I fired it up for a while before dinner, and there’s a lot more polish to it than the last time I played. It’s essentially Hearthstone reimagined as a board game - instead of playing cards directly on your opponent or having them square off in the middle of the board, cards are placed on spaces from a board game. Landing on a space that has a spell or creature placed by your opponent usually ends up as combat, while landing on one you placed gets you some kind of bonus.
If I’m being a bit vague it’s because I only played the bare-boned tutorial and a single board of the campaign. One of my beefs is that the game isn’t documented particularly well, and the AI opponent plays cards so quickly it’s sometimes tough to follow exactly what’s going on. When I won my first game I wasn’t sure what had happened. I had the same issue with Gremlins, Inc, until I became more familiar with the board.
My other issue with it is that you can’t save the game mid-level. It wasn’t a problem today, but I can see it becoming one as the playing fields get bigger and more complex.
Sure, but I may not be able to afford the time travel expense so feel free to either post the after action report here (assuming my possible future self hasn’t already beaten you to it by then) or PM me. Or start a new thread, I love that gem of an underappreciated game.
Fun side note: Since playing the game I’ve often fantasized about trolling my brother and getting him to install and join a game without realizing that it wasn’t actually a FPS for as long as possible. How long would I be able to string him along and get him to complete tasks before he began to figure out what was going on? My biggest hesitation with trying it was the risk of him ignoring my directive to ignore the Steam description (high) and his ability to think outside the box (not always so much depending on participants, setting and timing).
I just picked up Epic Manager, an EA title supposedly in Alpha, but it seems pretty far along.
Part management sim and part roguelike, the idea is to recruit, nurture, and train adventurers, send them out in parties on quests, and gain the most fame and fortune for your agency.
It reminds of of Renowned Explorers, except for the combat, which is the weakest point so far (simple and lackluster). Unfortunately there appears to be a lot of it. I’m hoping it improves as the game matures.
The management aspect seems to be pretty deep, with lots of classes to recruit and skills to assign as heroes level up. As your fame grows you can run more parties at the same time. There also seems to be an element of skullduggery against other agencies, but I can’t do anything with it yet. I’m not sure if that’s because it’s not implemented, or my agency hasn’t acquired enough fame.
The combat is getting a bit better now that I’m farther along and seeing how skills can be utilized and all the various effects and types of damage. It could still be deeper, though.
So far I’m enjoying it. I’m about to lose the tutorial because two parties got wiped (loss of prestige) and I can only hire Lev 1 adventurers, which puts me at a disadvantage. Meanwhile the other agencies in my league are continuing to rack up prestige, and I’m currently ranked 9th (out of 10). If the current trimester ends with me being one of the bottom 2, it’s game over.
It’s real easy to get into a serious death spiral with this game. I did discover, though, that I can research and unlock Intrigue once my agency reaches Lev 2 (if it makes it that far)
Someone here a couple of months back was interested in a hero management game. I can’t remember who or find the thread. Was Epic Heroes mentioned in that thread?
And then I found it!
@WarpRattler, is Epic Heroes something that might scratch that itch for you?
Have you ever wanted to control an angry mob? Okhlos dropped this morning for $11.69. I like what I see from Zueljin Gaming’s two LP videos. Anyone else considering purchasing it?
Open world pirate game Tempest is out of early access. Reviews on Steam seem pretty positive, in spite of what appears to be a lack of ballroom dancing.
I bought it via a bundle early on in EA and fiddled with it for 26 minutes. But I decided to wait until it was released before playing it further, because the gameplay was very confusing (wasn’t very helpful at guiding the player, either).
When I have time, I’ll see how it’s progressed and post some thoughts here.
Z.Year One looks like it could be an interesting and challenging CCG. $20 is a little steep for EA, but I’m keeping my eye on it and may dive in at some point.
Tom had a little front page writeup on Skyboats last month and it just hit Steam. $9.99 but for you $1 off.
I really likes Axes & Acres and I think Tom did too. This seems to have simpler rules, so that may effect the longevity. Also I think the developers need to get out of the habit of using a time limit as opposed to AI to make their games challenging.
This looks interesting to me: Blood of Magic.
Open world, turn based combat, just $8 (until 8/29). Positive reviews for the most part, will likely give it a try this weekend (I tend to refrain from early access but it scratches two itches so why not?)
This fast and fluid 2D beat 'em up could be promising. Only in the Kickstarter phase though.
Most of these games are a little too slow and bland for me now, like they never moved past the (admittedly awesome) Capcom era from the arcades. This one looks more interesting.
