a park/zoo/airport/factory/prison or whatever? Take that, add a huge helping of James Bond (and any movie from that whole spy era) spoof, a lot of humor and plenty of developer love.

You are building an underground evil lair, and you gotta make sure your minions have facilities to work, relax, train, rest, and research. Of course you also need jails and interrogation machines for when you capture spies, and an elaborate trap system so agents and civilians don't get in, and don't forget room for a doomsday weapon.

There are a few frustrating times when unfortunate timing results in the minion that was bringing an important item back from the helipad gets attacked by Jet Chan (lol!), and then others run to get the item to be slaughtered one by one. But most of the time it is so awesome.