Recent reviews by AssidiousBlue

There are some games that are Genre defining. Think Slay the Spire for roguelike dekbuilders, Final Fantasy for JRPG, Outer Wilds for Narrative First Person Exporation, Minecraft for sandbox survival.

Factorio is the defining game of the Automation Genre.

Stuck on a hostile planet, with only the ability to carry a limited number of infinitely heavy items and craft a few palty smelters, build your way up to launching to space. Create sprawling industrial hubs, comprehensive train networks, build a swarm of construction and logistic supply robots, use layered defensive barriers against the hostile natives, and learn the truth: "The factory must grow".

And when you've done that, buy the DLC. And do it all again, on a number of new worlds, until you can leave the solar system behind completely. New item interactions, new environmental challenges, new resources. It is a whole extra game.

The game is a labor of love. It is optimised to the hilt, and having millions of interacting tiles barely makes it sweat. The graphics are stylised, and although consist of pre-rendered sprites are cohesive, detailed, and informative. The trains use OpenTTD signalling, schedulingm and are almost a minigame in themselves. The Real Time Strategy / horde defense componments are well thought out, and serve to drive tension but not the focus of the game. The gameplay loop is solid; Build -> Create -> Research -> Expand.

Customised settings, Mod support, Blueprint Sharing, an active speedrunning scene and passionate community mean this game keeps on giving to almost any audience.

Download at your peril, many have 1000+ hours for a reason.

A quick, punchy incremental that will take an afternoon.
Slows down after prestige 15 or so, but up to that point has good progression, various paths to choose to power, and enough layers to keep you going to the end.

Worth the cost; Nice little anti-bullet-hell, or "single-stick-shooter" with light roughlike progression. Beware; music is copyright (demonetising streams) and visuals could do with mipmapping +++. But for the cost, it's good

This game is still so good. The music is so understated, but sets the atmosphere perfectly. The replayability is significant. The UI, although frustrating at times (particularly at large dome counts) and lacking some of the data viewing features were starting to see (cough endzone cough) but for 90% of the game it’s informative and effective. And I still remember the “wind turbines? On Mars?!?” Debate. And now there’s a helicopter drone on Mars.

Unfortunately, the execution fails to land this cracker of a concept.
Tasked with constructing an evil lair behind the cover of a casino, you must build a global network of spies and villany, tackle intrusions from the forces of justice, and construct a doomsday weapon to bring your plans of world domination to fruiting.

However this turns out to be a good base-building game laden with opaque mechanisms, tied to a idle-clicker-style "world map" that has you continuously hunting for which of the 24 zones needs a new mission, with no overview of what's going on unless you zoom up close (please, you couldn't update the icon at the maximum zoom), tied to a freemium-style timer that is the minion recruiting (a timer that cannot be upgraded throughout the entire game - you can manually spend cash to do so, making another "cliker"button you have to hit). Made the mistake of "upgrading"the mission zone? contratulations! you now have to spend more resources to get marginally more cash back. It's actually more cost effective to not do quests and rely on passive income.

The "side-quests" that unlock research (itself painfully slow) are mandatory, one-at-a-time "missions"that basically consist of grinding minions and interrogations in the hope that the "special mission"will be in a region you've unlocked, upgraded enough, and affordable enough in terms of "intel" - one of several resources which are poorly explained through the "story mode "with "four unique characters"- unique characters that basically say the same lines and don't change at all through the story.

Avoid until patched, or unless it comes out as a mobile-style "idle clicker"which is basically what it ends up boiling down to

Much like slay the spire, this game takes the deck-building genre (pioneered by Dominion) digital, with flourishes only a digital game can provide. The focus is on quick games of gradually increasing difficulty, random loot providing the opportunity for combinations, and whilst clearly derivative in many of its features, introduces new mechanics through the use of multiple, simultaneous fights.
It is very good, deep, and interesting.

Sci-Fi Colony Base Builder, in the vein of Dwarf Fortress and Prison Architect. The art is styleised (much like prison architect), however the key here is the gameplay, and stories that evolve and change as your colonies thrive or die. Inbuilt game "AI storyteller" mechanic gives you a series of oppurtunities and challenges, maintaining an excellent gameplay loop of survive-build-thrive-defend-survive. Wide modding community allows endless customisation, and enables reskinning into fantasy, lovecraftian, chibi Embrace the failures, manage the wealth of your colony (because if you have too much, enemy raiders will try to take it) and start a new seed.

Beware; you may not be able to put it down, because it is that good.

Elegant design, well executed gameplay with deceptive depth despite its seemingly simple premise, a very good fusion of style and strategy