kumipuukko の最近のレビュー

After 4 years of no updates/patches, doing one only to push ads in the launcher (and apparently breaking it while doing that change)... Yep, its time for a thumbs down, and an uninstall. Done.
I wish there was a thumbs (down) button for the whole publisher...
(If someone wants to comment about that review should be for the game... well, I usually consider the launcher to be part of the game, and as long as there is no separate feedback for the publisher, this will have to do.)

For the tiny bit of "review" on the game itself: it is somewhat entertaining (but imho some of the earlier ones were better), but the reputation system is totally nonsense ("war mongering" after taking couple cities from couple countries that attacked me first), especially when in the end it seems to affect a human player more than AI's. Makes the game play very unenjoyable in the latter parts of the game, when wars would be the remaining activity, especially in plays where domination is the way to win.

Interesting combination of survival/management/building and horror. Especially after learning the environment a bit and how to control the horror part. Or, well, until hearing them again, too close...

The game being in early access, I was expecting, and found some issues. But for me, nothing major so far; that is, at worst, loaded a save game and did things again or differently as a workaround has been enough, and I haven't needed that often (except when learning the limitations of building things, as many things with it can not be undone "cleanly").

Very cautious recommend... and then only when it is at a decent bargain price.

Note, I have only played single-player.

Shorter version:
"Civ"-type game players should feel almost at home, nice graphics, very stable (with apparently a minor memory leak), UI has its good and bad sides (still usable), some nice game design choices, some bad game design choices, some bugs (e.g. quests getting into unfinishable state). Certainly entertaining for a while, but can become ragequit-annoying when noticing at turn 284 that the game had gone to to-be-stuck quest path at turn 40.


Longer version:

The game certainly has nice graphics, and first game for me that can do resolution and windowed vs. fullscreen mode switches the way it should be done, with absolutely no hiccups or blinking, at any time. But then again, all the nice graphics details makes the view sometimes quite cluttered, making difficult to spot important things.

It obviously draws a lot from older "civ"-style games, but has thrown in plenty of its own things, too. Some of those of own things are interesting and make good game play experience, but some of the game design choices are pretty bad. Most of the bad ones can be mostly ignored or worked around, once you learn about them. For example, the battles are fought in a very limited area (and also limited time), and this has made it necessary to have quite low movement speeds and attack ranges, which leads (during early game and/or with small armies) to a balance where ranged units basically just get one extra attack in the begin. Sometimes not even that. This makes e.g. the Vaulters early game a bit more challenging.

But do note that some of the bad design choices can not be avoided or worked around by the player, giving occasional annoyances during otherwise decent gameplay. For example, while it is turn based, movement happens simultaneously, leading to quite hectic moments at the start of turns when all players move their units, trying to catch/flee/maneuver with enemies at multiple fronts... and then the game throws a huge popup about this or that just when you were trying to make that crucially timed unit move. (Popups can be toggled off, but still, they should have been defaulted to off, or have small popups on the side, or whatnot.)

The gameplay is somewhat slow, and I am not referring to me playing at the slowest mode. However, the game's design leads to quite reduced number of units/armies and cities to be manipulated, so it balances out to roughly something comparable to civ games. Point being, with a bit of UI-related tuning, the game could play quite a bit faster, too.


Some things are explained very unclearly to the player, leaving him/her wondering what is exactly needed by a quest, or what exact effect will something have. If one turns out to like this game and plays it many times through, those unclear things will be learned, and naturally things get easier on this regard.

The UI also lacks some rather obvious needs for e.g. tooltips, or ability to open the tooltip in a way that allows checking further information for the tooltip's data. For example, seeing a colored region, i.e. some player has control of it, I have not found a way to figure out which player it is, other than comparing the color to the colors seen in diplomacy screen. No tooltips, no hover info, no clickable things to reveal who/what that other player is quickly on the main view.

The UI and some texts should get/have gotten a few week more of massaging, but since it has been over two years after release and it hasn't been done yet, I'm not expecting this part to get ever better.


Game has been very stable (no crashes or other glitches), but it does have its bugs, both in game logic and at lower level.

Apparently it has some kind of memory leak, looking at the game's memory usage growing from 3.5GB to 6GB in less than hour, though usually it grows much more slowly. Luckily, I have plenty RAM so I can keep playing and just occasionally restart. Also, certain game events can make the UI very laggy, but it solves itself after handling those events.

The game design flaws on the other hand can be quite the showstoppers, like Vaulter main quest having bugs that can leave the quest stuck/unfinishable. And apparently it is even somewhat old known bug (at least judging from google results), so...

I will likely (barely) enjoy this game for one playthrough this time, and will possibly return in few months for another round, and that will be it. (So, it will be likely worth the lower discounted price I paid.)

Starts easy, grows gradually more difficult, just like most puzzle/logic games like this.

But then it just jumps right into the complex dimension, throwing setups that seem impossible at first, having to (ab|re)use modules on each other in really unexpected ways and tweaking timings carefully. And seems I'm just about half way through...

I like a lot.

Somewhat easy and short (solved them all before getting the second card, had to leave it running idle to get the remaining cards). But still very nice puzzle/logic game and well worth its cheap price.

Some bad stuff:

• Making certain desired roads, crossroads and high speed connections - utterly frustrating, if not impossible.
  
• Trying to find even medium level useful statistics that would allow making correct choices for adjusting certain services - utterly impossible.
  
• Aligning anything underground correctly - same as making the crossroads - utterly frustating.
  
• Correctly or even somewhat realistically working water physics - not in this game.
  
• Arranging public transportation to work efficiently - impossible.
  
• Trying to get traffic to use lanes even half smartly - apparently needs mods.
  
• Trying to create a dam to the desired height - either impossible or nearly impossible, or about hour of trial and error if lucky with the nearby map.
  
• "Chirper" - Probably the worst idea in any game, ever. Also, probably included while knowing that.

All above and even more some negatives in effect, the good stuff outweights the bad stuff many times over. I had to do some mental exercises to stop playing until some longer holiday with plenty of free time, it is way too addicting.

I will not list the good stuff, there is just too much of it. Lets just say, this game is in my all time top 10. More games should be made the way this game was made (except for the chirper idea).

Was fun for a while, but yes, the combination of bad AI and even worse pathing, and some other issues, I ended up having to baby-sit and/or micromanage each unit (including the carrier's weapons) to keep things alive and get things done. And since things in this game happens fast (well, not in the CS-like fast) and simultaneously, it is a nightmare at times.

Of the other issues, I could mention how weirdly the interaction between map-level unit commands and in-vehicle control works: I typically did the final approach or attack setup manually to get the much needed sanity to it.. Alas, the previous map-level command often was left lingering (without clear sign of that fact), and after I left the vehicle controls, it started to go for its previous commands. The method of adjusting those commands wasn't really that helpful, even if it is one of things sort of advertised as easy.

Sometimes the map/radar/whatnot was showing ground defense point, when it actually was doing air defense, and vice versa. And the air defense points can drop a flier very quickly. I.e. in AI control, its a suicide. One has to approach in manual control and be ready to back away if it reveals to be air defense. The ground vehicles are better in scouting in this sense, they can take the beating, but they suffer badly from the pathing, so it is still manual control. (Note, the fliers are affected by the pathing issues, too, even if they seemingly should be able to ignore ground obstacles. That shows how bad the AI and pathing is.)

As a hint for others who still want to try this game (buy it only while it is super-cheap): I mostly drove the ground vehicles as "backups" to various strategic points, left them there, then took one flying vehicle for manual control, cleared some defenses, and then ordered the rest of the fliers to assist. That worked for the best effect/time ratio for most cases, and the least frustration about the AI/pathing issues.

Also, I could never figure out how to affect, or even if it is possible to affect, the defense levels of islands (after been conquered). They apparently have some level, but since showing that level was also bugged in the map, no idea which island was semi-ready to welcome the enemy and which one was not. Though what I have read elsewhere, seem no island will ever be a significant threat, or even significant slow down for the enemy... So, no "strategy" from there.

The game had a lot of potential, but all those pretty simple to fix bugs and design flaws makes it flop. Well, AI can be difficult to get good, but even fixing the pathing to a working, even if not optimized, level would help a lot.