Recent reviews by Jam

If you're in the market for a challenging and addictive rogue-like game, look no further than High and Dry, a hidden gem developed by a passionate indie developer. This game sets sail to uncharted waters, offering a unique naval combat experience combined with decision-making that truly impacts your journey. Brace yourself for an exhilarating adventure as you face off against the notorious Davey Jones in an epic showdown!

One of the standout features of High and Dry is its emphasis on meaningful decision-making. Every choice you make, from selecting your crew to deciding which route to take, can have a profound impact on your success. The game's dynamic systems respond to your actions, creating a truly immersive experience where you are the captain of your own destiny. Whether it's choosing to trade or rest on islands, engaging in naval battles, or exploring mysterious islands, the choices are yours to make, and the consequences will keep you on your toes (or at the bottom of the ocean).

I couldn't recommend this game more at the price point if you're looking for a challenging rogue-like where your pressed with time and your decisions matter. A final note is that the developer is active in his discord server to answer issues or resolve bugs that come up in rare circumstances, which was a pleasant surprise.

For The King is an insanely fun game to play solo or with friends. The game is overall designed to be played on it's medium difficulty, as the real game experience comes to life with it. Easy difficulty is great for casual play through where you don't have the heart to game over with a few hours invested (or just minutes into your gameplay..)

Your decisions matter, A LOT. Teamwork is required to succeed, this game is everything you want in a co-op RPG in the modern day. Every battle victory is earned and a game win is well deserved. The games overall design is fantastic, 40 hours and quite a few campaigns in I've got more than my monies worth and I have many more adventures to take before I am bored. I've convinced a few friends to purchase the game and none of them were disappointed. Neither will you.

For The King has been released for awhile now and #2 is on the way. I couldn't be more happier. If you're looking for a fun RPG and CHALLENGING game, this is absolutely the right place to be.

Art/Music - 4/5
Gameplay - 5/5
Pricepoint - 5/5 (Even at full price, any sale is a steal).

I'm going to start this off by saying I enjoyed my time playing the game with friends, but the pricing is extremely high for a heavily incomplete game in its genre. Many game systems are blocked out from being used and this game has been in "early access" for years. I have high hopes for the game's future development, but would never recommend the game unless you are a HUGE survival fan yearning for a new experience due to the price point.

If Craftopia was a finished product or perhaps fresh in early access, I would have given a raving positive review. However, being early-access for years brings the developer's integrity into question in my eyes. There are better ways to allow your fans to support you than putting a high price-tag on your incomplete game.

For the actual game review -

Craftopia is beautifully incomplete mess. The music, core game mechanics have a great charm. It FEELS good to gather, fish and partake in combat. The building could use a bit more work to allow for creativity and less pre-built blockish nature. Skill trees are fun, but extremely over-tuned in some ways. Clever players could create builds to one shot practically any big and scary monster/boss without much math or thought behind them. Which again, tweaking numbers and/or making some passives not stack the way they do are not hard issues to fix but never have been addressed. Even at the highest difficulty, it makes many builds "unfun" because of simply how easy it is to clear PvE content.

Multiplayer functionality feels archaic, the server host must be online and have the game running for the server to stay connected. This created a lot of issues when trying to coordinate game times with friends and ultimately led to us stopping our play through as a group. This absolutely needs to be fixed/given alternative ways of hosting a server in the future.

It's worth noting the developers have publicly stated for months that they are doing a large overhaul to a core game mechanic, which is making their worlds "seamless". This is absolutely a great start to fixing their game and is a potential excuse to their lack of attention in other areas of development.

Art/Music - 5/5
Gameplay - 3/5
Price-point - 1/5

Recommend at current state: Absolutely not, but I am eager to be optimistic when the developers finally push major updates.