Recent reviews by Dragomok

If you're reading this, it means I've just done my final game of Tap Wizard 2,


Sure, it might not have the humour of Cookie Clicker, the grandiose lore of Idle Wizard, or the long-term strategic depth of Territory Idle or Unnamed Space Idle - but it's a quite good entry point into the idle genre or a nice low-upkeep game. And it does have some unique qualities.

TW2 has one of the best designed achievements in the idle genre I've ever seen - or games in general. Sure, in other games there are achievements that serve as grand goals or are the vehicle for great jokes, but I've rarely seen a game (let alone an idle one) where some achievements completely change your relationship with it. Era 2 achievements forced me to get intimate with game mechanics in a way I haven't done since 100%-ing Supergiant Games' Transistor. They were a journey and gave me a deeper understanding - and appreciation - of the game going forward.

(The) Gnorp Apologue recently left a bad aftertaste in my mouth, a flavour of a sad truth: a lot of idle games don't really end, but peter out. I decided I was done with Cookie Clicker when I was two "get X cookies" achievements short of 100% (before the Stock Market update dropped); getting all of the Space Mutations in Territory Idle would be an act of tedium and masochism; and that dang Time Bear never showed up in Tellurium's Wall Destroyer.

In contrast, TW2 has a very nice ending sequence that took me on a nice bit of a nostalgia trip, gave me narrative warm fuzzies (despite the rest of the plot being quite... lightweight), and served as a nice segue into a bite-sized post-game challenge that slightly helped to tidy up loose ends.

Division of the content into six Eras already worked very well back in Early Access, even though they were more spaced out due to not being done yet; so I imagine the pace will feel even better if you start now. Each Era gives you something nice and distinct, and refines the game further without adding much complexity.

And last but not least, there's a surprisingly engaging competetive element, split between long-term global ranking and intimate weekend tourneys. You'd think competetive gameplay in an idle game is a completely nonsense idea, a simple check of "who has the laptop open longer" - but you'd be DEAD WRONG for TW2. Despite not having a lot of time to nurse my runs, my knowledge of the game allowed me to craft builds and execute strategies that consistently landed me in the 1st place of the weekend tourneys - even before I hit the max progression.

there sure are more engaging idle games out there, but Tap Wizard 2 has some rare qualities that its "betters" are lacking, and it is a game you likely won't regret playing.

I don't think I'll ever bother to finish Loop Hero, and I don't think its particular gameplay fits me. Still, it's


that I think few people will regret playing even just a little bit, a gem that reminds me of the beauty of the medium, and a metaphorical flower that makes the world a richer place just by existing.

McPixel 3 is a


especially when it comes to humour.
Unfortunately, I've dilly-dallied with my review for so long, I mostly remember the ♥♥♥♥-kicks, ♥♥♥♥-punts, and the dog achievement.

But either way, it's also a no-walkthrough-needed adventure game with some both wild and mild action rides.

(the) Gnorp Apologue is a really well-made casual take on the idle game genre, a neat smirk-inducing toy of a game, beatable without too much AFKing or prestiging. However, there's...


...that leaves bad taste in my mouth - like if someone replaced the chocolate at the bottom of an increasingly flavourful ice cream cone with a compressed goat turd.

Which I'll explain right after this list off things you might think (t)GA handles poorly, but it handles well.

• Most (in-run or meta) upgrades are interesting sidegrades, small boons that synergize with specific boons, or big upgrades that also cut off some synergies.
  
• ...which you can use to reasonably turn any building into your centerpiece "workhorse", both on the production and the collection side.
  
• Lack of offline progression doesn't matter, since the pace of meaningful choices is almost fast enough for live play.
  
• There's a full-proof safeguard against accidentally missing Story Events (or rather the Story Event).

So, That One Bad Thing is that (the) Gnorp Apologue...
After I looked up the word "apologue" (a moral fable in general, or a story where narrative logic is sacrificed for the heavy-handedness of the moral in specific), I expected the ending to be a delightful subversion, a sucker punch, or the best joke reserved for the finale.

But nothing like that happens.

Instead, (t)GA plays a straightforward escalation and immediately ends.

Call me a Knight Radiant the way I enjoyed the journey before the destination enough to leave a positive review, but I was THIS CLOSE to leaving a negative one out of sheer disappointment.

I can only hope there will be a patch called (the) Gnorp Apology that adds a proper ending one day.

This DLC features obviously very chunky and rectangular looks, but what's not-so-obvious is that it's essential for


particularly for Leadstorm Minigun, since it covers and visually unifies the barrels.

So far, this DLC contains the best armor to


among all armor options across the base game and the DLCs.
(It might become second-best when Season 5 releases Mk6 armors, but oh well.)

The armors work extremely well for rough-looking


and is arguably the best armor in the game to go with base game's cosmetics based on prosthetics and battle scarring, like Dreadful Cyborg headwear and Neck Guard "beard".

On Driller, if you combine the base-game Intricate Carver paintjob with this DLC's Biohazard armor, you'll get


since the "danger stripes" pattern goes onto the gloves (and also boots), and obviously completes the Tool of Destruction weapon paintjob.

Fractured Online is an interesting spin on a classic MMORPG with a pleasant community (NIKE seems like a great guild).
Unfortunately, the game flounders in execution in many places to appeal to the MMO crowd, and flies too close to the formula (and repeats many problems I have with the genre) to appeal to the non-MMO crowd.

In FO, it seems like everything is nudging you towards a "pick everything up" approach to items:

1. There are SO MANY items: a boatload of crafting materials; four gems with three cuts each; so many types of meat, the game needs a scrollbar to show them all...
   
2. ...and, crucially, a staggering amount of reagents containing different combinations of whooping 38 elements, all of which are potentially important and needed in bulk for three-and-counting different progression systems.
   
3. Many important items drop from plants and mobs that are rare and unevenly scattered all over the place, enticing you to always get them if you run into any.
   
4. Camps guarding treasure chests spawn randomly in unpredictable spaces all over the map, offering good loot if you take a small detour.
   
5. And since there are absolutely no NPC sellers or buyers, it seems like you should hold onto non-essential drops so you can sell them to other players.

And yet, despite of all that, the inventory is a tiny grid not able to deal with the deluge of all the items.
There's not enough inventory to contain all the items from a casual stroll down a road, two towns over, within a single CR biome, while discarding "obvious trash" items like hides and meat. Nor is there enough inventory for a trip to a nearby mine, when you intentionally only pick up valuable or needed items. There's almost enough space for going to a single Combat Hotspot while ignoring everything along the way - but then again, I had to discard valuable items there too. And gods forbid if you have the gall to take on chest camps along the way.

Between the constant upkeep of gear, house rent, and monsters rewarding you only in loot after you "master" them, it feels horrible to throw away items you need and want. This killed my enjoyment of both an MMORPG staple of free roams of exploration (since it's a waste compared to single-task laser-focused approach), mining (since a roadtrip without diversions is just a long commute), and being a trader (since it's hard to fulfill buy orders if you can't carry loot for yourself).

Annoyingly enough, FO also has a much more sensibly balanced weight limit system. It's completely beyond me why Dynamight feels they need such a tiny grid limit on top of that.

Big part of FO is manual labour: quarrying stone, ferrying logs, building houses, packing wheat, and stuffing smelters with ore and coal. Sadly, this straddles the line between "honest day of work" and "mind-boggling tedium".

While chopping wood, hammering ROCK AND STONE! or USELESS CRYSTAL, BUT FUN TO DESTROY!, and loading up the wagon is fun, unloading all of that is pain. Even if you optimise the process, you need to click the item in your wagon's inventory, wait a beat for your char to pick it up, click on the receiving structure, wait a beat for your char to deposit - and then repeat that 20 times to build a single furnace. Or 32 times to build a single charcoal pile that every village builds by the dozens, but also every 8 logs your char needs to build it up, and you can screw it up by routinely picking up one log too many.
And for farming, it's the reverse: both planting and harvesting a single plot of land requires several clicks through menus, of which even a tiny village has dozens - but packing up and unloading the produce is a smooth single-click activity.

FO has two halves of a good system, but they're attached to separate things.

Last but not least, FO suffers from many of the standard MMORPG maladies. While mobs feel slightly more alive than the genre average, they still stand in the place all day, they have tiny tither making ranged combat difficult, and appear in the same exact places (and spawn into existence like GMod props; you can almost hear a popping VX). Chest camps ammeliorate that, but like I said, the itemization discourages doing with them. You're supposed to fight them one-on-one or in pre-determined tiny groups. The game is a lonely singleplayer experience until you reach the endgame or go basically out of the game to organise a group, since the game doesn't funnel strangers together and doesn't incentivise transient jolly co-operation, and a veteran has little reason to be in the noob area.

While PvP is not my cup of tea, I almost wish they went with the Hardcore PvP planet before the PvE-Only planet, since the PvE is not particularly improved and might work better as the backdrop for ganking and invasions.

if you can ignore all of these, you might find an enjoyable game. A handful of dedicated players certainly do. I couldn't, and won't pick up Fractured Online again.

Aside from finding out my demi-sexual butt is having difficulty handling a dating sim...

...the combat starts out much, much more difficult than Supergiant Games' Hades. At the start, I have constitution of a wet tissue, and enemies and projectile move faster than I can reasonably react - so much so that I'm not sure whether the first "ambush" after meeting Sunder in the tutorial was supposed to be a near-impossible "meant to lose" situation, or I just suck so much.