Recent reviews by Angin Malam

Botfest. Don't bother.

Daunting and overwhelming, but the concept is incredible. Take it slow, expect to fail a lot of times, and then enjoy the game.

I play this game offline more with my GOG copy.

In one sentence: Factorio is about automating everything.

I'd consider it genre defining and a good example of 'gamified learning'. It is, in some respects, less a gaming experience and more a skillset trainer. I honestly think my executive functioning, planning, and organizational skills were improved for having dedicated a good amount of time to Factorio.

You are not expected to jump in and build a fully optimized base with every feature from the get go. Factorio is great at giving you small problems to solve and sending you on your way, and the way every small problem builds into a larger solution over time is extremely satisfying.

Also, it's fun as hell and easy to set your own goals in.

Edited this sentence in 2024 to get the Steam Award badge.

Stardew Valley is a game where you get the best parts of old Harvest Moon games, a little of good ol' 2D Zelda combat, sprinkled bits of Animal Crossing, and heavily tuned by the love of its developer, which for the most part was just one brilliant person.

You can also tweak the game to better suit your pace and play style very easily with mods (the Android version can be modded too!).

Bought this on launch day at full price, and it was WAY well worth the price. And now on version 1.5.6, the game is much more polished and has way better quality of life features and more than it ever was.

edit: added some stuff so I can get 2022 Steam Awards badge for editing a review

Terraria is my first game on Steam. I bought it full price right after a Steam Sale (from an era where I had no idea about Steam sales), after years of pirating games. I didn't know what to expect, just looking for something relatively cheap for my first non-pirated game.

At first I didn't know how to progress and decided may be this game was not for me, but after hearing lots of good things about Terraria for around two years, I decided to revisit it and finally able to understand what's the fuss all about.

Terraria is a game that I feel really capitalized on the whole exploration and adventure feel of a sandbox game. A part that Minecraft didn't really focus on (I know it's not that much the two games actually have in common, but they are still comparatively similar with regards to other games). In Terraria you totally control your own pace, and lesser death penalties meant that you're more welcome to venture into difficult areas that you have a good chance of dieing in. Even better is that the game encourages you to try and get back there again so you can retrieve your fallen loot.

Terraria has a gazillion of content, but other than that, I think the best part of this game is feeling your character's progress. Getting access to cool skills and abilities as the game went on felt really awesome. The fact that the game scaled with you is also pretty great. Terraria also has several "ultimate" goals, if you don't want to just sandbox it.

I don't play multiplayer much, but I can feel they did a good job. Multiplayer feels fun since you can form a group of people sharing resources and specializing in abilities. In the early game it's fun choosing one person to be the tank and get health crystals while another gets all of the mana stars. That being said, it feels totally fine playing single player and you won't feel like you're missing out on much.

There are some things that bother me, though. Terraria has some focus on enemy drops in order to get materials. However, some of the drop rates are quite prohibitive and it can be annoying to get certain items with having an AFK farm. While these items are not required for progression in most cases, it's a little bothersome nonetheless.

Other than that, the game has pretty great replayablity, I have 100+ hours (far less than many other players) and still come back to the game and find something new. It sometimes goes on sale (not as often or as low as it used to be), but Terraria is totally worth full price for its amount of content.

*edited some gramatical errors, so I can get 2018 Steam Awards badge for editing a review