Recent reviews by Juniper Seed

UPDATE: A huge new patch has come out that changed unit AI, enemy AI, and added some extra control. Now your units will effectively kite enemies, depending on their loadout. Enemies will also aggro onto your units instead of incessantly b-lining for your base. Enemies are much faster, and speed upgrades are of the utmost importance. In addition, you may now choose to have your units hold position. You can have as many (up to the 15 unit cap) of your units hold position as you'd like. So you can have a whole troop of your creations create an Alamo situation at your base. It's pretty amazing. Spells have also been buffed across the board. It's a lot to take in, but it's a HUGE step in the right direction!

I can't go through the review and edit everything to adhere to this update at the moment, please apply this information accordingly as you go through the review. Sorry!
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Pretty great title. Surprising amount of length/depth for the price. There are some amazing moments, but there are a few drawbacks with the current build that I think will really upset certain players.


The great parts of this game are discovering everything there is to offer, seeing how each of the parts work, discovering special recipes that have unique bonuses, upgrading your meta progression for pretty substantial gains, and exploring the map to progress the main (and only) quest. It's quite a romp to toy and tinker will all the different kinds of monsters that you can create.

Your creations will go about on their own and lay waste to enemies, collect resources, and traverse the map. You can control a single unit at a time and direct where you want them to go and/or use them to fight/kite enemies/destroy enemy bases/collect resources.

Each part that you find/use to make your creations have different properties. While stats are among the properties, many parts have an associated skill/attack. It's fun to try them all out and put together combos when building your units.

There is a suite of spells that are at your disposal. These offer an AoE healing, AoE nuke, AoE "town portal" to recall a group of your creations for base defense, an automated resource collector, and a (pretty useless) base defense that damages its surrounding enemies. They're useful and somewhat fun, but generally you'll only send out the resource collector and use the others sparingly.


Currently, as you progress towards the mid-game, you'll find that spawning and controlling a single unit is the optimal way to play. Don't get me wrong, there are fringe scenarios where making an army of wildly creative monsters is good, but those scenarios are very few and far between.

Moving towards the mid/end-game will offer a big jump in power. The parts to construct your units become pretty insane. It's very fun to tinker and try everything out. However, eventually you will determine which combinations of parts are the strongest and simply never use any of the other ones. And you will have myriads of parts. It makes creating unique monsters sort of a moot point, wherein defaulting to some uber-gosu combo is strictly better.

Currently your monsters tend to kill themselves ad nauseum, even with all the upgrades maxed out. It can be disheartening to create a legion of demons and angels and mechs and so forth, only to have them all an hero within the first few seconds of spawning.

Because you cannot control more than a single creation at a time, there is no RTS-style element to this game. While you can meticulously control a group of units, it eventually becomes overwhelmingly tedious and difficult. It's better to use a single unit or let your d00ds do their own thing. If you're looking for control, you're not in the right place.

If you have romanticized the idea of using certain creations that are among the early-tier parts, you'll be saddened to know that they'll all be useless in the late-game. Skelly's, Orc's, Vampire's, Treant's, and others have no place in the current end-game army mixture. Some of their abilities are really fun so it's a shame to see them become outdated, sometimes within just several minutes of first obtaining them.


I think it's quite worth it. As you can see, I've already played ~12 hours. It's pretty engrossing. Granted, to make serious progress you will end up cheesing the systems at play, but they are still very fun to play and tinker with. With a few QoL updates and some balance passes this game is going to be a freakin' knockout!

I have a more detailed post on the discussion forum that outlines things I'd like to see changed/updated. If you're unsure of the cons that I listed above, you may want to seek out the post and see if my personal gripes are things that would dissuade you or not.

The best dice-focused roguelite you've never heard of!

I got my steam key from already having purchased the game on itch.io.

I've had this game for a little over a year now, and it's grown so much in that time! This is the only dice-focused roguelite that I've liked! The way that you can build your dice (in lieu of a deck) as you go through your run is insanely awesome!

Here's how it works. You start a run with two six-sided die. Each face of the die will have different properties, such as dealing damage, restoring health, or gaining armor (block) for the current turn. There are many more intricate die faces, but that's the general idea. You have the option to keep your die, or reroll for faces that you'd rather have. Once you keep your die, you use what faces you've rolled and end the turn.

Runs are short, wave-based, sessions. Each wave lasts for X amount of turns and you must try to defeat all enemies in a wave before the turns run out. Make it through to the final wave to win your run.

There are tons of characters, abilities, and gear to unlock as you play. You truly feel a grand sense of progression as you delve deeper into the game. The best part is that your progression is tied solely to your accomplishments, and not some random currency that you just amass over repeated runs.

Skill and creativity is greatly rewarded! It's worth it to really take in the systems at play and learn how to push the boundaries of your builds. It's so much fun to learn all the ins and outs of the game, and all the mechanics are unlocked one-by-one as you play (well, sometimes a handful at once). So, you never feel too overwhelmed with new information.

Even if you forget how something works, EVERYTHING has wonderfully detailed mouse-over descriptions. Even if you haven't played in a long time you can come back and jump right in where you left off! The player is never chored with memorizing countless details, or needing to use a wiki/video tutorial for understanding of the game.

Circadian Dice is absolutely worth your time and money. This is one of the best hidden gems out there and I'm so glad to see it finally come to steam where it can, hopefully, get the mass recognition it deserves.

If you're even remotely interested in this game, buy it! Passing on this title would be doing yourself a disservice!

I've easily sank a good 50-100 hours into this title, and it's still an absolute riot to play! Simply fantastic!

This game is actually quite good. That might surprise you, because the little thumb above my review is pointing downwards. So let's get this out of the way. This game uses predatory psychological practices to manipulate you into spending money. There you have it.

Here are a few examples:

• One of the places to spend accrued, in-game, currency is located within the real-money shop. Thus, the user is conditioned to get used to entering the real-money shop, allowing curiosity to further manipulate the user into seeing what there is to offer.
  
• Offline progress is gated at four (4) hours. Unlimited offline progress is available behind a paywall.
  
• Every single time you interact with a feature that has a "bonus" available via a paywall, an additional popup is conveniently displayed alongside the feature you're currently interacting with, reminding you that you could be getting, for example, "2x the benefits" if you shell out some extra cash.
  
• There are paid pay-to-win/pay-to-progress-faster bonuses. One such bonus is offered during a "PVP tournament," thus preying on some users' competitive natures to manipulate them into spending money.
  
• There are in-game "events" that are directly focused on spending real money. AKA "sales," that prey upon FOMO (fear of missing out) and people feeling like they're "getting a deal."
  
• Some of the titles the player can acquire, that display alongside their name on the leaderboards, are things like 'Pay-to-win,' 'High Roller,' and 'Money Bags.' These attempt to normalize the idea of spending money and actually make it look attractive to flaunt a title attached to the concept of wealth, which is a big motivator for many users.
  
• Some bonuses that you can spend real money on only last for a certain amount of time.

It's DISGUSTING practices like these that have lead me to not recommend the game. Using psychological warfare against your users shouldn't be a normal part of the gaming industry, or any industry for that matter. With that in mind, I simply refuse to recommend this game, or elaborate on why I think the game is actually good. Only play this game if you have the discipline and wherewithal to not be manipulated by such terrible, scum-bag, psychological practices.

I actually would've given this game a glowing review, and have spent a little money to support it if it weren't for the developer's choice to implement such repulsive, slimy, and tactless psychological nonsense. Preying upon weak-willed individuals, or those with mental disorders is DISGUSTING.

If the developer would like to unlock my good review they can pay me $224.87, which is how much you'd be looking at spending if you bought out the premium shop, unlocked offline progress, and bought the highest amount of the rarest in-game currency (once). Granted, you could still spend unlimited money on even more of the rarest in-game currency, bonuses that only last for X amount of time, and bonuses in PVP tournaments (that only last for the duration of the tournament).

You want to put crap like this in your game? Then I'm writing you a crap review like this.

*drops mic*

Just the right amount of exploration, fun, frustration, humor, and pretentious ramblings.

TL;DR - If you can't afford another game in the genre, get started with Fray Fight.

So, I would consider myself a hardcore player of this emerging, Action Roguelite, genre. I wanted to see what a free (even though most are very cheap) game would offer in comparison to other titles. Honestly, I'm quite surprised at just how decent the game is.

Graphic fidelity is quite nice. Although, the framerate lock, which is turned on by default, makes the game feel awfully sluggish and stuttery. Turn off framerate lock! It's a much smoother and pleasing visual experience when the option is disabled.

Sound/Music is pretty meh. I turned the music off during my first run. Sound effects aren't awful but they're nothing you'll call your friends up to talk about.

Gameplay is just what you'd expect. Auto-shoot, avoid mobs, upgrade your abilities, and press onward. Get new characters and bolster your stats through meta-progression.

Although this is free, and allows you to buy meta-currency via a cash shop, it's literally pointless to buy the currency with real-world monies! This would, AT MOST, save you maybe 5 hours or so. You get over 100 souls, the meta-currency, per run. So far, unlocking the current offering of characters will take 8 runs. Unlocking all of the meta-progression I'm not sure about yet, as each subsequent purchase makes every other purchase more expensive. However, you can respec at any time for free.

Characters each start with their own special ability, although sometimes you can be offered the other characters' weapons as an upgrade during a run. Upgrades range from woefully underwhelming to extremely powerful. Experiment with different upgrades during your runs and figure out what's strongest.

As it stands currently, I completed most unlocks using the second starter character Hildr, upgrading Damage per monster killed per wave, crit chance, crit damage, and cooldown. Throwing in a couple new weapons/attacks here and there. It's pretty easy.

Mobs, although well made visually, are pretty damn boring. The only exception are spiders and gargoyles. Every mob just slowly walks at you. Spiders, on the other hand, will dance around you and slightly kite your character, while gargoyles have a particular lilt to their movement which promotes staying a little farther away from them. There are boss fights on every 10th wave that have their own models, animations, and attack patterns. For the genre, I think these are pretty great. Akin to 20 Minutes Till Dawn.

NOTABLE THINGS THIS GAME DOES COMPARED TO OTHERS IN THE GENRE:

- Instead of collecting EXP during a run, you collect money. Enemies come in waves, and every wave has a short timer. At the end of the timer you are shown a shop where you spend your money. I really liked this concept. It's a fresh take on powering up, compared to similar titles. Offers the player good decision-making conundrums and critical thinking/planning.

- One of the meta-progression upgrades is the ability to gain interest if you skip the end-of-wave shop. DOPE. Another interesting choice for the player to make. Gain power now, or forfeit the opportunity in order to gain even more power later. Although, I find this to be absolutely busted. It's strong.

- Unique boss fights.

- Cool art/design.

All in all, if you can't shell out $5, or less, for 20 Minutes Till Dawn, Nomad Survival, Vampire Survivors, or Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde, Fray Fight offers a great foray into the genre for no money whatsoever. It doesn't have the most insane upgrades/abilities like other titles, but it's still quite fun to hop in a do a few runs. And who knows, maybe updates down the line will offer a more expanded set of skill/attacks.

This is one of the first idle games that got worse the longer I played it. It also felt like the more I played it, the more idling became better than actually interacting with it.

I tend to check in on idle games at regular times, and sometimes I'll play actively for a while. Active play is basically pointless here. After 5 minutes there's nothing left to do. Checking in at regular times becomes increasingly more pointless as time goes on. I started to extend my time away from the game by double, and then triple, and now I don't even feel like bothering.

Godsbane idle turns into an idle game in which you will leave it by itself for a week (heck, maybe even longer), forget about it, and then notice it in your installed games and then not even feel motivated to check on your progress.

If this had a price I'd be astonished. Sadly, even for free the asking price is too much. You'll have a much better time playing Orb of Creation, Realm Grinder, NGU, Trimps, or similar.

Costs less than $100k+ a season to max out your character.

The only bad thing about this game is that it was out for three years before Steam ever recommended it to me. I'm absolutely thrilled with this title! It's a mega-hit.

Necesse scratches the itches of Terraria, Stardew Valley, Don't Starve, and Rimworld all at once.

Some of the best boss fights/boss animations I could've imagined in this visual style/style of game. Super open-ended/sandbox gameplay. There's so much to do, so much to explore, so much to discover, and so many QoL features that let you do it all without ever opening up a guide, watching a video, or any of that.

Sample gameplay looks like running off to a new island to fight a boss, or local enemies, for a quest, doing some resource gathering while you're there, getting distracted because you discovered some new aspect of the game, using a portal to go home and see what you can do with the new things you found, then forgetting about them altogether while you meticulously design an auto chest sorting system, design and build your settlement(s), and then round it all out with farming and fishing.

Peak gaming experience. I don't think I'm very far into the game yet, but it's already one of my most cherished titles.

Absolutely incredible game. I'm a huge fan of the emerging Roguelite Auto-Shooter genre and when Spirit Hunters finishes development it's going to be one of, if not, THE best of the bunch!

Like others in the genre, pick a character, a starting skill, and dive into a map to slay the Infinite Horde! Be weak at the start, acquire meta currencies during your run and use them to bolster your subsequent runs.

One of the best parts about this game is that you huge rewards for your investment. Leveling up the skill web is already highly lucrative, but down the line you'll be able to upgrade how the abilities function, not just their power/size. (Currently not in the game, as of the writing of this review)

Another one of the amazing features is the completely hand-drawn art. The visual fidelity of SH:IH is marvelous! On top of the beautiful eye-candy, gameplay is smooth as can be.

One of my personal favorite aspects of the game, as it works currently, is that the runs are 15 minutes long. Yet, in just those 15 minutes I end up feeling as powerful as I do in other titles that have twice the run-time.

The current roster of characters and selection of skills is already top-notch, with many more in the pipeline. The dev team is very small and self-funded. Even so, they're extremely active on the Steam forums, discord, and do Dev Streams. They have a clear vision of what they want the game to be, but still take in (and sometimes even implement) feedback from the community.

I've already put twice as much time into Spirit Hunters than I put into both Vampire Survivors and Nomad Survival combined.

This game is much earlier in development than the other mentioned games in the genre, but you can already tell that it's going to become one of the best games within the genre.

I really appreciate that Spirit Hunters makes you feel super powerful as you progress your run, but continues to offer a challenge the entire way through. I really hate that in other games in this genre that you can literally walk away from the game and still beat the level you're on. Spirit Hunters has a great selection of abilities than can combine into very powerful builds, but they've been carefully crafted so that you feel so overpowered that the game is suddenly boring. This may change as development continues, but I find this to be a very strong boon to the genre. AFK IMBA builds are the reason I stopped playing the other titles in this genre. (There's a reason Dark Souls is popular, it's hard. I think Spirit Hunters has got just the right balance of difficulty)

Another nice feature is the meta-progression, the skill web. Instead of just leveling up a stat in a box of stats, you traverse a skill web, like in Godsbane or PoE. There's a great sense of discovery as you traverse the web because you can't see it all from the start. This ends up pushing you to try out new builds/skills, and finding new things along the way that motivate you to press on and collect more resources.

I can't tell you how refreshing it is to play a game that doesn't hold your hand from start to finish and show you everything from the very beginning. I'm the type of gamer that, believe it or not, plays games BLIND. No guides, no wiki, no nothing, until I'm at the end-game and want to see if I've missed anything. Figuring stuff out and discovering all a game has to offer is just as much of an adventure as the gameplay itself. Spirit Hunters handles this aspect of the game quite well.

Not sure what else to say, the game is top-notch, and it's only going to get better with every update. New character and skill coming in the next week or two. In addition, on stream today they already hinted at the next, next, character, two new maps, and two new bosses. I absolutely can't wait!

Do yourself a favor and buy this game while it's still offered for such a low price. Skipping out on Spirit Hunters would be doing yourself a disservice as a gamer.

This game used to be awesome, but after it got picked up by Paradox it's drab. I can't even play anymore because of bugs that impede any progress whatsoever right at the very beginning of the game. The DLC's feel like slaps in the face. Given enough time, there will be $200-$500 worth of DLC just like there is for every other paradox game.