Recent reviews by Juniper Seed

Better than TFT. 'Nuff said. Great game to play when you're not playing The Last Flame.

Phenomenal game. The amount of builds you can create are astronomical.

The game is a thousand times better than many other auto-battlers.

The best auto-battler that's ever been made. Hands down.

I think this is the beginning of an era. A new evolution of the idle genre. (the) Gnorp Apologue is a must-have. Absolutely phenomenal game.

Haven't played since Nov. 2022.

The game was already fantastic then, and holy heck did it get even better!

This isn't just a fantastic roguelike citybuilder. This is a phenomenal game. Period.

There are many intricately layered systems that come together to form one of the freshest, most original, and unique titles that's ever graced my game library.

I seldom leave reviews before I'm well-deep into a game. However, Against the Storm proves itself with such distinction, immediately out the gate, that I feel it's prudent to let others know just how fantastic this game is.

What an accomplishment for the developers. This is THE BEST game in this genre, bar none. Albeit niche, I couldn't fathom another title taking the crown from Against the Storm for years.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to fan the hearth. Stay dry out there, friends.

Gameplay is super fun. Builds are fun to make and design throughout the runs. Many different areas, paths, and enemies. Gives room for verticality, and exploration. Nice graphics and music. Overall a romp! Great time with a buddy. 8.5/10.

Every time I see Starfield in my library I think about how much I wish I bought Baldur's Gate 3 instead.

Starfield is soulless. It's the safest space epic that Bethesda could've imagined. It's the gaming equivalent of soft language, and HR dictating direction.

The HR responses to reviews are what this game is. Lifeless, vapid, and with zero consideration for the players.

The real people who will make this game good are modders that will get no living wage for their efforts. Bethesda should be paying them for even giving a fraction of their lives towards improving this game.

Tied with Nordic Ashes for the best character designs out of every single VS-like on the market. Really great metaprogression, too. Loaded with style and unique flair. If you like the genre, you owe it to yourself to buy this game!

UPDATE: If you want to pay for an Idle game, buy (the) Gnorp Apologue. This game doesn't get off the ground until you've invested a ludicrous amount of time. It's not engaging at all.

Not sold, yet. Will update as I understand the game more. Could be great for the right kind of player. Some other reviewers seem to love it, while others find it bland. I'm currently having mixed feelings. A few drawbacks I think are important to know are listed below.

It feels like a good to great idler. Though, after ~24 hours of actively checking on the game, it feels like all the good to great parts of the game are days away.

Overall, the game feels decent. It's very linear out the gate. You choose a race and starting base class, then get right into killing rats. The classic MMO/RPG experience. Gameplay consists of grinding a level of the tower the game takes place in, then moving up to higher echelons. It's simple and consistent.

There is a crafting element that you can also have running while you're off battling the denizens of the tower. I haven't yet seen its purpose, other than making money. I've used the crafting system to make two upgrades to my character's equipment over the course of the day.

Equipment is found, along with materials for crafting and other items, by slaying baddies and opening crates given as rewards (or from drops). In the early stages, there isn't anything exciting beyond numbers going up. There is only one kind of item for each gearslot to choose. You found or crafted your armor or weapon? That's the only one you use (as far as I can see, so far). The outlier here are rings, which you can equip two of (initially), and there are many kinds of rings that bolster various stats.

Basically, you grind a floor, move up, eventually fight a boss, and keep on keepin' on. Betwixt the grind, you start up some crafts, get some light upgrades, and take or turn in quests.

The game incorporates a shared stash, pets, a light party system, and meta upgrades.

Items can be swapped between characters, though I have yet to feel the want to make another character. I feel like this would only come after hundreds to thousands of hours. There is also an upgrade system that I think benefits all of your characters. The upgrades are things like bigger stash space, better respawn timers, faster crafting, more ring slots, and so on.

Pets appear to be rare drops that, if found, can assist you in your battles. Can't comment yet, as I haven't found anything.

The party system allows you to buy an additional party member to help with combat. The drawback is losing a percentage of your experience gain. As such, I cannot comment yet as I've been able to traverse the tower without serious issue, so far.

• Opening the game causes massive system lag on your PC, and it takes an obscenely long time. And that's just to open the launcher, not the game.
  
  
• Cannot resize the game, once open.
  
  
• Cannot resize the game, even in windowed mode.
  
  
• While the writing for the story and lore is fair, there are incessant typos and grammatical errors, For the amount of reading to do, though optional, it's tedious.
  
  
• IMPORTANT - Building your character feels vapid. The upgrades you get, though meaningful, go in a straight line. You buy upgrades from a list, and while you can choose the order in which you buy them, there is no exciting decision to be made. It's really just choosing what's appropriate at the time. There are no interesting systems to delve into, or paths to choose. It's literally just buy all the things, get stronk. Nothing meaningful in your decisions.
  
  Further, on this point, the characters themselves feel quite bland. Your character has an attack, and eventually gets an ability that has a chance to proc on attack. And that's it...
  
  After a while, it looks like you do get a second chance to proc ability. I'm unsure as to how much more exciting it makes combat, as of yet.
  
  I understand that, for an idle game, I'm still very early on, but holy crap there aren't a lot of hooks to keep you feeling thrilled. I'm looking forward to the later content, though I fear that some people will bow out and banish the game to the shadow realm long before reaching the exciting stuff.
  
  
• The DLC pricing is, in my opinion, grotesque. The extra character class is more than half the price of the game, and there's another character DLC on the way. There are 9 character classes in the base game, and I think pricing one additional class at more than the half of the base game is frankly outrageous. I would pay the $6.99 USD price if the DLC was for an entire new character type, complete with 3 subclasses. It's cool to see an additional party member become available in the character DLC's, but... why? Why not make a pack of new adventurers for your party that is its own DLC. Either way, the value doesn't match the price, to me, and I think it's absurd.
  
  On that front, without owning the DLC, I'm still getting random gear drops that are for the DLC class. So, I'm missing out on the chances for loot I can use, due to a class that I can't even play? That's disrespectful to the player. I shouldn't be being provoked to buy DLC. I should be so engaged with that game that I'm foaming at the mouth for more engagement, and thus buy the DLC because I can't get enough of a good thing.
  
  
• Lastly, like I mentioned in the foreword, I feel like I'm eons away from the real meat of the content. Hoping things really open up and become more exciting soon.

I'm enjoying things, but I'm also feeling some buyer's remorse. At this point, I'm going to continue on in hopes of getting to the "real game." I'm assuming that this title is much like some action RPGs, where you play the "tutorial" until you reach a state much further into the game where the content really opens up. Here's hoping.

As such, I will try to update this review if and when I reach that stage of the game.

Again, I'm not sure. I think there's something there. I bought it because of the swathe of updates and the content listed within the updates. It all looked very exciting to me. I just haven't seen any of the real juice, yet. If it's there, it might be worth it.

If you're into deeply layered systems, and more rich engagement (from the very start of the game), I would suggest playing Unnamed Space Idle (for free!), Orb of Creation, Magic Research, or Lootun.

The closest game from those would be Lootun. You have party members, make builds, and get lots of gear.

I'm not saying Tower Walker is intrinsically bad, hence the thumbs up, but I'm definitely not sold on it yet. Hoping to see the light after another day or two of fairly active play.

I can't believe this game is free!! Really incredible game.

Crafting your build during a run is thoughtful, and feels great.

The meta-progression is robust and multifaceted.

Seems like there are some secrets to uncover as well! Looking forward to all of it.