Recent reviews by Pach

I don't normally like zombie survival games. 7 Days earned an exception,

First, it's a tough for the starting survival. Getting food and water that will not kill you is a challenge. Especially with the zombies out there.

But then... you have to be ready for Day 7, when the Horde comes. If you aren't ready... you die.

You gain in skills/power and defense ability. But so does that Horde. The game scales WITH you,so while you may do better... so will the zombies. And you get harder zombies as you skill/level up.

You have to BUILD and CRAFT defenses to beat the ever-strengthening Hordes...

And while this is a fun challenge solo... it's even better with friends!

A friend gifted this to me for Christmas, and I now have over 60 hours, and am enjoying it immensely.

This is a great city-builder, with an added twist: your city is on the back of an onbu, a walking creature--who may or may not trust you, depending on how you treat her! You have to guide your onbu's path to avoid hazards (or pick the lesser of two hazards) while building your city. And, you not only have to feed and keep your people healthy, but your onbu, too!

The game has multiple difficulty levels: some easier, and some harder (with options to make certain aspects harder still) for those who want a challenge.

Really nice game; no game-stopping bugs (which is always a good sign for me in an EA game).

And, hey, who doesn't like having a pet onbu?

Tentative approval here. And I would only recommend grabbing it on sale, not at the normal full price of something like $16 (American).

I bought this game on sale for $12. I finished it in a little over 9 hours. I generally expect to get at least 1 hour of play time for every dollar spent. This one was a tad short there, even at the sale price.

HOWEVER...

It's clear from all the decoration unlocks that base building/decorating is intended to be a larger portion of this game. I'm not really big on big bases and rarely decorate. So someone who IS into such things will probably get more time and enjoyment out of the game than I did, just building and playing around with the deco.

The gameplay is pretty simple to figure out and work through. I didn't run into any bugs or serious game issues. So the game itself is solidly built, and ran well.

I enjoyed the gameplay, but others might not, as the main gameplay loop is gathering of resources ("oh, I need X to do this upgrade? I don't have any X left... gotta go mine more...."), but it wasn't tedious or onerous, just a normal "you have to do some work to get this".

Overall, a decent game, if a bit short on gameplay.

Edit:

Immediately after writing this, I see there's already some updates planned for the game to enhance and extend it. Looking forward to seeing those.

A most WORTHY sequel to the original!

City build/defense, with research: similar to Dawn of Man (which I dearly love) but on an alien planet, where you first have to figure out what things are, then research what you can do with them. Picked this up, and haven't put it down for days! Great game!

Really promising Early Access game! Science is key! Scan things to learn about them, then research new technologies based on what you learned.

Oh, and you do this by flying around in a customizable airship. I love flying in any game I play, and this one, it's critical!

Really solid release (not a lot of bugs/issues)... can't wait for more updates!

I played a map that is supposed to have a tutorial, and start me off with some basic machines, and such. Nope. No tutorial (just the help menus), and no machines. There is a big floating ? that when I get close to it, takes me in to the help, which says I should be able to see filters on the map. Nope. No key to toggle any filters; I can only make the map bigger and smaller.

In other words, nothing in the game works like the in-game help says it does. Oh, sure the graphics are nice. But there's nothing here to get you started. Wasted an hour with this. Nothing shows how on earth I'm supposed to get started with anything, other than making my character look like a farmer.

Getting refunded.

This is getting refunded.

This is basically another zombie survival game, and it's not very well done and buggy (even allowing for being in Early Access). There is nothing that sets this off as "special" in the genre. With the bugs and some UI clunkiness, this is isn't really worth the time--your money is better spent on something like 7 Days, which at least has some uniqueness to it.

I didn't find a way to get water, other than food. So you run around, hoping that whatever food you pick up will have enough water in it it to keep you going. If there's another way to get water, it wasn't intuitive: I tried left/right clicking in water, and using the E key, but I guess you can't drink from the lake when you are standing in it.

A lot of things are not intuitive. You use a rock to get your first resources, but you have no clues what you can use the rock on, and what you can't. So you spend a lot of time waving your rock at things you can't interact with, that look like you should be able to. Most of the ground clutter is just that - clutter. You can't interact with things, unless they actually light up.

Oh, and be sure to bash apart another rock before your rock breaks: because you will need to make another bashing rock when the first one breaks. I eventually found some "rocks" on the ground, but long after my first rock broke.

A lot of the interface is clunky. I had troubles getting OUT of the building interface when I didn't have enough resources to build anything. I couldn't even equip my weapon, so that could have been deadly if I had run into something right then.

And the spawns are excessive. I spent more time making (and breaking) spears fighting the skeletons and zombies that magically appeared by my hut, one right after the other (even in daytime), than really doing anything else.

Final note: to make upgraded weapons, you need hemp. I couldn't find hemp. There were no clues how to get hemp, despite plants in the area, which my rock just waved at (eye candy, I guess?)

A lot of this I suspect will get fixed as the game goes through EA, but there's so many other zombie games out there, this one's just a wash.

Big thumbs up to Madruga Works:

They have only 2 games on Steam at this time, and I recommend BOTH.

Both games are what I would consider "challenging casual". There are challenges to overcome, but once you get the hang of them, the games are great for the casual player, who doesn't want to be severely punished for making mistakes. Most mistakes are recoverable, and learning experiences.

I don't think I've run into any bugs in EITHER game, which shows they were very careful about making sure the products they released were *ready* for release.

I originally picked up Dawn of Man, and after getting something like 300 hours in, tried out Planetbase. I'm thoroughly enjoying Planetbase as well.

Gameplay on both games is simple, and pretty easy to learn.

I'm enjoying both games, and recommend to anyone who likes city/base building games (of the same genre). I'll also be watching to see if Madruga makes anything else, because so far, they have shown consistently good products.

Big thumbs up to Madruga Works:

They have only 2 games on Steam at this time, and I recommend BOTH.

Both games are what I would consider "challenging casual". There are challenges to overcome, but once you get the hang of them, the games are great for the casual player, who doesn't want to be severely punished for making mistakes. Most mistakes are recoverable, and learning experiences.

I don't think I've run into any bugs in EITHER game, which shows they were very careful about making sure the products they released were *ready* for release.

I originally picked up Dawn of Man, and after getting something like 300 hours in, tried out Planetbase. I'm thoroughly enjoying Planetbase as well.

Gameplay on both games is simple, and pretty easy to learn.

I'm enjoying both games, and recommend to anyone who likes city/base building games (of the same genre). I'll also be watching to see if Madruga makes anything else, because so far, they have shown consistently good products.