Recent reviews by Jan

This is a review for version 0.1.3 - very early in the Early Access cycle.

Deep Sky Derelicts is basically Darkest Dungeon in space. It has dungeon exploration, turn-based combat, resource management, risk-reward decisions and punishing character deaths. All drawn in a nice 2d artstyle.

There's a lot more equipment management than in DD. That's mostly because your characters have card decks from which they draw their attacks and abilities. Various equipment pieces have both passive stats and cards they add to your deck - which makes for some interesting character building decisions.

As of now the game is pretty barebones - there are 3 levels, 6 classes, a couple of contracts and an arena mode. But the basic mechanics work pretty well so it's a good foundation on which to build upon.

The difficulty is quite low at this point. That's mostly because of how unbalanced some abilities are - basically if you go with 3 damage-dealers and stack up on AoE and Stun card's you'll breeze through the game. However it's still early in development and I'm pretty sure a lot of rebalancing will be happen along the wat. The devs stated that they want this game to be challenging. They have also said that the final campaing will be shorter than DD - about 20 hours for a single playthrough.

The artstyle is beautiful. Hand drawn 2d sprites, comicbook-like animations and an overall athmosphere of weird, dark, far-future s-f (kinda like WH40K). The sound effects are ok and the ambient music is fine too. There are no voiceovers and no narrator at least at this point.

In overall the game is still in an early stage of EA. The basics are there and look promising. Don't buy it yet unless you want to playtest it or just support it's development. But if you like this kind of games, keep an eye out for full release somewhere in spring of 2018.

A relaxing little puzzle game, though short and with no replay value.

The graphics and audio are simple and clear, which is something I like a lot in this genre.

The goals and controls are easy to understand.

One gripe I have is that a lot of early levels present no challenge and are intended as tutorials. Only late in the game the puzzles get interesting force you too focus.

I've beaten it in 1,5h - which is really short (c'mon LYNE is a similar game and I've put 200+h in it). A cheap person could even refund the game after finishing it due to that. Bear in mind it costs only 0,99€ - you could buy a beer for that much and it would take you less time to drink it.

'klocki - a better value proposition than beer'

As for the prototype it feels really solid. The gameplay mechanics are interesting and innovative. The fights are tense and the graphic style is beautiful.

Here's hoping it will get kickstarted!

I'm usualy the last one to bash DLCs, but this one is really stupid. It's basicaly a paid cheat code that unlocks one end-game ability from the start.

I got it from the Season Pass and now I feel bad for using it, since it seems I've been playing the easy mode so far :(

O yeah, and if you've already unlocked this ability, then buying the DLC gives you absolutely nothing.

The basic game is great, however all those rune DLCs are cheap cash grabs.

A quite unique co-op fps/stealth game.

I bought Payday 2 on release, played for about a month and uninstalled it. It was ok back then but lacked content (very few levels, no end game content) and was buggy (guards could see through walls which ruined stealth for me).

Now I'm getting back to the game and I'm surprised how much it improved. There's a lot more missions, equipment, the Death Wish difficulty for real challenges and a very nice Infamy system too keep you playing after level 100 .

What's better is that the devs keep adding things and have more updates scheduled. That's a very good way to keep the game alive.

I could complain that half of the DLCs cost money, but then again another half is free and at least the cash flow is used too keep improving the game.

The mechanics are solid, both shooting and sneaking feels nice. The graphics are good for today's standards. The voice acting is superb – so are the 'miniseries' intros filmed with real actors.

The game still has some bugs, the worst being connection issues, but nothing I can't live with.

The community is pretty ok. I see almost no trolls and griefers. Most pub players don't communicate though, so it's best to play with friends or meet some people on the official forums.

But let me warn you – the game is extremely grindy. But then it gives you enough challenges and rewards too keep the grind interested.

All in all Payday 2 is one of the best co-op games on Steam and a very good choice for both fps and stealth game enthusiasts.

For a relaxing puzzle game you can't get better than LYNE.

The rules are simple - you connect sockets with lines of different color, trying not to leave any socket empty. The levels difficulty range from very simple to very challenging and there are 650 pre-made levels plus 25-75 daily levels - and that's a lot. There is no timer or any hidden distractions - you can focus on just solving the puzzle.

The visuals and audio are quite nice. Large objects with contrasting colors, no music and simple sound effects. It looks pretty simple, but you realize it's all very well designed with focus on a relaxing experience.

This is obviously not an AAA title nor a game you would play for many hours straight. But as a relaxing, casual game LYNE is a masterpiece on par with Windows Solitaire ;)

CS meets ARMA?

The learning curve may be steep at the beginning, but suprisingly the actual skill cap isn't that high. That's because with a very low TTK the game focuses less on twitch shooting and arcade skills but more on tactics and teamwork. Also the game is objective-based and playing the objective is a lot more important than K/D ratios.

The gunplay and controls are pretty solid and easy to understand (it's a Source game - everyone knows this engine). Once you learn them you need to master 3 things: tactics, teamwork and map knowledge.

Tactics - Start by reading the Steam Guides. This game features some real CQB tactics which is nice.

Teamwork - Use a mic. If you don't want to use a mic, don't buy this game. For best effects, either play with your friends or join a clan (there are some good ones.. like the one called TAW or sth). This game requires teamwork and finding team-oriented players on pub servers is a hit-or-miss.

Map knowledge - this comes with experience. The maps are pretty good, small but detailed, with many flanking routes.

The game's technical quality is ok. I mean it's what you can expect from an indie Source engine game.

The devs are great and really supportive and constantly add new content to the game. New updates are released more than once a month!

Generally it's very good online FPS. Quite fast-paced, very tactical, not overly complicated. For me this game is a perfect mix between realistic and arcadey.