Recent reviews by JD-Plays

It's my first time playing any game in the Steamworld franchise and I immediately fell in love with the art style always waiting around to see what a robot would do walking down the street, that was before i got into the production lines, which added some more complexity which was a welcome addition to a city builder!
Then I started mining the first level was easy enough just have to worry about the occasion cave in, and this introduced the prospectors who would harvest unique resources from the mines which we could bring back to the town to further expand and upgrade. Then we started automating the mining process with Mechanics who would build automated mines.
Thats when we went deeper in the mine and things took a turn for the worse but we now have guards to keep us safe!

Overall the game has been fantastic I have enjoyed every minute I've played of it and really wish I could be playing it now rather than writing this review!

If you still cant decide after reading this review and others, maybe some videos will help
Full lets play right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCINfUQc75E

Station to Station is a wholesome little puzzle game featuring the cutest Voxel trains I have ever seen!
I played the demo months ago and fell in love! Since then I have started playing the main game waiting to unlock the card system and some more difficult puzzles. I was not disappointed as the first region the tutorial area was coming to the end things were already getting difficult and really required me to think about how to complete the missions!

I did post this video showing the first region if your unsure if the game is for you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueF7qxk_m0E

I first played Industries of Titan on the Epic store and enjoyed it so much I got it again on the steam store!

Its a pleasant mix of city builder, Logistics management, as well as just a hint of strategy thrown in having to deal with rebel attacks. The ship to ship combat is unique in the way you can outfit your ships anyway you want, along with as many or as few crew as you would like. The Industry building is much the same with options for either dedicated buildings or you can modular build your factories any way you want!

There learning curve isn't to steep and the tutorial will take you through the core the game without making you feel like your hand is being held OR FORCED along the way.

Due to the extreme Modularity of the core parts of the game no 2 playthrus will be the same. There isn't a lot to learn to start playing but there are things I wish i knew before i started playing I made a video below outlining my top 15 things I wish i knew beforehand!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmlLp2pn5M0

Aquatico is a game that I hope will improve over time.

Pros:
Game play is uniquely underwater
Simplified logistics
Great looking underwater Dynamics

Cons:
Not hard, not even a challenge
Simplified Logistics I didn't worry about what I was putting were it just didn't seem to matter
Resource calculations vary between Weekly, Monthly and Yearly which means trying to calculate anything requires a lot of maths
The game being underwater seems like a after thought. Shark attacks are a thing, but so is a fishing station that harvests sharks?

I really hope the devs continue to work on the game and define a direction for the game as well fix some of their previous oversight.

Overall I've enjoyed the time I've spent playing Aquatico and you can find my live stream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9URlPaPehgY
But I am waiting to see how the game changes over the next few updates and I look forward to trying it again.

I had a chance to play Farlanders a few days before release
The campaign has a nice story and introduces the other characters through dialogue as well as slowly introducing the underlining plot of why you have been brought to Mars to terraform the planet.
Being limited on your terraforming choices by which cards you draw or later in the game which cards you choose to buy is a great dynamic. Along with a great puzzle trying to match your cards to the current terrain

As with all things on Mars Water and food will be a concern as well as not running out of resources. Population isn't to hard to get but feeding them and providing them with enough drinking water will always be a challenge.

If you want to see more of the game the stream has been uploaded to YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NNuS_fcYCE

Ixion I expected to be very much like Frostpunk with random events and building a city with hopes to escape the freezing cold of Space, but i was pleasantly surprised that the devs had added so much more, between the ability to move around the main space station along with the use of the mining ships and transport ships to collect and gather cargo. Finally the science ships to explore events in the order you wish to explore them in. It was a breath of fresh air and a great game to play!

Don't get me wrong the game is brutal you will be struggling to survive and it will be touch and go quite often! But I think that brings a large challenge to a game like this and it would be boring if it was easy!

I have a lets Play here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsIzIq-VUng

And a guide for setting out the first sector https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI5aWViff5s

I had a chance to play Stardeus over the last year, and have enjoyed it quite a lot. I have watched the Development
live on twitch over the last year, and the game is great mix of automation and rimworld-esk story/event based game play!

I tried out a very early Alpha release of the game here, and I will be playing it a lot more in the future
https://youtu.be/0eur0CF58SA

Captain of Industry was released into Early access on the 31st of May 2022, At the time of writing the date is 19th of September in the same year, Its been 111 days since the game hit early access. In that time I have clocked up 999 Hours of Game play. That's 999 hours of entertainment, problem solving, and the feeling of success when something you planned 10 hours ago works as you expected! Its also 9 hours of game play EVERY DAY!

If you enjoy Factorio, Satisfactory, or any similar games in this genre you will love COI! Its harder then expected, with recipes that fall much closer to real life, but I think that adds to the game, not only are you playing a production based game, but your learning along the way!

For a little 2 man dev team, not only has the game been outstanding but they have in the past 4 months released updates, big fixes features and QOL improvements on a 2 week schedule since launch.

If you still cant decide after reading this review and others, maybe some videos will help
Full lets play right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi5m7C5DQxY&list=PLnIE0W-m629dvFtfPt9Ygb_cgSUwtwjxK&index=1

Want a more indepth review check my video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liCGjtbimdY

Dream Engines is a game dreamt up by Tim Burton himself, It looks like it was torn directly from one of his movies, It has a touch of 'Factorio' as well with automation and transportation of items back to your city complex, Which moves you into a City Builder like 'Sim City' trying to work out what buildings are best placed where, till your attacked by a derp raid and your then playing 'They Are Billions' a tower defence game trying to stave off the hordes of dream creatures attacking your poor Nomad City. Finally when the battles get to tough or all the resources are exhausted you can Pick up your city and fly to another zone ready to aggravate new neighbours

This game I sat down to look at for 5 minutes and ended up glued to my seat for 3 hours before I died and instantly started a new game!

I've had a chance to play a pre-release version of Rail Route over the last few weeks, and it is everything promised. A very relaxing train dispatching game. Where I really think the game excels is rather than giving you the full game UI right from the start of the game you unlock more features and UI components as you play, both easing you into the more complex parts of the game, as well as giving you the player a choice via a tech tree what is most important to you? Do you want trains to automatically turn around or would you prefer to auto accept new trains into stations? What makes your life easier?

The Dev team of just 2 are hard working and have been brilliant in updating the game to make the on-boarding simpler for new players as well as updating descriptions to make them more meaningful for first time players.

Rail route is a easy game to pick up and a hard game to master, between automated signals sensors to detect and direct trains the possibilities for automation are limitless!

Video review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrtVPnypFQE