Recent reviews by The Warden

I thought I already reviewed this game! It's a gem of a construction canvas. The game isn't so much about resources as it is about just making something "cool". I never felt too challenged to complete basic objectives I set for myself and I always have the option of making the game more difficult if I ever feel the need. This along with a very sociable and interactive dev makes Bulwark and absolute joy to play. Don't be lame, buy this game.

Kudos to Tomas who put this masterpiece together.

Blizzard: We've muted your account! Reason: "I'm gonna hog."
Blizzard: Your voice matters! Send us YOUR PC INFORMATION in our survey!

Yeah, okay.

A promising successor to Majesty, it's about time we've had another one. Doesn't feel like it's going to be as hard as Majesty either, which I consider to be a plus.

Just a few pressing issues I noticed with the demo that I hope are fixed -
No edge scrolling, wrist hurt.
Economy feels feral, some tax collectors wouldn't hurt.
Most lines are AI voiced (I'll voice a few if the dev wants me to, I mean heck.).
No constant line to your contract flags. My flags should be available at all times with the ability to set how much I want for them somewhere on my screen. Shouldn't have to click on the palace to get 'em.
Soundtrack needs some work, feedback on enemies or your units being hit would go a long way.
Visuals, while great, still need some work. Enemy bases look like Skyrim rocks meshed together. Enemies themselves such as wolves are very hard to see in my opinion. They looks kind of low res compared to the rest of the game.


Suggestion -
What if heroes generated automatically from your facilities instead of you buying them? This should encourage the player to build more of the facility they want for more of the unit type instead of bribing them into town or whatever is happening there.
I've noticed too few funny quips from your units. Needs more funny quips!


Hope to see this game improve with its QOL! Can't wait to buy it proper.

Abbeygames: We thought the war mechanics were bad in the last game...
The fans (chanting in unison): WAR WAR WAR
Abbeygames: FINE! Have your war!

A lot of the negative reviews appear to be older reviews.
To be frank, this game allows you to live out your capitalist dreams via building heavy infrastructure on desolate wasteland cities, propping them up to make them resourceful for the company.
In my opinion, levels get better the more you play because you need to adopt different design philosophies for different areas to maximize your output. I think the game is missing rail signals and that would be my only major complaint.
No, you don't have a time limit. You have a ranking score based on how fast you complete the mission which gives you vouchers. Don't spend all of them on music disks and you should be good. Every mission appears to be passable as long as you are making some sort of profit, which isn't hard if you are strategic with your money. It doesn't feel like a puzzle to me because puzzles usually have "stopping" points. You don't need to be stressed, just enjoy making railway skyscrapers or play sandbox for a bit.
Big tip, if you aren't using your money put it in the bank for interest and withdraw when you want to work on a project. This usually handles and even outpaces your upkeep later.
Great game.

Intro -
Is this a game?

In Imagine Earth you play as what feels to be no one while simultaneously controlling the levers of an entire private colony operation company (or... small private venture funded by the state). You are made to feel like nobody because your existence in constantly having the limelight taken away by other characters which you are dragged along by for the sake that you get to work in their next operation like an unpaid intern. Your name is shown in some of the dialogues, but characters will cleverly omit this in their verbal addressing of you.

Let's go back to that first question, "is this a game"? It's a difficult one for me because I do not feel like I am playing a game when I play Imagine Earth. I feel like I am reading a book. All of the interactive elements would should make the game unique to my experience are wiped away under mechanics heavily decided by what the devs think you should do instead of what you want to do. As a player I wanted to "play dirty" with nuclear energy and pump the atmosphere full of toxic chemicals. I thought that we were running a corporation, but what you really run is this glorified merc company with a government contract. You will proceed to be punished for playing the way which is deemed unfit by the developers it feels, the government will constantly attempt to nickle and dime you over your carbon footprint. Your citizenry, regardless of their race, will always prefer to live by big buxom mountain and trees which should be unfamiliar to them, woods which somehow inspire contentedness within every creature regardless of the leanings of their parent faction. For example, the mining dudes or whatever made up name they have will still enjoy loving being by these alien trees because supposedly every alien species is made up of the same brand of hippies which populate the human faction. Nay, they will be outraged for deigning themselves to live by heavy industries which they strive to create so much according to their backgrounds. Forget this love of gold, I can't wait to go for a merry jaunt with my pickaxe THROUGH THE WOODS! Heaven forbid that you cause the temperatures to rise, during my session even if I was trying it was a struggle to get the temperature to fluctuate whilst every character is browbeating me (needlessly as I might as, since the devs presuppose you want to do good for these alien worlds) for that scary temperature counter in the corner which I have never seen tick up! Of course, I don't doubt the consequences of it ticking up are just as annoying to players like me who will, instead of being rewarded for being morally bankrupt, are judged by the gods of the matrix for being dangerous to their playground. I'm not an environmentalist, I don't particularly care for oil either, but why would you ever tease me with the prospect of being able to make a world write beneath oil slicks if I am expected to abandon my tantalization because the slick which covers the ground afterwards I am the one left holding the mop to clean up? I wanted to dump these spills onto other players, put some actual economic use into them instead of banishing it all to the void while my hippy citizens pat me on the back for doing something right. I am given a chore list of responsibilities rather than fun, intractable mechanics. In a nutshell, you are playing the games the devs WANT you to play instead of the game you desire to play.

Problem Areas -
Art design: I don't know who is sitting there deciding the facial cues for the lady with green hair, but her and every other human individual fall right into uncanny for me. Their immovable, gnarly appearances punctuated by a slight change in the position of the facial orifice do well in their part to remind me I am playing a horror game. Even the aliens do not feel alien to look at, most space critters seem determined to be as sickeningly friendly as a Who in Whoville whilst trying to make you digest their aberrant visage. To reiterate, they do not feel alien, but rather something else completely foreign which tickles your primal instinct to dislodge them from your presence, Anthony Fauci occasionally pops up at the bottom of my screen as I watched horrified whenever he croaks that he may yet need another science facility to huff the blue fumes just to make sure that they really do taste like Gatorade. Oh and the buildings couldn't hurt to have some colored highlights in accordance with their building type, whenever I look down I see a mess of huts representing what should be my colony indistinguishable from each other while I click around looking for whatever I actually mean to click.

Economy: I find it quite annoying that any number of things can happen to my buildings which I must spend 50% of my income on. Meteors and tornadoes feel attracted to my hippies as God's way of punishing them for loving patches of flowers. I never get the random explosions of heavy industry going wrong as thousands of my workers (Aside, the game does not actually consider your "workforce", presumably every building is ran by automatons) perish in some chemical fire. If it isn't that there is some unseen timer constantly ticking down as your million districts become progressively more dirty, for a world that seems to have nearly every person obsessed with the environment and its consequences the general populace must be full of rabid animals which love to roll around in mud, because they cost me upwards of thousands of dollars for simply existing in my streets. As if littering draws everyone to its criminal goodness since they aren't allowed to have weapons. Mind you that the Space Government in the game has gone the European route of banning weaponry in Space, where Space has many foreign dangers which do not adhere to any law and force themselves upon you, mocking you for being weak as a decision which you hadn't even made for yourself.

Writing; Characters do not seem to be aware of their own existence, they play themselves to the lone tune of a single note, orating in their pastime is a reminder seemingly to themselves that they are there. Whatever or whoever the boss is, he does not feel like he has a motivating force behind him to drive his actions. He's simply there to "be the cool boss", get tranqued by some purple woman who seemingly understands how corporations should work, then discarded as a side character for one of the shops you can purchase from throughout the campaign. Your companion in arms, the grass-haired lady seems to pride herself on your accomplishments before deciding to quit temp work because of a "6 month contract" which is just some passing comment made by a ruthless bazaar lord tripping on her alien tendrils. Instead of discussing things she opts to start a business, which solely relies on you dragging your feet and following, seemingly from nowhere. I don't know the requirements to become a corporation, but surely you need to be of some influence to convince literal millions of people to come colonize some backwater no one has ever heard of before? Not to mention starting capital, as it appears that characters don't even get paid in this universe. That it operates on some backwards logic where your motivation is making sure Anthony Fauci gets his next science fix while you work for the reputation of another person and are nary recognized for it. In one of the fail states YOU seem to be fired by the government without so much as a word from your supposed tight knit boss bestie to ham one in for you, her beef seems to be more concerned with the bungling purple bazaar demon betraying her own people.

I'm sorry, but this has been a headache. I hope that the DLC remedies major issues with the core gameplay rather than a continuation of whatever rhetoric this game is trying to shove down your throat.

Proud to say I was the one who suggested we should add Obama's weather machine to Bulwark.

I am going to keep the game under my belt in hopes that the devs fix the listed issues below. They seem to be pretty responsive to criticisms.

1. Players seem to be randomly kicking on sight, making the game impossible to play. I think this is encouraged because small accidents lead to big consequences. Accidentally hitting a civilian will immediately end the round, my suggestion would be to provide rewards for each civilian saved and punish players for killing civilians by hitting their bank accounts.

2. The immediate reaction to seeing a new player seems to be: "Troll them". First match I joined I was kicked down and killed by my teammate. While friendly fire isn't entirely wrong, I suspect the cons aren't good enough compared to the pros. There is no tutorial, if you have a new person join the game they are likely to screw things up because they don't know any better.

3. The way the characters move is extremely strange. Right now your head seems to move independent of the body and it feels incredibly disorientating. Make it so that from the player's perspective their weapons are always facing the way they are, even if it's not the same for third person. Motion blur doesn't help this aspect at all.

4. Combat feels pretty jank, especially with heavier weapons. Parrying an enemy does not stun them or really reward you in any way for the parry. From what I can see the shield doesn't even matter because you get the exact same amount of "stamina shields" from a shield or without a shield. It feels like there is no rhythm to the combat. Add in the "tank controls" character feeling to make this aspect worse.

5. Opening up a mission without knowing what you're doing isn't enough. "Rescue hostages" is not enough of a descriptor for what the player should be doing, especially whenever you seem to have side objectives like issuing tickets.

6. You are punished way too harshly for smaller mistakes, as mentioned earlier a mission just ends if you accidentally hit a civie.

7. It feels like there is no sense of permanent progression. All weapons seemed to be bought on retail and other players can just grab them out of your hand. Obviously, this encourages trollish and bad behavior. While I'm sure it's funny that your friend yoinks your axe out of your hand the first time, the next 5 times it gets old really quickly. Allow players to purchase their weapons and keep them in an armory of sorts so there is an actual sense of progression.

8. While I know it isn't on the dev to handle how their community acts, they should at least find more motivations for characters to work together. Right now it seems there are more motivations to not want to play with strangers other than the difficulty. For instance, there aren't a lot of objectives where I need a friend's help to do something. Like, say, lower a drawbridge? Work on the same boss enemy together? If anything, it feels like other players and randos get in the way because you're accidentally beating each other up half the time going after the same enemy. Having more incentives to work together can go a long way in making your community bond. Hell, with an armory mechanic instead of "stealing" the weapons from your partners, why not let the player share the weapons they have at no extra cost to them? It's simple stuff like this that can wildly help you foster a playerbase that is more than just them saying "Beans" to each other. "Rock and Stone" doesn't work just because there is a dedicated button to it, it works because you have other dwarves that compliment each other's abilities and if you want to be effective at your mission you genuinely need your comrades in arms to do so.

The buildings, the way the land morphs into hills and plains, something as simple as the units marching - this game is drop dead gorgeous.

I haven't played previous Cossack games as I am not usually a fan of RTS games that seem unit-spammy, but this game from a gameplay standpoint ignores that pitfall entirely. Units usually stay in good formation while marching, and a well organized line will serve you better than an incoming blob of infantry that is easily disposed of with artillery. Units produce slow enough to feel like you're actually losing something whenever a division gets wiped. Transporting units across water tiles takes an appropriate amount of time, so it is a consideration to actually set up forward bases to avoid the long marches. The game seems to have a background AI for those people who don't like managing their economy that much, each nation seems to have a developed play style due to small bonuses. Walls cannot just simply be destroyed, but must have artillery to knock them down so your opponent cannot just swarm your massive fort, they need to put some effort into making a force of combined arms.

If you haven't already tried it out, I'd certainly suggest it.

The price really saves this game - though I will admit that the RTS sphere is starved of Overlord-likes.

Most of the gameplay is good and shallowly scratches that itch that fans of Pikmin & Overlord have, but I think it's missing two key elements. The first of those elements are that the puzzles are simple, and feel more like jumping over a hurdle rather than you attempting to use your brain to solve it. This pads out the run time for a game that is pretty short.

The main issue, in my opinion, is the writing. Characters will often make broad and grand statements to add meaningless meaning to what they say.
For instance, after collecting 20 "dune pearls" for a character he states that these dune pearls are enough to rebuild the entire city - and you may be suspecting this is a large amount of wealth as a result.
He trades you these dune pearls you collect for a single one-way boat ride... You trade a city's maintenance and rebuilding fee for a single boat ride.
I should probably also mention Ana's psyche. Parts of her are flung about, and the first two you interact with have some deep implications, in my opinion, for the relationship at play.

Consider this - Ana's heart is in love with just about everything. The handsome merchant man, the land, beautiful sights, and as her mind says: "Is witless". Being that Ana's love for Otto is just about on the same level as her love for everything else I would suspect that a woman's inclination to flirt with others, only guarded by her superego, would make for a terribly insecure relationship. Otto, on the other hand does seem to not be concerned with this. While I get that this part of her represents some radicalization of one aspect of her being, I would take a guess that this is an unconscious part of her psyche, constantly feeding impulse. One might suppose that, being her heart, it would be an expert on the aspect of her personality at controlling just how much love something deserves, controlling the ebb and flow of feelings.

Or we may look at her mind, which upon saving it, it jumps at every opportunity to ridicule Otto for his inefficiencies in order to make the illusion that it is smarter than him. This, I suspect, is the fault of poor writing attempting to make this aspect of the character seem smarter. What they could do is make this aspect more reflective of her prior actions, and offer her knowledge and direction in a non-patronizing manner. Of course, due to the length of the game they probably don't give themselves enough time to develop upon what may be actual knowledge. The writing, however, has a deeper implication that is perhaps unintended. Ana will never see Otto as her equal, this part of her does a good job in being honest with that - she thinks he is, in her own words, slow. She will always be unsatisfied with his (apparent to her) lack of intellect. It takes the moment whenever they are on the precipice of saving the world for the mind to actually praise Otto - but this is thrown in with all of her other aspects and comes off more as encouragement to someone that is apparently about to do a monumental task rather than a genuine respect for the person Otto is.

The problem with Otto is that he doesn't even express many of his own feelings or disagreements. While his voice and tone indicate that he does feel a certain way about something, he never speaks back and is entirely non-confrontational. He doesn't consider any of these elements listed above and it certainly doesn't occur to him what his fiancee genuinely believes to him at the end of the story. It feels as the writers sucked out what they thought Otto could be, how interesting of a character he would make, in exchange for the every man that plays as the blank slate you can use to project your feelings onto, and those feelings having no matter as there is no system of choice in the game that can be used to define what you think, or at least what you think Otto should think.

In any case, I feel sorry for the man.