Final Upgrade has left early access. 2D Factorio-like in space.
Immortal Darkness is being removed from sale soon. Zelda-esque dungeon crawler with strong reviews. I picked it up cheap but haven’t played it.
IXION has released today - a full release, not Early Access (I had to doublecheck that because it seems so unusual these days). It’s often described as “Frostpunk in space” and that appears to be a good capsule summary.
Greenman gaming had a larger discount when I logged in there if you’re tempted. Something like 25% off as opposed to the standard 10% launch week discount offered by Steam.
Thumbs way down for Ixion.
The game is punishing both in difficulty and for actual enjoyment. It likes to strangle you with 4+ different time sensitive systems/resource drains. Like you soon will wish you could strangle your population because they are unbelievable morons.
The exploration events are meh at best. Not super interesting thematically, choices only have minor impacts and the game’s constant pressure makes you rush through them.
I am a bit concerned about Ixion that it might be a bit puzzley. IE: Some event happens and you have better prepared for it ahead of time, and the failure of the event means things spiral out of control. Then you do a new game and prepare for the first event and this time you get by it. Then the next event happens you needed to prepare for it in a different way so now it is on to game 3, etc… I would NOT like a game like that.
Interesting takes on IXION. I am not that far in so perhaps I haven’t been hit with the situations you describe.
I am not saying I ran into that. I do not own the game. I am concerned that it may be that kind of game.
People keep saying its frost punk in space, and IIRC there was a fair amount of, you needed to be prepared for event X, otherwise you were toast.
Oh I see. Thanks for clarifying. I will play more today and let you know what I find!
Crawl Tactics released yesterday. It’s not in EA, this is the full game. This guy’s previous game was similar and very good. He seems to have expanded on it in this sequel. Das Tactic tried it and really liked it a lot. His let’s play is below.
Das Tactic vid:
Thanks for this, I have now botten and am looking forward to never playing it along with most things I buy. But I supported the dev!!!
Yep, grabbed and played through tutorial last night. Loved his first game so excited about this one. Tutorial did not disappoint, will play more this weekend.
Choo-Choo Charles releases today! And we’ve even got a review -
If anyone is looking for another building toy like Townscaper, Tiny Glade is coming…
My experience with Ixion is the opposite. The game is not punishing at all if you stay on top of things because the spiral works both ways.Which then makes it too easy. Frost punk suffered from this as well. Too much of the difficulty is hidden in the stacking of disasters, but if you avoid them in the first place…
I just started chapter 3 with 4 sectors unlocked as well as all techs except third tier. I don’t think my trust level dipped beneath 90% even once.
Seems interesting, I like unique games like this.
The newly released game Melatonin looks like it might be Rhythm Heaven for PC:
Also, another inexpensive little building toy–The Block. No goals in this one, you just get a random building/terrain to place on the little grid:
Forgotten Mines has a demo and looks a pretty neat tactical rpg:
You choose a selection of trinkets and characters to start a run (more options unlocked through play). Characters level up and find items during the run that give you more options.
Each room has a turn limit and you use extra turns after combat to mine resources, so there’s some incentive to handle combat efficiently. Neat idea.
Edit: been playing the demo for a couple of hours over Steam link on iPad and it’s a lot of fun.
I hate the idle animations. They’re both too fast and too exaggerated. The combination just looks bizarre.
I hadn’t even noticed them
Yeah, I normally don’t notice them in games. These just struck me as odd. I’m sure the game’s fun though. I’ll likely give it a try.
Thanks for drawing this to my attention, albeit in a roundabout way*. I’ve always enjoyed the first one as a light hearted and very (very) cute queer romance. Kinda thought it was a one-off sorta deal but this sequel dovetails with it very nicely indeed (I replayed the first yesterday before getting into this sequel today). I think it gets a little deeper/darker in places but the overall tone doesn’t shift that much. It’s great.
* Guess this came out right in middle of when I had… things (and stuff) going on. Shame I missed it but it probably wouldn’t have done me much good at the time anyway.