Recent reviews by ThePiachu

In short - if you hate FOMO, don't play this game.

I've been playing this game for years and it's getting a bit more insidious lately.

To start, it's a simple idle clicker game. Click, get points, buy things that get you more points, automate, etc. You simulate life on Earth from single cell organisms to singularity. On top of that, you have two other parallel idle modes, one focusing on dinosaurs and one on space. If that's all this game was, it would be perfectly fine. It's pretty generous with its premium currency and enjoyable enough.

But then you got the twice weekly events. They are timed and also encourage you to compete with other people to do the most. They are short idle games in their own right, from the evolution of mushrooms to philosophy.

But the events are pay to win, and also you can't really hope to win if you don't also run each of them. For the premium currency you can multiply your output by x4, and then each time you complete an event you get about +30% speed next time this event runs (with diminishing returns). So good luck trying to compete against people that get +300% speed x4, you will not get anywhere close to the top bracket to get the best rewards.

These events rely on FOMO so much. Don't miss our event, otherwise you won't get the +30% for next time! Keep on grinding! Never stop!

After over 2000 hours of running this game on my side monitor to click on it every X minues, I'm tired of this. I'm tired of games that force me to log in every day to keep on grinding. To heck with this!

The only winning move here is not to play.

An interesting game with a neat premise that falls short with its execution.

Planet Crafter is a game about terraforming a planet. You do this by building machines to make numbers go up. You explore the planet to find more resources to help you build better machines that make numbers go up faster. What you get for your numbers getting big enough is tech unlocks that make your numbers go faster and only a handful of meaningful changes.

One, you melt some glaciers, two some passages open up due to foliage growing, three you get easier access to oxygen and water and that's about it.

Strip away "number go up" parts and you're left with a bit dated graphics, slightly janky movement, passable exploration and base building.

It's a pretty neat indie game, but by 10ish hours in you will start to get bored and the game will start feeling repetitive. You have about 20-30 more hours to go to complete the game...

The game is an interesting metroidvania where you slowly unlock more areas of the map not only by getting new gear, but also by learning new things you can do with your gear.

It is also a deep rabbit hole of hidden stuff you can get into even after finishing the game... Kind of wish it was a bit less obtuse in places and helped you complete more of it rather than making you reliant on guides...

Duck Detective is a cute detective game with a charming artstyle and good voice acting, albeit it falls on the short side. 2.5 hours and you're pretty much done, a bit more if you get stuck.

The game is a bit similar to the Golden Idol - you gather word clues, examine evidence and piece together what happened by filling in a description with blanked out words.

Story-wise, it has a good number of reveals, twists and turns for how short the game is.

As for how good a detective game it is, it could be better. It's easy enough to not notice some clues, you can't revisit all the dialogue, some "deducktions" you fill in are leading, and other times you can get quite stumped. But at the end of the game you can feel a bit smart for figuring out the final reveals of what is really going on...

So it's a recommend if you don't mind a short game.

A funny enough game idea, but it wears its premise thin before it expects you to stop. 28 hours to 100% the game that stops being amusing about 3 hours in. Hopefully some updates or rebalances will make it less of a chore...

Full priced game with microtransactions and too many currencies, plus the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ PSN fiasco. Do not recommend.

Stonks is a japan stock market simulator game. Buy low, sell high, enjoy your dividends and spend that on a nicer house to live in and a fancier car to drive. You can get into some shady dealings with Yakuza, do some insider trading, start your own company, etc.

That being said, I'm not sure what is the good strategy to take with this game other than "listen to gossip, it's right more than it is wrong". A lot of it feels random and if it wasn't for dividends you can get from various companies I'd never know when to sell since the stocks can keep going up and up...

Starting your own company is also weird - I had 100% of the shares and yet the stock had a price on the market, and when I sold some but still owned the majority of it the board kicked me out without any questions.

The social mechanics of the game are also vestigial, hanging out with people is slow and cumbersome and you don't get that many benefits out of it it seems...

So yeah, good for a few hours, but could be better...

Rizia is a great expansion of the base Suzerain game. This time you get to play a monarch, needing to balance your income, energy production, military buildup and even marrying off your daughter on top of the usual international politics and backroom deals!

That being said, the game feels easier than the base Suzerain. It's not that hard to keep all the noble houses and the populace happy when you can extract copious amounts of natural gas from your fields and sell it for a lot of money. Same with international politics - in Suzerain you struggled to find any allies or friendly nations that didn't want to use your land for their gains, while in Rizia you can basically keep on everyone's good sides and you hold a lot of bargaining chips.

It's still a pretty good expansion for what it's worth, I enjoyed my time with it and couldn't get enough of it!

Suzerain is a great political narrative game. You get to engage with the realities of politics - backroom deals, posturing, keeping your cabinet happy, keeping your family safe, etc.

The scenario you are thrust into is a dire one - your country is deep in recession, surrounded by unfriendly superpowers at all sides, and everyone judging you whether you lean communist or capitalist.

Like Papers Please, but built on a first person shooter engine. Check papers, check the cars, follow new rules and guidelines, earn enough money to upgrade your security checkpoint, sometimes have shootouts with people and car chases.

Overall, it gets a bit fiddly at times. Wanted posters may look like two people due to engine limitations and you have to check who is wearing the right shirt. Enemies despawn after a shootout so you can't collect their guns and ammo and you might be left with barely anything of your own. Cars handle a bit stiffly. Your tools have durability for really no reason. Checking details of specific governments, like what colour paper they use is just tedium.

So it's kind of a mixed bag leaning on the positive side of a recommendation. Didn't wow me, but some people might enjoy it despite its jank.