Recent reviews by CryonicSuspension

An interesting puzzle game, that reminded me of trying to solve a 1980's Rubik's cube - you end up thinking very three dimensionally.

Not for me. Got bored after 30 minutes - halfway through the demo tutorial.

Play the free demo that just released.

I spent 3 hours trying to solo a beginner map ( Ashen - City Ruins ). I died 20+ times and extracted: 0 times. In the span of 3 hours, I did not find one drop of water. The learning curve was like a vertical cliff. I partnered up with a random; he knew where the water was hidden on the map. We tried to run to the extraction and we were one-shot by something with a heavy laser.

I joined another group with someone who was using a silencer on his weapon, I managed to get almost 4 days of water. That's when I knew that this game is for the ManBearPig gamers.

This game really captures the, "Hobo in Terminator Land" feeling.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/

This review is for Early Access game version:
0.1.38217.0

This game makes me really happy when I play it! It's definitely shifting those dopamine levers in my brain.

In 1998, during the golden era of PC gaming, Sierra Studios released a city builder named "Caesar III". I've been patiently waiting for someone to create a worthy successor. I played the Citadelum demo during a Steam festival, so I knew that this game was fantastic.

The supply chain in Citadelum is slightly deeper - having a fishing hut isn't enough to supply fish to your populace, you also need to build a fishmonger ( to turn the fish into fillets ). The same idea exists with a pig farm - you need a butchery, to carve up the piggy-wigs. You need a winery, to turn grapes from a farm, into an alcoholic beverage.

There are a lot of food types, and you have to meet the needs of both the lower and upper classes.

You need to explore surrounding lands, in order to open up possible trade routes.

There are about 10 missions in the campaign, with another 9 or so workshop map scenarios, created by players.

I'm trying to pace myself, and complete a map a day, in order to revel in the content.

I may or may not update this review, since it is a first impressions review.

Fun for a couple of hours, but I noticed that my interest dropped like a rock at the 3.5 hour mark, because I had seen everything ( take a look at how many reviews are written during the 2 - 3.5 hour mark ). I have no idea why anyone would play past this point, because there is simply not enough content.

You run a newspaper company, during the 1930's American prohibition era. You hire journalists, that specialize in differing areas such as: crime; economy; entertainment; politics; sport. Once you have a staff of journalists, you send them out to cover stories. They seem to spend the vast majority of their time researching the story, and then you have to hurry them up, to get them to finish writing the story within a couple of days, because of the looming print deadline ( they take forever to finish in-depth exposés ).

This is like a $3 game masquerading as a $20 game. I highly recommend playing the upcoming Weappy Studios game titled "Hollywood Animal", and if you do decide to buy "News Tower", only buy it on a super deep discount!

I wish that I had downloaded the demo, because there is no way in hell that this game is "overwhelmingly positive". I can't even imagine playing the finished game...

If the game is so great, then explain this graph:

12th Feb 2024: 1,156 players
26th Feb 2024: 202 players

https://steamdb.info/app/1649950/charts/#max

- Buy low, sell high.

- The world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, reminiscent of "Fallout" 1 and 2.

- Main and side quest RPG.

- The writing and random encounters are entertaining. A tonne of crafting ( the truck alone has 10 upgrade slots ) - there's a catalogue of weapons and clothing. Deeper into the game, there's even a wagon / trailer that can be added.

- Cooking is interesting ( you figure out cooking recipes by experimenting with different ingredients ).

- Characters have stats and random traits ( some quirky - not everyone is compatible. It takes a bit of work and experimentation, to form a cohesive team ).

- There are four seasons ( dust storms, rain and snowstorms ). There are terrain modifiers, which will slow the truck down, such as swampland.

- Your truck has encumberance ( which affects drive speed ), overheating and underheating, and the cabin has comfort levels.

- There looks to be multiple maps. The developers spent a lot of time play testing and balancing the game.

- The game is still in development because there are "road builder buildings" where the description reads "coming soon" ( I'm guessing that you might be able to build special roads between cities, like in the game "Civilisation".

- There's definitely a "one-more-turn" addiction for roughly 30 hours, but once I almost fully kitted out four people with basic shotguns, very little can really touch me in combat ( I would have to really badly mess up my game ) so combat went from being scary and intimidating to being a *shrug* whatever event. I find myself questioning whether I need to further upgrade my truck and team's gear, so I started getting bored, and switched from deliveries to trying to speedrun the main questline.

- The cheap $10 CDN price is a steal.

- I'll write more once I finish the game, if I feel the need.

Fun for a few hours, but gets repetitive. I get the most enjoyment out of spectating matches, and betting on the outcome.

I got engrossed in the game after watching Grubby play:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjjbctX7s04

July 15, 2024 edit ( after 41 hours of mostly spectating, and playing two games a day ):

The plan was originally for the game to go free to play ( the game features paid cosmetics: avatars; chat emoticons; unit skins ). I just read that based on community feedback and publisher feedback, it will stay buy-to-play and will not be going F2P.

As an analogy, the game plays similar to chess: imagine starting with a blank chess board, each player adds a piece or two to the board. It starts out innocuous, with a couple of pawns here or there. The next round, one player might add a bishop, where another adds a knight. Then one player adds a rook, but the other plays two knights. By round 9, the game escalates into armageddon, with multiple giants ( as tall as a skyscraper ) on the board, and rock-paper-scissors unit and technology counters ( each unit can pick four different technologies to specialize in, before the battle starts ).

The game has 14 tutorials, which is great.

On the one hand, the game is simple to play and easy to get into, since you have limited control over your units ( the game is an auto-battler ) and on the other hand, there is a lot of tactical depth round-to-round, since you have ground units, air units, flanks, unit placement is important ( and often overlooked by beginners ), and each unit has a different movement speed ( so you have to calculate time-to-intercept ). Round 3 onwards introduces a possible wildcard, where you might get offered: the choice of four different units; random equipment ( like a portable shield for a giant unit ); the ability to shock-drop a troop ( like a fast-walking Rhino melee tank ); technology like an EMP storm ( that weakens shields ) or a tactical nuke which destroys one quarter of a map ( and has a 4 round cooldown ).

People really love spectating matches, betting tickets on the outcome, discussing good or poor tactical choices, screaming at the screen, and sometimes arguing like it is a boxing match!

There are multiple weekly tournaments ( mostly on the weekend ) for regions: America; Asia; Europe.

It's just a poor man's version of Invisible Inc.

The game was given away free, and I uninstalled it and removed it from my account, after I could not progress in a mission ( talk to Hanno - a dude standing in a hallway ). There was no way that I could interact with my mission objective ( after going loud ).

It's a mistake to judge the demo based on the low budget, out of date graphics ( from 10-20 years ago ) and lack of expansive character dialogue options. The actual gameplay loop (slowly) becomes incredibly compelling.

It's a rogue-like, where each run, the "Slay the Spire" map is randomly generated. You spend your time exploring procedurally generated houses for loot, in a post-apocalyptic world, overrun by zombies; so it's a unique looter-shooter.

You can find guns and crafting materials. The crafting recipes are unknown to you, but you can figure them out via experimentation.

Your characters start off so weak, that they can barely kick in doors without becoming winded, but put a few points into stamina and door kicking, and they eventually end up breaching rooms like a SWAT team!

You generate knowledge points by exploring the world, and can put those points into four different trees: Body; Combat; Survival; Engineering.

The tactical combat is hardcore and intense, with melee and ranged weaponry, special monsters, and your ability to slow down time ( like in Max Payne ).

I enjoyed the demo in 2022, but I only find the first 10 hours of the final release compelling ( during the struggle for survival, based on the lack of food and water ). The first 10 hours are like a starvation simulator, but once you stabilize food and water, the game turns into an idle clicker, where you watch an in-game monitor, that shows the terraforming numbers going up ( you do that for 20+ hours, while exploring ship wrecks, which wore out its welcome after the first 10 hours ).

Buildings are extremely energy intensive, so your ability to speed up the terraforming process, is dependent on energy production. There is a low ceiling on energy production, because of rare minerals such as aluminum ( needed for solar panels ) and uranium ( for nuclear reactors ). Extremely thin content is stretched out to the maximum.

After exploring most of the map, I gave up on the game out of boredom, because it became a waiting simulator. Disappointing. Greatly overpriced.

You receive in-game messages that could have had an interesting narrative, but the messages just dwindle over time. The last message that I received was a partial message, where some of the text was garbled ( to simulate electromagnetic interference ). The developers could have poured some creative juices into the narrative; it just smacks of laziness.

Better games that I recommend:

- Subnautica ( the first one ).
- Surviving Mars
- Ocean World: Eden Crafters ( based on the demo ).