Recent reviews by randomonkey

Love this series so much. The first one was good, this one was amazing.

The AI in this game is so infuriating I had more fun doing the time trials where they don't exist. They generally just get in the way, avoiding the driving line, but still manage to somehow keep up or overtake you. I knew I'd had enough when I was in a comfortable lead only to mysteriously lose to a toaster. The driving itself is ok, but the tracks are more punishing than fun; boosters infront of corners, barriers on the track that you're often forced into, or jumps that you have to be perfectly aligned with to land correctly.

Chill game, enjoying it.

TL;DR: For me it was too much puzzle, not enough clarity on goals until it's too late, and not chill enough.

It starts off pretty promising, but as it progresses and you move on to trying to achieve some of the challenges, it turns into almost clicking around an area incessantly to try and get a specific thing to trigger, and being forced to rip up some of your map for the recycling process. I've found myself rage quitting this game 3 or 4 times now, so figure it's easier to just uninstall than try to force my way through it.

I was hoping this game would be more along the lines of editing the landscape and introducing climate changes to encourage growth and wildlife to appear naturally, and while there's an element of that ("reach >30 celsius for dragonflies to appear"), the rest of it is trying to "find" animals in a specific area ("Must have 10 tiles of forest next to 10 tiles of beach") and finding that even though it looks like you have that, the game doesn't think you've done it, so you need to destroy some of your progress just to meet these arbitrary requirements.

I wasn't following the story within this game at all, but the puzzle aspect was really enjoyable. Despite completing it in 2 hours I didn't feel short-changed, probably because it was actually engaging and took some thinking.

I really wanted to like this game, but for something that looked so free and relaxing to play, it just ended up being frustrating.

I felt instead of being rewarded for smooth graceful flying, that the game was trying to go out of its way to punish mistakes instead, or make it difficult to do what you're meant to be doing at the core element. There were other times where it was confusing where I was meant to be going, or if I missed certain boosters / updrafts, then I just had to struggle through to get to the next checkpoint.

(Finally, minor comment, why make all the voicelines reversed? I felt that just left me annoyed with the storyline instead of engaging with it :/)

Really enjoyed playing this, such an innovative puzzle game that really challenged me, but I never felt cheated by any of the puzzles, they were all reasonable with a bit of thinking. My only complaint would be that the music was a little disconnected from the game. Hope there's a Part 2 or DLC on the way though, will pick it up for sure!

Thought I wouldn't like this and put off buying it for ages. Finally buy it and become addicted. Rock and stone!

This game is fun, and at several hours in I feel as though I'm getting my money's worth already, though looking forward to what future improvements will bring as the game evolves.
There's obviously several annoying things, but also cool things too. I think if you play this with the expectation of it being "Banished 2" then you're going to be disappointed, but that's not to say that fans of Banished won't find enjoyment here.

The point that turned this game fun for me was as my first city started dying:
Me: Hmm I need stone -> build stone mine -> requires logs -> chop down fruit trees -> no trees for fire or fruit -> people cold, starving and dying rapidly
Game: Your people are cold and dying and you have no food, do you want to adopt the policy of Cannibalism?

[Edit: Decided to put the game on a hold for a bit, just felt like there wasn't enough gameplay there to keep me hooked for long. Hoping to come back soon though because it had promise]

Really enjoyed this. Quite short at ~5 hours, but I felt it was worth it.