I wishlisted Dawn of Man and would be interested in your early impressions.
So while this wasn’t the case for your examples, this has happened in the past.
e.g.
2K is still doing it.
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/sidmeierscivilizationvcompleteedition/history/?shop[]=steam&generate=Select+Stores#/
You’ll need to pay attention to the discount percentage if using steamdb, since it tracks effective/sale price, and not if the price was raised at the same time to show a bigger percentage discount. istheranydeal shows the base price changes as well.
Is it any good solo?
You can definitely play solo, but it could be rather tricky. I’m not sure all the classes would work particularly well solo (particularly engineer). I think the right sort of player would really enjoy it, but even navigating the early caves can be challenging without help. For me, I think it would be better with a team.
DRG is decent solo, but it really shines in co-op. It’s got excellent class synergy. Playing only solo misses out.
Anyone familiar with “Empyrion - Galactic Survival”. Steam has been trying to sell that to me for years due to my general love of exploration/survival games. At $8 I’m tempted, but my backlog doesn’t need reinforcement.
Star Traders: Frontiers? Bummer because I was considering that one since everyone seems to like it.
If anybody would enjoy a difficult match-3 rpg with a short campaign, this title is a great bargain. Do not be put off by the mixed reviews, which are due to people being bad at games.
Are you reading me my mind? Because I was put off by the bad reviews and removed it from my wishlist. I assume this game is no Puzzle Quest?
If I’m going to invest $1.19 of my hard earned dollars, I need more of a personal guarantee that I’ll love it @Misguided.
No, it isn’t PQ, but nothing is (including any version of PQ other than the first). It’s one of the better match-3 rpgs if you don’t mind the limited scope. It has a 6-8 hour campaign and a survival mode. There are 4 classes (skills are fixed and there are no stats or skill points). No crafting but you can buy items with some nice passive effects.
What it does well is the combat, which is tough. You have to juggle three different resources, shield, health, and mana. Blocking attack with the shield uses your turn, but each attack you block gives you mana back. Each class also has a passive that triggers when you use the shield.
You do damage in this game by making matches adjacent to enemies, but you can’t move enemies, so the more there are on the board, the more difficult it becomes. One of my favorite things is that if you make an enemy drop three spaces, they are stunned. I also bought an item that added fall damage.
On a side note, I hate that every new match-3 on Steam involves hentai or is of the 7 Wonders/labors of Hercules style. Nobody makes games like this anymore.
@Misguided gifted me that game, I haven’t had time to play it yet, but I do love me some match 3.
I even grabbed this match 3 bundle I was watching for awhile on the cheap.
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/14050/The_Explorers_Bundle/
The SpelunKing wordplay won my heart.
I bought it years ago and decided to wait until it was out of EA before diving in. I’m still waiting.
Wow its only Alpha 12?
RE: Empyrion - Galactic Survival
Lol, I have 0.7 hours played on Runefall. I remember when I first saw SpelunKing. A game with two of my favorite things, match-3 and mining. I really don’t like that style odd match-3, but I should probably get it at that price, especially since it will work well over steam link
Empyrion is still only alpha 12 but wow it’s amazing. This alpha added a galaxy map with hyperdrive capabilities in the game. It’s really the best game of it’s particular subgenre that we’ve played.
Now that I think about it, I 'm sure it was on your recommendation. So if I die of old age before it hits 1.0, that’s on you.
It’s a procedurally generated hill I’ll happily die on.
@BrianRubin Would Empyrion be appropriate to play in co-op with my children? Is there a lot of violence, etc?
Ratropolis looks pretty neat from what I’ve seen but I was waiting on it to go out of EA. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts whenever you get around to it.
“Fake sales,” especially those the seller claims are in comparison to previous prices, are illegal under Federal and most (if not all) state laws. It is a form of deceptive pricing. The problem is that the FTC literally never charges anyone with deceptive pricing, and only offers guidance on what it is. You can find that guidance buried in the Federal Regulations here:
So the FTC basically defaults to the states, and state Attorneys General very rarely prosecute deceptive pricing, either. So that drops enforcement down another level, to County District Attorneys and sometimes City Attorneys, and they don’t prosecute very often, either. Here’s a case from 2016 where the LA City Attorney sued Kohl’s, Macy’s, Sears, and JCPenney for fake Black Friday sale pricing under California law:
So the real “enforcement” ends up being done through civil class-actions. California has a pretty strong consumer protection law, so many of those are filed here. Class-actions over deceptive pricing are actually pretty common, since class-action attorneys can make a lot of money at it, and it is easy to gather evidence (especially online). We’ve all received class action settlement notices where we might get a few dollars, while the attorneys split a fee pool of millions. One of my law school classmates did class-action litigation for a while, and the competition to find and horn in on new cases was intense. Here’s an example from about a month ago, where Nasty Gal has been sued in a class-action for fake sale pricing on its website:
Valve has probably covered its own rear by adopting its policy about sale pricing, but it sounds like publishers can go ahead and violate that without telling Valve or Valve noticing. But if websites like isthereanydeal are tracking game pricing & sale history, I’m really surprised no class-action firm has sued any of the publishers. I don’t keep track of class-action lawsuits, so it is certainly possible they have & I just never heard about it. Or the publishers are skirting the law as closely as they can, but not breaking it, so there’s no basis for a class-action. The EULAs could be a problem too, because those usually forbid licensees from participating in a class-action suit, but a few courts have thrown out similar restrictions by holding they violate public policy, or simply “in the interest of justice.”
The lead plaintiff in a class-action usually receives a few thousand dollars (I’ve seen as much as $10k - $15k in some very large cases), since they have to burn a fair amount of time helping their attorneys, and they get the joy of being deposed at least once by an angry defendant. So if you can find some examples of deceptive sale pricing of games, and have the time to spare, find a class-action attorney and pitch the case to them. It is a seriously un-fun side hustle in my opinion, but some folks actually enjoy it and become a firm’s go-to lead plaintiff.