My guess is that this would be closer to a weekend of entertainment than months of entertainment for most people. With the caveats that a) I haven’t played it very much yet, and b) my game tastes are not the norm. Given the price, I’m happy enough with the purchase, though.
Thanks. That puts it in perspective for me. I appreciate it.
A co-worker convinced me to buy this game. Reading this thread made me somewhat reluctant. I have played very littel of it, mostly the tutorials and first mission.
It somewhat feels way much more puzzle-ske than sim. To the point I think this game could have been a flash game. Then theres the morality of the game, I was asked to kill a population because was growing greedy… pardon, wat?. The game live on some “high ground amorality” where killing people because is bad to the planet is good. I have the opposite morality, I am anti-nature pro-humanity (humanist) pro-technology. Theres not much in the game, other than thinking about simple-complex producction sinergetic relations, to maximize production output, and do it not-too-good so people don’t run greed. Because “too fast progress is bad”… Get it? the game have a anti-technology, anti-progress agenda, in a shallow box.
Awesome, i think from your reaction Teiman, the game has ‘succeeded’ at one of it’s indie aims. We need more political games, or games that deal with issues, even if the player finds it uncomfortable.
You can always crack out one of the classic Sim City’s or Industry/Railroad Tycoon games Teiman, if you feel you need to clean yourself from the experience of Reus? It sounds awesome to me, from the political side of things (less into the puzzle-game over pure God game thing).
This game is also 8 dollars - it doesn’t need to give me months of entertainment though I hope it does.
That makes me much more curious about the game than any of the reviews or impressions I’ve seen so far, Teiman. Guess I’ll have to buy it now. Thanks! :p
Nah, don’t buy this game. Use your 8$ to buy Tuf Voyaging.
Is the story of a traveler finding a super-ship with the power of redo the ecology of a whole planet, and the morality of that, and the effects on persons/civilizations.
Actually its $7.20 over at GreenManGaming with the voucher: GMG20-LLASD-D8WBQ
I’ll grab it later tonight, love god games.
I’ll second this. Probably my second favorite thing GRRM has written after ASoIAF.
I hate time missions too. However the real question behind this, was it a puzzle game or not? I do not care for puzzle games. Since you can do a few-things and then get your achievements without having to get them all, then this is not a puzzle game and the time-limit is somewhat arbitrary. In other words it does not constrain you much since out of everything you have to do, you can achieve some things easily within the time limit.
Now if you had to make all 3 goals in the allotted time, then that would have been a puzzle game. Still though, I do not know what the purpose of the time limit is. Perhaps there would be no challenge in the game if there was no time limit. I do not know, I have not played this yet. I have only seen videos of it.
I spent a bunch of time with this over the weekend and still having a blast. Haven’t unlocked everything yet, but I’ve got most of the 1st and 2nd Tier unlocks and a few 3rd tier.
So here’s a few tips of things that aren’t so apparent when you first start playing:
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Especially before you get a lot of unlocks the best way to upgrade villages is with the symbiosis in the project they choose. All the basic projects give bonuses for some type of resource and getting that bonus will usually let you finish the project.
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Animal range is really important. It took me a while to realize, but animals give less direct resources because you get that bonus over all the patches they are in. So generally multiple by 5 an animals values and that’s probably what it’s really giving you. Also that makes aspects that add danger to animals a powerful tool. One aspect that adds +1 danger becomes +5 when it spreads over the animal’s whole range.
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This should be obvious a little ways in, but new resource upgrades aren’t always an upgrade. Generally the higher tier stuff is better, but sometimes in a given situation a lower tier building may be better if it has good symbiosis.
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Look carefully when you take on ambassadors because they also upgrade the abilities your giants already have and that can unlock really powerful new resources eventually.
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The swamp giant is great at carefully killing off attacking armies. The stone giant’s earthquake is good at flattening villages and armies, but he causes a ton of collateral damage, while the swamp giant’s power does less damage, but is better in general for doing a little damage to decide a war without killing everyone.
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The forest giant starts with a really nice fertility power that you should be using! It adds fertility to a spot on the map for a few minutes and that will upgrade all aspects that get put on that tile to the next level (i.e. if you cast a level 1 aspect on a fertile patch it will be a potent aspect, while a level 2 aspect on a fertile patch has a chance at a greater aspect).
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Later you can get the monsoon ability with the sea giant and that adds fertility to a larger area. but for a shorter time. I’ll usually get monsoon soonish in a game and before I start doing a lot of aspects in an area I’ll have him monsoon to upgrade all the aspects.
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If you need to eek out more resources note that higher tier resources can take multiple aspects, so it’s good to load them up with whatever aspects are most useful.
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Because of the animal range, oceans that are properly stocked with fish can be a huge resource boon. Upgrade them and add herd or predator aspects to really rake in the resources.
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Some resources (dangerous animals) and aspects (seismic) cause damage to passing armies, so if you have a larger village trying to repeatedly beat up on a smaller one try seeding the land between them with some of those items to weaken them before they get close.
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If you don’t like a project a village has started use the swamp giants muck bomb to destroy it and they’ll pick a new one soon.
Ooooh, I like this. It reminds me a lot of SimCity Societies, where you don’t have a set goal, but an array of challenges to complete. Managing the aspects and synergies of the different resources is neat… a lot of cool stuff here.
I took this advice. Hopefully the book is as interesting as it sounds.
Excellent little book, it’s actually a collection of stories, plural, and it’s Martin’s attempt to write in the style of Jack Vance. If you like Tuf, read Jack Vance.
Yeah good book, bought it 20 odd years ago. Good read from martin just like Fevre Dream. I prefer his early stuff tbh.
I still cant get Reus to run, crashes halfway through Tutorial 2 so having to shelve it atm, shame really. To add reinstalling some fonts as that may be the issue.
Fantastic post, Sepiche! I wish I’d known that stuff before I started playing.
Another tip I’d add – and something that isn’t intuitive – is that you can freely “cast” an aspect over an existing aspect. You’re not at all committed to those chickens or that elderberry. Just put something else in its place! This is pretty much required when it comes to trying to set up some of the upper level projects. So don’t get too attached to a settlement’s layout. Freely overwrite what you’ve done.
-Tom
They finally did it, those dirty bastards! They killed my giant! Planet sad!
Thanks for the excellent write-ups guys - I’m giving this one a shot as well, it seems!
This game is surprisingly deep. It has kept me awake for way too many hours this week. At first you think that getting 1000 food (or tech or wealth) is going to be totally impossible. But then you start to get hold of more and more symbiotic upgrade paths, and things begin to fall into place.