Recent reviews by Shifter

Absolutely phenomenal. The game fuses so many mechanics and experiences seamlessly from across gaming genres, and does so with a humorous narrative and incredible cast of characters. Easily one of the best games I've ever played. If you have any interest in this, you should give it a shot.

This is a great fusion of rogue-like and RTS/city builder elements. Each game is fairly short, but you are forced to use a randomly determined set of technologies rather than the same building(s) each run. This leads to really creative opportunities and fun ways to experiment with your environment, but also leads to janky interactions and goofy moments. If you are willing to embrace some silly experiences and want lots of variation on your small-scale RTS/city builder? This game is a great pickup.

This game is a masterpiece in the top down RPG genre. With infinite inventory and simple but entertaining combat, combined with hilarious writing and funny art design, this game is a gem. While the story is fun in its own right, you can easily spend tons of time messing around gathering thousands of logs...to build a giant wooden house (enemies won't attack your structures). Or not. Or you can grind tons of gear with slightly randomized stats to get the build of your dreams. Or not. By giving the player very little in the way of hard requirements once they reach certain story thresholds, the game gives you tons of space to do whatever you'd like, be it hoarding tons of items, building lavish bases, or min-maxing your gear and optional collectables. Despite the age, I still think this game is a good pickup in 2025, especially if you enjoy more free-form RPG experiences that showcase just how carefully and lovingly the developers designed the experience for players.

This is a goofy little game with a very entertaining premise. While fairly easy, the developers clearly put a lot of love into the game and its characters. Your toolkit is easy to learn, fun to use, and is relied upon often to solve problems and do silly things. The story is also engaging in a way I didn't think it would be, and I had a wonderful time playing through it. If you enjoy shorter games this game is an excellent choice for new and veteran gamers alike.

Extremely fun game that combines real time strategy and ants.

This game is a masterclass in what to do right with ants in videogames. By controlling your ants with soft pheromone trails rather than as single units and relying on paths from your queen to your egg chambers (production tiles), the game easily immerses you in your ant colonies. By using tiles in your nest and a more freeform open map, the game lets you plan meticulously at home and expand freely when you're on the hunt for resources and objectives. The campaign and extra scenarios have fun twists that challenge you in new and exciting ways, and with new game + and sandbox modes, there is always a little more to do.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is more difficult to enjoy for me after you go outside the campaign and extra scenarios. This takes well over the number of hours needed for me to feel the game was worth it, but I wanted to mention it for folks who like a sandbox experience. The AI colonies in the sandbox mode are predictable and lackluster, and there isn't really a satisfying twist like in many of the other levels that adds a layer of excitement or novelty to the experience. I think a community scenario designer for the sandbox would solve this issue, or a map editor (though I know it was cited as difficult to provide the community with map tools as of 2025), but in the meantime there are updates and DLC coming that may satisfy this need in the short-run.

If you enjoy ants/insects, a great narrated campaign, and real time strategy with a twist though? This game is one of the best you could choose.

Incredibly fun game with a ton of content.

I had been around for much of early access. The dev team did an impressive job communicating to players when they could expect updates during early access, and delivered excellent content each time as promised. The final game is in a great state, with tons of knobs to tweak to tailor the experience to a wide range of players.

I was nervous about this one at first because the combination of RPG and resource management genres tends to result in the stifling of one of the two. However, Mind Over Magic did a great job bringing both together without ruining one or the other. While this game certainly appeals to the management crowd, it scratches my RPG itch with the spell choices and special artifacts you can equip mages with.

The only downside is that it's a slow paced game, where you often have to rebuild your school at key points in the tech tree rather than click "upgrade" on a bunch of stuff. This isn't hard, but it can be a bit time consuming. Given the game's challenge lies in how you design your rooms and school, I see this as an engaging chance to assess and redesign your layouts, which is a rare experience for me in this type of game. However, that isn't for everyone.

In short, if you enjoy a management game with some complexity and a limited but engaging RPG, I stongly recommend picking this one up.

This game has been around for 11 years and has aged for me like a fine wine. The gameplay loop is simple but easy to get back into after a long break, and the complexity/difficulty curve appeals to everyone. There are an extremely large number of levels and ways to play, so I can't imagine more than a few people have exhausted the game's content, much more than in Creeper 4 (which is also a great game, though this one still holds up to it). In short, if you enjoy top down strategy in short bite-sized levels, this game is one of the best choices you could make.

Excellent game. The developers are active, communicative, and attentive to community feedback, and they have worked hard on bringing together the repeatable and meta progression experiences of roguelites and the in-depth strategy of a real time strategy/management game. Each gameplay mechanic is interesting and engaging, and the split between managing resources and your available supply of building blueprints (randomized each run) on procedural maps keeps the experience fresh during each run. For anyone interested in shorter duration management games that focus on repeatability, this is a perfect choice.

After finally beating the king titan today and uninstalling ark 1 for good, I can only say that it's been a wonderful journey since 2015. From the original island map to the deserts of Scorched Earth, the awe inspiring fantasy landscapes of Aberration and Extinction, the beautiful simulation of Genesis 1, and the final ship setting of Genesis 2. It's all been beautiful. I have nothing but love in my heart when I say thank you to WC for piloting such a creative game: there's nothing else like it. I have high hopes that all the bugs and broken features will be fixed in future games in the series...but even without a single change, it is without question that ark is one of the most unique and remarkable games ever made. WC has constantly pushed the boundaries of what's possible, and I can't recommend enough that everyone give this game a shot. Where else can you ride a giant gliding platypus?

I wanted to like this game so bad. The basic premise of tight resource management and city planning in a rogue like setting really appealed to me. I really enjoyed the process of planning out each halt (map) versus the entire journey. What really stopped me was the fact that so many of the game's mechanics failed or simply served no purpose. Some examples:

1.) There are random events that can be discovered. The benefits are often wildly trivial and the consequences often result in a complete run loss. Complete run loss happens often, and you often have very little control over it.
2.) ANY loss of the life of a pupil is game over. When your time is limited and skills have to be cultivated over the course of your entire run, you usually get your full group of pupils and stick to them until the end...otherwise you may simply lose because you lack enough specialized skills. Couple that with miserable traits like "lose hp every turn" and some runs are a non-starter.
3.) Healing is terrible. In a game where it's often tight to get from halt to halt, and in a game where hoarding resources is punished...the fact that it requires upwards of 12 turns to make ONE healing potion that restores a portion of a pupil's hp is downright terrible design. It's better to avoid illness altogether or tank the hp loss and hope your pupils don't die (unless the world's most lucky trader comes by).
4.) There's an entire knowledge point system that can go into a few categories of "tech"...but only one of them (the main knowledge tree) seemed useful to me. I toyed with the others for testing, and it came at the cost of my odds of winning.

In short, if you want to try a game that's a bit frustrating and fallen short of what it could have been...go ahead and give it a try. Otherwise, I'd recommend looking elsewhere.