Recent reviews by thyreckoner

This is probably the most unique incremental game I've ever played. At the end of the day, it is a "number go up" simulator. But it has so much more gameplay than any other game of its kind. There is something vaguely sinister about it as well. It is so bright and cute and happy, and then the eyes... the eyes are just staring at you.

The game tutorials are basically perfect. They never say too much, just enough to figure things out on your own. There are a few powerups in the game that basically make no sense at first, like "why does it matter if the hole moves?" Trial and error ends up being how you figure out most of the complex systems of the game.

Overall, it is a GREAT way to kill some time. I fully expect to see this at Overwhelmingly Positive fairly soon.

I don't know how this game has so many positive reviews. Everyone recommending this as a Roguelite, but it absolutely isn't. This game is one of those escape room mystery games. After playing a few run throughs with zero progression, I got bored and I am refunding it.

Maybe this game gets better. But I'm not willing to keep being bored passed the steam refund window to find out.

Wow. What a great free game. Easily worth at least a price tag of like 5-7 dollars.

Played for about 2 hours. Won my first run, lost my second.

Pros
+Lots of fun
+very creative
+Tons of strategies to explore and modifiers to learn
+Music is good
+You can retry levels if you happen to mess up your maze.

Cons
-No way to support this dev. Seriously. Add a 2 dollar supporter pack to this or something.
-Graphics are super minimal. The maze is fun to look at, but the enemies have nothing going on.

Amazing game for free. Solid game for like 10 dollars.

Just download it (if it is still free.)

Ale Abbey is a great simulation game with a strong gameplay loop and satisfying progression system. There are some rough spots still in the game design, but overall the game is already fun even if it needs a little more intuitive design.

Pros

The music is a lovely old style, it really captures that monastery feeling without being too bold to be off putting.

The recipe system is extremely dynamic! You can stick with genre perfect beers, or you can make a Fruited Hefe, or a Coffee Lager. Creating new recipes with distinct differences is rewarding because of the Unique Trait system which provides bonus' for unusual combinations. Once I made a honey herbal ale, and it gained the trait of Bribery which made it more cost effective to bribe the local thugs with.

The art style is cute and just works. Not much more to say. The game is plenty pleasing to look at.

This game also educates you in beer, what makes a Old Ale different from an Amber Ale? There is a lot to learn, and of course it isn't 100% true to life. But as someone who works in the beer industry it is plenty impressive how much knowledge can be gleaned from this game.

Cons

There are some systems which need to be added to make this game play better. Currently if you want to remodel your monastery, you have to remove ALL furniture from a room, which means you have to sell it for a low price, demolish that room AND repeat for any rooms built out from this room either on top or going across. This means if you make one mistake in the early game, you cannot fix that until you have basically beaten the game and have an excess of money because of how prohibitive that is.
I'd suggest that instead of Demolish a room, it should be "Make Room Blank." If there was a Blank Room type, which allowed any kind of furniture so you don't have to sell it and buy it back later, I think that would mostly fix this issue. And then you can change the Blank room into any other type of room you'd like.

Some of the brewing mechanics are not intuitive at all. Aging ale can only happen if a brew has 5 or more strength, but the game never tells you that. It does ask you to age an ale, but it never mentions how to do this (I had to ask on discord how this works.) Additionally the transition from 100 liter brewing to 300 liter brewing is bumpy to say the least. Once you upgrade your Abbey to level 2, you are flooded with requests for 110+ liters of beer, at first you may think you can brew 2 batches of beer and combine them to meet the request, but you cannot. You have to brew at least the amount the request is for, which requires you to upgrade to 300 liter brewing capacity. You can research a Brewing Stove upgrade, and the game currently lets you upgrade your Brewing Stove, which sounds great at first. But if you didn't research and upgrade your Fermentation Barrel as well so that it can HOLD 300 liters of beer, you just wasted money. In my situation this resulted in a game over, since the new stove cooks slower than the old one and I wasted nearly all my money on this one upgrade without knowing I needed to upgrade both.

There are currently a few game breaking bugs in the game. I was able to go 9 hours without encountering one, but this is Early Access. If you buy it right now, you have to expect this sort of thing.

Overall the game is WELL worth putting on your radar, or just purchasing now. The dev team is active on their discord and is constantly working with players to fix issues, and help with problems understanding the game. I firmly believe this game is going to be a hit once completed.

This game has so many possible ways to play, yet when you start it seems very straightforward. It is deceptively complex and takes many hours to actually get good.

I have a lot of games on Steam that I am too busy to play. Now for the price of just one game, I added 50 games I don't play to my library!

Mortol 1 is better than Mortol 2.

I really can't recommend this game. It is frustratingly easy and hard at the same time. Easy because if you cheese the mechanics of the game (which the game is absolutely encouraging you to do) it becomes a snore-fest of copying, breaking apart, attacking, get spells, repeat. Its hard because it is nearly impossible if you don't use these boring and broken mechanics.

The idea of the game is alright. Use math to overcome your enemies, adding units together, splitting them into two halves, multiplying them by themselves. Such and such. Different units have powers, There is a squirrel that when it dies give you a spell, there is a unit that can be broken down to its individual digits, units that can multiply themselves by 2, such and such.

My problem with this game lies in these units. Each time you multiply the units with powers with other units, they get to keep their powers. So if you multiply the Squirrel with the one that can break itself into pieces, you end up with a unit that can break itself up into different pieces that all give a spell.

With nothing but at least one split or clone and, and either a multiplier or an addition spell. You have an infinite combo that breaks the game. You get that Digit breaking squirrel dude to 3 digits, you copy it, you multiply the clone with the original (now each unit gives 2 spells on death) you break it apart to usually 4-5 units by now, so 10 spells. In those 10 spells the likelihood that you aren't gonna get a split or a clone is super narrow. But if you don't, you just take the last one and you multiply him or add as many as you can, because he can STILL break into more digits (and that works for each time you multiply the same power into itself.)

With this combo, I finish the last difficulty in one try. After spending so long trying to actually play this game and running into wall after wall because I didn't pick the right tools for the job, it is very frustrating to have no threats left in the game.

Cute idea for a game, but overall I think it is just a letdown at the end.

I'm iced in today. Not snow, 2 inches of ice on the roads. I have been going out of my mind with cabin fever. The amount of time I have been sitting here at my computer playing video games has been daunting. I am bored with all my usual haunts so I went looking for something new.

I came across Cross Blitz from a Let's Play video, I loved its style and music. The gameplay seemed simple but evolved as you themed your deck. For a rouge-lite fan, it has enough variety to really hit the spot. Each run taking about 45 minutes, with different levels that have different themed enemies, and even a hard mode unlocked each time you beat a level. Then I realized there was a story mode too.

There is an absolute ton of content here. Easily this game may eat up your hours. And considering that is what I was looking for, I am rather happy with the purchase.

I have seem some glitches, minor errors and such. Nothing I am too hung up on, but little things. Like when you edit your deck and get back to the main menu, there is a moment of stuttering which is annoying. I found that sometimes my minions with Lifesteal would only sometimes give me health when they attacked, and sometimes a minions core ability would also steal health (if it did damage) but other times it did not.

Really, most of this game's polish needs to be applied to its UI and its explanations. Trap cards have no indication of what kind of card they are (at least that I saw) and certain cards would summon another card but wouldn't show me what that other summoned card did, even tho most of the time there is a way to see the summoned card that usually works.

All the bones of a great game are here. Just needs some polish. Honestly it is well worth your time now. Easily worth the 20 dollars. But this is absolutely one to watch if you don't want to invest right now.

This game is fun at max for the first 10-15 hours where it feels like you are accomplishing something. However after that time period has elapsed you realize that you have gotten absolutely no where. The entire game just feels the same. All the zones, even with their different environments, have almost the exact same enemies. There is just no creativity at all passed the first bit of the game.

The grind is endless. Over 100 hours and I'm not max level yet. It becomes not fun sometime around level 30. You get nothing every time you level up. 4 points that do nothing. You don't learn any more skills. You don't get more powerful. Just four random stat bonus point doodads. There is nothing that encourages you to keep going.

I bought this game because a friend of mine was playing it and wanted me to join his company. The only thing that has kept me going is the social interactions. That is it. This game is just plain boring and not worth your time.

In the current state of the game I would not recommend purchasing it. However the game is fun to an extent.

I feel like the dev missed out on like 4 mechanics that this game could and should include. How the game currently works is you have a 5x5 grid of a typical slot machine with various symbols on the grid. You start with 5 until you get to the harder levels where you might start with a negative symbol. These symbols interact with each other in various ways, some symbols being enhanced by others (like the Wolf and the Moon) but most symbols destroy other symbols (like the Cat with Milk.)

Every time a round ends you pay the rent which goes up higher and gets harder to pay as you progress. Every time you pay the rent you get an item which also enhances your symbols in various ways. That is basically it.

While the beginning gameplay is fun, the harder levels begin to feel more and more frustrating as you are required to obtain a steller combo earlier and earlier in order to survive, and due to the nature of the game combos are totally random and take a lot of in game time to set up.

I think the game would be a lot more fun without these weird "rent due" timelines and more use of the slot machine mechanics. It is like the dev forgot that slot machines sometimes start as a single line of 3, and then you expand your play by paying for more lines.

I think the game SHOULD start as a 3x1 slot machine that you upgrade in a shop sort of thing, every time you play the slot it takes more coins which can be reset by "paying the rent." But you also want to buy more symbols and items to keep your luck running. Similar to current game, paying the rent would increase in price but not be absolutely required at a certain point allowing the player risk/reward gameplay. Not paying the rent and opting to risk buying a new symbol or item.

Also, you should ABSOLUTELY have more choices than just 3 symbols and items. Trying to beat this game is like trying to predict the future with 1,000 outcomes. The RNG is horrible.

If this was a casino slot machine, it would do its job; you would lose your money. But as a game meant to be beat, it becomes unfun when you get to a point where you absolutely have to have built a full combo by the 3rd rent pay or you just lose.

Again. This review is for early access content and is subject to change. But I'd hold off right now because the core idea is a fun one, the gameplay just needs a lot of work.