Recente recensies door Dragomok

Before we get to the review as-is, let's dispel a rumour:


but it is on a bit of a hiatus. Or development hell. I've made a reddit thread summarising actual facts and reliable statements, but the gist is a combination of the next update being a big monolothic packet and gniller (the author) suddenly suffering from something (if you squint and tilt your head and stroke your armchair) suspiciously reminiscent of feminine late-onset ADHD.


I'm going to say "yes (as long as you don't treat it as an idle game)". It is a glimpse into what idle games could look like if - instead of Cookie Clicker - the big hit was A Dark Room. Demo gives you a good impression of what's to come.

It is a really nice leisurely, unhurried adventure delivered via a medium of daily updates. It is very well paced, adds new surprising twists just as you get comfortable with the current mechanics but before you have a chance to be bored, gives you enough side objectives to strive for, and allows you to form actual strategies and plans that change as you progress through the game.

And, last but not least, unlike many of actual idle games, current set of 11 Chapters offers an actual closure and denouement. The bombastic finale works on both mechanical and narrative level, pays off some of optional objectives, and ends with a bang. Of course, it's not an actual ending, but it feels like a complete first entry of a book that ties everything up but leaves a clear "the adventure continues" sequel hook.
When you compare this to Tellurium's Wall Destroyer (the Time Bear never showed up), Territory Idle (your reward is... unimaginable grind with very little change), or (the) Gnorp Apologue (it's not an apologue), the difference is night and day.

Having said that, the biggest issue with the game is that it struggles to truely work as an idle game. It would be acceptable if that was only caused by the limitations inherent in the design; your progress stopping when you reach new content or because you haven't done a goal 8 times to be sure you don't "sleep through" the game is fine.
(Although it would be EXTREMELY APPRECIATED if we had an option to set just one single action that hasn't been automated yet to "attempt this after all automations have run until you die". When you've automated everything leading up to Gatekeeper Bandit Fight and you have no other, it just bloody silly to require you to manually confirm that yes, you want to fight this Gatekeeper Bandit just like you did for the last 10 runs. Please!)

Unfortunately, Increlution just straight up lacks some no-brainer idle features. It's not as bad as, say, Idle Stellar's demo (where the tedious grind only progresses when the game is running, while offline progress works only for short and trivial side stuff), but it is the worst part of the game.

First of all, every time you finish a run by dying, you need to manually start a new one. Combine this with how it's basically mechanically impossible for a run to last more than 30 minutes (you either die to a Death Clock or progress through all the content), and you start to see an issue. Start a run on an evening and come back on the morning? In 10 hours you did 0.5 hour of progress. Leave the game running in the background, and remember it after 4 hours of work? Still 0.5 hours of progress. Set up a new promising run, check in 30 minutes in? 2 minutes of progress, because you didn't account for lack of generational XP and died early.

Secondly, in order to get the full-but-still-truncated idle capability, you need to go to Esc > Game settings > Offline time and check Trigger in menus and Trigger in reincarnation screen, and then scroll down to Notifications and check Flash window on pause. These eliminate the most banal losses of progress and allow you to - assuming you keep the game open - cash in two runs instead of one, but it's still very little.

Thirdly, while you don't have a huge need for repeated grinds, there are couple of points in the current content where it'd be really nice to do some grinding through a fully-automated loop, with a near-guaranteed automatic death at the end (like, say, when you unlock the first set of goals for "the Last Skill"). If you left these running for, say, a week, you'd have some nice progress to smoothly pass through a difficulty speedbreaker, but the need to click through the same exact end result every hour defeats the point.

And last but not least, it seems the author is worried about the balance if players are allowed to just farm, which is... odd. There are still optional goals I'm unable to complete without noticeably gimping the rest of my run. Even if I could beat ever new challenge when Chapter 12 releases in 0.5s, I would still need to manually do everything 8 times to unlock automations and go several more through all the branching paths - and I'd still have a feeling of accomplishment thanks to all the grind I did and the 11 Chapters I did without grinding. And, of course, if you can't over-sow and then over-reap in an idle game, then WHAT'S THE POINT of making it an idle game?


Increlution is a fun, short romp that's going to be better if you don't get attached too much or try doing it too fast.

Even though


and I won't ever finish the base game, let alone play DLCs...

...Vampire Survivors is an excellent Achievements-based collect-a-thon, and a game that defined a new genre.

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.