Recent reviews by Dag

I did not like this game, you see,
It was not any fun for me.
I tried it here, I tried it there,
I tried it sitting in my chair.

I tried it fast, I tried it slow,
I tried it high, I tried it low.
I pressed the buttons, clicked the screen,
Still, it wasn’t my routine.

I played alone, I played with friends,
I played and played—it would not end!
I gave it time, I gave it space,
But fun? I could not find a trace.

They said, “Just wait! It gets much better!”
They even wrote a lengthy letter.
“Just play some more! You’ll see the light!”
But no, this game was not quite right.

So here I sit, I walk away,
No more will I waste my day.
You like this game? Well, that’s just fine!
But this bad game is not for mine!

Citizen Sleeper is an enjoyable narrative-driven RPG-lite, but frankly it is not worth the full price of $20. At the current sale price of $6, though, I can readily recommend it to those who enjoy such games. In particular, if you liked Disco Elysium, you might like this, though don't expect the same level of depth or polished presentation.

+ Great atmosphere and music
+ Compelling, mysterious world design
+ Endearing characters
+ Makes very effective use of a small number of simple game systems
+ Short and digestible
+ Several different endings
- Very limited interactivity; it's basically a choose your own adventure story
- Sometimes you finish a task before a mandatory clock runs out, and if you don't have other tasks to do, you just have to wait
- Art, while good, is limited to character portraits and the space station "overworld;" there are no detailed interior shots, no cutscenes, etc
- For a game where everything takes place exclusively in writing, it's full of grammatical errors (especially comma splices), which trigger my nerd rage

I heard about Potionomics from Moon Channel's 2024 cozy game tier list, and it fits well into that niche, with relaxing gameplay, charming characters, and great music and sound design. You play as Sylvia, a young witch who has recently graduated from college with a degree in potion-making, taking over your uncle's defunct potion shop after his untimely demise. To be successful, you'll have to balance buying ingredients, brewing potions, upgrading your shop, haggling with customers, and winning mandatory weekly potion competitions. The game also heavily emphasizes befriending its ever-present side characters, as doing so grants substantial gameplay bonuses, without which the competition days are extremely difficult.

You also have the option to romance most of the side characters (if you're playing on "Free Love" mode, you can even date all of the dateable characters simultaneously). But there's no major gameplay benefit to doing so, and it doesn't even substantially change the interactions between Sylvia and her partner, so I think that aspect of the game could have used a bit more depth. (This is a bit of a recurring issue with Potionomics: there are many gameplay systems, and they synergize well, but none of them have much depth on their own.) But if nothing else, it's amusing to see Sylvia flirt with the different characters, who range from vanilla humans to more exotic ones like a humanoid moth, a deer-human hybrid, and a walrus-person.

I should mention that in contrast to many cozy games, Potionomics does have somewhat strict time and economic pressure, so if you find those things stressful, it may not be the game for you. That said, I found the game to be fairly easy on the normal difficulty mode, although there are a few traps you can run into. For one, upgrading your cauldrons and shelves (as opposed to just buying the highest tier available) is mostly a waste of money until you've purchased the highest tier of equipment, which you can't do until the last week. Fulfilling custom orders is also usually not worth the cost and difficulty of sourcing the required ingredients, because they have trait requirements which are very difficult/expensive to fulfill. It's better to just make as many as possible of whichever potion you can sell for the highest price. But the game auto saves every day, so if you ever get stuck you can just go back a few days and fix your mistakes.

The uneven difficulty curve is one of Potionomics' biggest issues. The early game is considerably more challenging than the late game. In the early game, you have fewer tools to work with and you haven't had time to build up savings, so you have to be more careful about where you invest your earnings. Moreover, the late game economy balance is a bit off; if you're playing well your profits will likely start drastically outscaling your costs in the fourth or fifth week.

Although I enjoyed Potionomics' gameplay loop overall, I did find it increasingly repetitive as I got further into the game, to the point that it sometimes felt tedious. There's no way to automate any of the steps of potion making, and while it's risky to give the player too much automation lest the game automate away what makes it fun, I wish that at least _some_ of the more repetitive activities, like buying the same ingredients day after day, could be streamlined. That said, by the final week, I had made so much money that I didn't need to brew or sell potions any more and I was able to spend the rest of my time advancing my relationships. But that made the lead up to the final competition feel very anti-climactic.

Nevertheless, Potionomics really stands out for its imaginative character designs and animations, great music and voice acting, and overall high level of polish. It strikes me as very earnest and heartfelt. The story, while predictable, is also fun. Potionomics is a charming take on the shop-simulation genre, with memorable characters and a variety of creative game mechanics. Its strong presentation and engaging world make it worth playing—especially if you enjoy cozy, character-driven experiences.

- Crow Souls
- More of a Zelda-like than a real Soulslike, but thematically and in terms of world design it's very reminiscent of Dark Souls.
- Creative character designs and fun dialog.
- Has a character called Pothead because he has a literal pot for head.
- Also has a giant squid puppeteering a human corpse so he can pretend to be a mammal.
- Combat is satisfying, but not very complex.
- There's no ability to heal during fights - only at planters. I feel like this limits how complex fights can be and how long they can go on for, which makes some of the bosses underwhelming.
- There's no penalty for death, which makes it just kind of an annoyance.
- The structure of each zone is always the same: find four souls to unlock a door that grants you a new spell, use the spell to get to the next area of the zone which leads to the boss room, fight the boss.
- I liked the theme of the story.

Overall, definitely worth playing.

This game is fun and well-designed, but unfortunately it has very few players, so don't expect to be able to play multiplayer unless you can convince friends to play with you. There's also not much community content to learn from. I'd love a build order guide, but I couldn't find one.

It seems like it didn't find much commercial success on Steam, and so the developer hasn't provided any major updates since release. And that's okay; the game is complete as-is, and I don't think developers are obligated to continue to provide post-launch updates when it's not financially viable. That said, the omission of achievements is a bit puzzling.

Overall, Dice Kingdoms is a fun distraction, but I wouldn't expect to get more than a few hours out of it if you don't have a group to play with.

I'm not a huge tower defense guy, but I really enjoy Emberward. Being able to build your own maze is fun, and building a good maze is just as important as choosing the right towers--maybe even more important. It's got a very good amount of content for an early access game, but I'm looking forward to more in future updates.

Pretty fun. Very difficult.

Overwatch at home

(Don’t get it twisted, Overwatch is also bad)

How the ♥♥♥♥ did this win most innovative gameplay? It’s not a terrible game, but it’s just a variation on a game that has been around since literally the 15th century. The fact that it’s made with (bad) AI voices and who knows what other AI content doesn’t help matters, either. The Russian roulette gimmick wears thin pretty quickly, too.

Tactical Breach Wizards is the best and most innovative turn-based strategy game that I've played since... well, maybe forever. Every stage presents a unique puzzle where the object is to find the optimal set of movements, abilities, and angles for defenestration to defeat the enemies as efficiently as possible. The emphasis on positioning and knockback abilities reminds me of Into the Breach, and I think anyone who enjoyed that would likely also enjoy Tactical Breach Wizards, although so far I have found the latter to be a much easier game, especially given the ability to rewind all of your actions within a turn, as many times as you like.

I also love the characters, writing, art style, music and sound design of Tactical Breach Wizards. If you like strategy games, I highly recommend it, especially at the currently discounted Winter Sale price of $15.99 USD.