Recent reviews by porridge

Roguelike action that you can take at your own pace seamlessly blended with colony manager. The ways in which the two game modes interact are just splendid. The cult theme does an amazing job of running through everything. Tons of content.
11/10, deserves the accolades it has collected.

I played the game something like 8 hours straight one time. It's alarmingly addictive. You continually unlock new aspects of the game, the way it progresses feels pretty good, but it also preys on that "just one more thing" feeling. Worth the money without a doubt, even though the loop is almost exploitative?

I really like this game. Building your own spaceships and flying them around in dog fights... *muah* chef's kiss of a space empire building game.

Highly recommend! 11/10 no doubt

At 5 hours, I'm having a lot of fun. The amount of different buildings you can make sets this city builder apart.
It is grid based, where some of my favorite builders have no grid. Even if you build roads, the citizens seem to just go "as the crow flies" instead of walking on my roads. And I can't build diagonally, so I can't even help them out. But that's a minor flaw. What I like about this the most right now is that it is fairly complex. I've lost maybe 3 times now, but I think I finally got a stable society. You have to figure out the game before you can effectively run a small village. I see a lot of replayability, and love the hand made maps.
This was well worth $20. Very polished and complex version of Banished is a good analogy. For some reason it seems more deep than Banished. Anyway, I'm going to go play some more now.

I don't play a lot of shooters, but this one just does it for me. I think it's the realism. Audio is top notch. Guns feel good and shooting them is a blast. Devs are continuing to release major updates. I was a little miffed that there was no night mode like in the first Insurgency, but they're adding that in June 2020.
I play on a self-hosted server a lot, and let me tell you, it was a beast to get going. Documentation at the time was completely absent. I like co-op, and never play pvp. The AI is pretty good, but not amazing. PvP is like most mp games, a grab bag with a lot of jerks.
I recommend this shooter if you want something realistic, but more approachable than something like ARMA. It's a great FPS, probably my favorite I've played. (Since HL_2 of course...)

Seems unlikely that I can add much at this point to the discussion, so I'll keep it brief:

Very fun game that is very much worth the $25 at full price. I would not blink at a $40 price tag. The reason? It looks like a simple game, and in fact is very approachable, but the underlying complexity is enormous. There are immense physics simulations going on that the community has built countless super-complicated contraptions to manipulate. (I said I was going to be brief...) One of the amazing aspects is that people will post on a forum some way to approach a problem, and several other people will have their own take on it. The sandboxy nature allows for endless creativity.

If you are into colony management even a little bit, this entry redefines the genre in my opinion. It is a foundational submission to the category.

Buy this, without a doubt.

I definitely recommend this game. This is the kind of game that defines an era, and spawns a sub-culture. When I first started playing, I lost days at a time. It's the kind of game you think about all day, and can't wait to come home to. I've found it hard to connect to characters in modern games, but I always grow fond of my pawns and their little quirks no matter how often I play through.

And replayability is enormous. I had the game prior to Steam, so my hours aren't accurate. I probably had 50 hours in this game the first week or two. That being said, there is still a good bit of content I haven't explored. You can fine tune and grow your colony for days on end, and things out of your control will still shape the narrative. In a good way.

The other half of this game is it's ability to craft a story while you play. The randomly generated descriptions for artwork are a true treat that I consider real art on its own.

I can't think of many negatives to bring to this review. The tech tree is a little uninspired. Combat is a little clunkly and unneccesarily challenging in some ways. There will be a few little things that frustrate you, but the positive aspects of this game far outweigh those.

If you enjoy strategy, city builders, management games, or anything remotely similar, there is no doubt in my mind that you should give this game a shot. It will change you. The price in alpha was $30 and never dropped once. I'm guessing that extra $5 is buffer for mandatory Steam sales. Well worth full price. No question.

FTL in my opinion was the standard-bearer for indie games when it was released. It epitomizes fun gameplay without needing a huge budget. It is nearly a perfect game.

FTL is one of my all-time favorite games. The music is amazing. Graphics are perfect. Gameplay is challening and unique. I doubt my review is the first you've read, so I won't take the time to discuss in detail, but I stake my reputation on this game.
11/11 There is no option but to buy.

I only have 5 hours in, but holy moly!

This game is very challenging. I haven't been stressed out by a game in a long time. Every decision can make or break you, and I don't mean the decisions the game presents. I mean like, should I mine steel or should I heal the sick? I was heartened by the fact that devs have a roadmap and are still releasing free content.

It's a great city builder, a lot of new mechanics in a genre I have exhausted. I'm always a step behind, frantically trying to figure out the next essential move, while the next difficulty looms.

Graphics are beautiful, although I wish you could zoom in just a touch more. Mechanics are sound, as I mentioned, taking the genre to the next level. Music could be expanded, it's a little stale already. But no real complaints yet.

I like this game a lot. Level of customization is huge, and different races each have a distinct feel to them. You start as a fighter and can eventually work up to creating ships that create ships that create more ships. A lot of fun, I'd say worth the $15 full price.