Recent reviews by rolldig

Thea: The Awakening is a 4X survival strategy roguelike with card based resolve mechanics and strong rpg elements, and also some choose your own adventure style events and quests that happen at random. Seriously. There's a lot going on. Here's a video review of Thea based on my first impressions, or see below if you prefer to read:

http://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=573240923

Do you like RPGs? 4X strategy? Survival games? Roguelikes? Good, because I don't know which one Thea: The Awakening is and I'm pretty sure it doesn't either. All I know is it was created by MuHa games, and features a Slavic mythology setting. The story goes that the world Thea was engulfed by by a mysterious force called The Darkness. In Thea: The Awakening, it is up to you to find a way to rebuild Thea, banish the Darkness and strengthen mankind. There are 3 basic modes of gameplay in Thea. The world map, choose your own adventure style events, and card challenges.

The world map is a familiar hex grid. From here, you can manage your village and also your expeditions, which are mobile groups of people sent out to explore the world. Although I called Thea a 4X game earlier, it would be more accurate to say it's a 3X game. There aren't any expansion options. You can't build new settlements, or even grow the size in tiles of your village. Although this is missing, it is for good reason. Different tiles have different resources in them, and your units can only gather resources from the tiles in and adjacent to the village, or camp in the case of an expedition. As the village is fixed in size and can't move, expeditions are the primary means of gathering important resources. This is good because it rewards you for venturing beyond thre settlement's walls. The downside is that there isn't a lot to do each turn. Gathering, building, and crafting can all be automated, so I sometimes found myself burning away the turns waiting for something to do. It is possible to create multiple expeditions and have them do different things, but that requires manpower, which is a little rare in the early game. It is an apocalyptic world, after all.

Both the village and expeditions require food and fuel, and can be attacked by enemies. This means there is a bit of a balancing act between keeping people in the village and sending them out on expeditions. The random attacks also mean it's safer to create one big expedition than many small ones. Although this should lead to a situation where the reward is proportional to the risk involved, it doesn't really. High level crafting materials are more important than low level ones, and sources for these are often near high difficulty mobs which require more people to handle. For example, dragon bones will probably be near dragons. Sending people out to gather lots of low level materials isn't very beneficial, and there is no looming threat that requires you to grow as fast as possible. Enemy civilizations don't seem to exist, so you can take your time to grow. That said, I don't think Thea is too easy. Even on normal mode I had to deal with some character death, and there are many difficulty options available beyond that.

Although Thea: The Awakening lacks some aspects typical of 4X games, it replaces them with new features. For example, choose your own adventure style events are a common occurrence in this game. These range in complexity, with some events leading to ongoing quests, and others being simple attacks by enemies. There seems to be a good variety of events, and you often have multiple ways to deal with the problems you face. For example, even when dealing with random mobs, I got options to sneak attack them and poison them, in addition to a straight up fight. It's beneficial to take these options, too. Fighting can result in wounds, reducing a character's health and increasing the chance they die. As there are so few characters, it is important to preserve them. There is no chance of injury when choosing any of the alternatives to fighting. The rewards may also vary depending on the chosen option. One time, a group of orcs had kidnapped a few children, and I was sent to rescue them by a demon. Surprising none, It turned out that the demon was the one planning to harm the kids and the orcs were protecting them. I could have just killed the orcs and taken the kids, but instead I used the power of my words and won a speech challenge. They handed over the children, who would one day grow into new characters, and even gave me some rare materials with demon warding properties.

Most of these events, like the orc example from earlier, are resolved through card challenges. The same card game is used for all challenge types, but different stats are used for each one. For example, weapon damage is what affects a character's offense in fighting challenges, but speech skill is what affects offense in social challenges. During the setup phase, the card minigame splits your character cards into two hands: offense and tactical. The offense cards are placed directly on the board, and can attack the enemy. The tactical hand uses a variety of abilities to provide support. For example, a character with medicine skill in a cure sickness challenge can provide a defense boost to an ally on the board. You can use the tactical hand to cause the opponent to discard cards from their hand, give your units first strike, increase their offense and defense values, confuse enemies, and even place the tactical card itself on the board. However after the initial setup phase, just 2 rounds of belligerence play out. Cards brought onto the board from the tactical hand are confused for the first round and can't attack until the second. After the second round is complete, the setup phase begins again. This goes on until either team loses.

Thea's card minigame is a very interesting way of making different skills as enjoyable and involving as combat. Due to the high level of abstraction, the same resolve mechanics are used across the board. This leads to a slight lack of variety, but only just. The varied skills of each character in the group are enough to differentiate the overall feel of the challenge types. More importantly, the character attributes are tied into the resolve mechanics in a meaningful way, and have a strong impact on the gameplay. For example, crafters might not be of use on the front line of fights, but they can be powerful in the tactical hand. My only problem is that sometimes the challenges take a long time because of the slow animations and repetition of the setup phase. Thankfully, there is an auto-resolve option to quickly deal with very weak foes.

In addition to the gameplay modes I spoke of earlier, Thea: The Awakening is advertised for its crafting mechanics. I'm not a huge fan of crafting in most games. I avoid it whenever possible, but in Thea it's a core part of the gameplay. To my surprise, I found the crafting system quite enjoyable. The way it works is that each recipe gives you the option of using different materials as substitutes, so if you don't have thread, for example, you can still make a shirt with leather. The higher the quality of the materials you use, the better the bonuses you get. Shields made of regular wood work just fine, but shields made of elven wood give a dexterity bonus. You unlock recipes through research, and you gain research points the same way you earn experience; by exploring the world and by defeating enemies. The crafting system also applies to construction, except buildings require more resources and provide different types of bonuses.

Going back to the story and setting, it feels a little generic. Although Thea claims to be based on Slavic mythology, it's more like they took the pantheon and some of the demons and threw them into a typical medieval fantasy setting. You've got the standard orcs, dwarfs, elves, and wizards running around, and the rare Baba Yaga seems more like a novelty than a c

I liked the initial idea of Rogue Harvest: a survival game with permadeath seems like a fantastic combination, but I was disappointed by what the game has to offer. Here's a video of the gameplay if you prefer, which also demonstrates some of the issues I had with the game:

http://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=571666965

The UI/UX is very poor. The quick item slots are the only way to use items. They can't be used directly from the inventory. There are no hotkeys to access commonly used menus like inventory and crafting. For some reason there are only 5 quick item slots, even though they are activated by pressing a number on the keyboard. There should be at least 10.

The moment-to-moment gameplay is weak. It reminds me of Starbound in that regard, except it doesn't have the same level of depth and complexity to make up for it. The overall level of difficulty is far too low in Rogue Harvest. It doesn't feel like a struggle to live, so much as a romp through a fantasy adventure. I was expecting to die within the first 5-10 minutes. I was expecting to be slaughtered by the skeletons at night time. Instead, I was able to kill them without issue. The survival aspect is totally lacking.

The fullscreen option just stretches out the graphics to fill the screen. It doesn't preserve the aspect ratio of the sprites.

Rogue Harvest is in development right now, but I really think that the core gameplay needs improvement, and I don't know how likely that is to happen.

Hard West is a western themed story based tactical RPG, which combat reminiscent of XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012). Scroll down for my impressions on the game, or you can watch the video if you prefer:

http://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=568367661

The tactical layer of Hard West has a unique setup phase which involves sneaking around and sometimes subduing foes to prevent them from raising alarm for a few turns. I thought it was a fun and thematic addition to the gameplay.

Combat in Hard West feels similar to XCOM: Enemy Unknown because of the cover system, but it works a bit differently. Cover both reduces the accuracy of incoming shots, and decreases damage taken. Hard West also has a unique character attribute called Luck which reduces a character's chance to get hit, but each time an enemy misses them, they lose some Luck. Each time they are hit, their Luck replenishes. These two things combined result in a game where units in full cover are incredibly time-consuming to kill. Flanking is too dominant a strategy, which leads to invariant gameplay that quickly gets old.

Hard West's character system has a cool poker theme to it. Each character has card slots, and each card has a passive bonus, plus a unique passive or active ability. Creating poker hands in these card slots gives the character a unique special bonus. For example, four of a kind grants a bonus to aim. I like the system, but didn't find much use for the active abilities.

The game also has an overworld map which allows you to travel between areas. Each location gives a small dialogue popup with a few options. Sometimes these are basic things like trading at a store, or asking for information, but on occasion you get to make choices with meaningful gameplay consequences.

The narrative of Hard West is told through cutscenes, text, and a voiced narrator. The main story line is about exacting brutal revenge, which is perfect fit for a western setting. I think the plot is structured well, but the characters are weak. There's not much that demonstrates each character's personality. That being said, Hard West absolutely nails the setting. The themed game mechanics, the sounds, and the visuals all come together to make the game feel like something special. The religious horror aspects are interesting too, although the actual demons were introduced a little abruptly.

Overall, Hard West is a very polished game that has some unique ideas and a stellar atmosphere, but I found the combat lacking in the variation and depth that I had hoped for.

I want to mention that it was hard choosing not to recommend it. I am very much in the "maybe" file when it comes to this games, as it does some things very well, and others not so well.

The core gameplay of Voidspire Tactics can be separated into the class system/character specialization, the combat gameplay, and the noncombat gameplay. There are also additional features like dialogue and inventory management, but they play more of a support role. This review of Voidspire Tactics focuses on the three main categories of gameplay mentioned earlier.

Scroll down to read the review, or watch the video review if you prefer:

http://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=563450552

Class System:

The class system in Voidspire Tactics is relatively friendly to new players, but has a certain amount of depth and complexity to it as well, which becomes apparent over time. The ability to switch classes at any time can also lead to some interesting situations.

Combat Gameplay:

The combat in Voidspire Tactics is great. The level design combines, the usefulness of the active abilities and spells , and the high overall level of interactivity combine together to produce a variety of interesting situation and a plethora of possible tactics to apply.

Noncombat Gameplay:

The noncombat gameplay in Voidspire Tactics takes the form of environmental puzzles, which often have multiple solutions, based on your character's abilities. This is similar to Divinity: Original Sin, a game I adore, so I'm very happy with Voidspire Tactics as well. As a person who's not great at the traditional adventure game style puzzle solving where there's only one way to go about doing things, I love the noncombat gameplay in Voidspire.

Story:

Although this game features a dialogue system, a unique setting, and a story, I just don't find it very interesting. Coming from a crpg background, I'm used to more interactivity in the dialogue (I like it better when even the dialogue trees become a form of gameplay). What's more, the writing isn't compelling enough to make me care.

Other:

There are some minor usability issues. In particular the movement controls are very strange, as you have to hold down the mouse button to walk instead of just clicking on a destination. Voidspire Tactics does have pathfinding, as shown during combat, so it seems unusual. The graphics are also low fidelity pixel art, which may be a problem for some people.

Overall:

Voidspire Tactics is a gem of a game. As a fan of tactical RPGs/SRPGs, I'm very happy with it. Not only is the combat excellent, but even the noncombat gameplay of Voidspire Tactics is fantastic. The story and graphics aren't great, but the the dialogue lines are short and to the point, and I don't mind the pixel art at all.

The Age of Decadence is a mechanically deep game, with a lot of interesting gameplay, but it's also very hard and not very accessible to new players.

http://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=535464193

The frequent usage of skill checks makes the noncombat gameplay more interesting and viable than in most CRPGs, but there are some situations where you simply hit up against a wall and need to save and reload until you discover what the optimal or allowable route is.

Combat in Age of Decadence is quite challenging, and this may turn some people away from the game, since even though the player doesn't always resort to combat as a resolution, a lot of the NPCs do. I found the combat to be quite fun, and a step up from other single character turn based combat games, because of the different weapon types and attack type you could use. Yet it was not as good as most party based games because of the lack of variety in the tactics you can use during battles in Age of Decadence.

The Age of Decadence is very hard, and much like classic crpgs, I had to start over after realizing my character build wouldn't cut it. Luckily this was a fun and painless experience because characters with different skills and attributes really do seem to play differently in Age of Decadence. Plus, the game is designed so that a lot of tedious things like walking to and fro can be skipped entirely through liberal use of fast travel, which I appreciated immensely when I played it.