Recent reviews by Mars

yes

You can TLDR; this wall of text to get to pro/con list below

Winkeltje is an endearing, addictive shop simulator that is currently still in development. It gives a sense of nostalgia for games like Recettear and the old flash Lemonade Stand game. You have full control over decorating, stocking and selling in your store. There are many different ways to play and you're not locked in to selling everything, or one specific thing. The choice is completely up to you and there is plenty of variety and choice.

While it can be a challenge to start off with nothing in a plain looking shop, it's incredibly rewarding to push through and make small profits until you have a steady income stream and your customers are liking you. Before long you'll have a thriving garden, your crafting stations will be hard at work to fulfill your customers requests, and your shop will be decked out just the way you like!

What is really encouraging is that the Devs are incredibly active and friendly in their Discord server during development and they are listening to suggestions, bug reports and constantly updating the game with fixes, quality of life improvements and new content as the game expands.

Pro:
- Addictive gameplay loop
- Customizeable store
- Multiple ways to play
- Variety of items and decorations
- Active Devs that listen
- Constant bug fixes, updates and content drops
- Reasonably priced


Con:
- Still some quality of life issues to be addressed
- Game is not finished yet
- Could benefit from a deep story line and more connection to characters
- Difficult to recommend to friends because I butcher the dutch name of the game

Best idle game, hands down.

Engaging, hilarious, and always more to discover and improve.

The developer is excellent and constantly adding to the game.

Delivers exactly what it promises. It's a fun and interactive way to learn a ton of nouns, a few adjectives and verbs of a language of your choice! Does not teach sentences or structure, but it's very useful for learning basic object names as well as pronunciation. It provides both masculine, and feminine versions if there are any, (and neutral of course) as well as alternative nouns that may be used.

For the price point I'd say you're getting some pretty good value, especially considering the DLC is 50% off at the moment.

The Banner Saga is definitely in the top tier of games that have been Kickstarted. It has a very deep, involved plot from multiple perspectives and is filled with surprising revelations and heart-wrenching endings.

The graphics are a refreshing departure from the norm. The conversation scenes are reminiscent of Fire Emblem's static conversation scenes, while the travel and cut scenes are truly beautiful. The animations during battle are enjoyable to watch, as your character pulls off such a powerful hit and damages nearby enemies as well, or when your archer nails an enemy from across the map after their careful aiming.

The music in this game is just beyond words. Austin Wintory does an exceptional job on the soundtrack. The audio cues seem to hit at just the right moment to strike a chord of fear into you, or even to set the mood for celebration or sorrow. It's not often that the audio of a game ends up being my favorite part, but The Banner Saga really delivered.

The story is very involved and changes based on the decisions you make as you go along. This means that I'll be completing several more playthroughs before I'm done with the game. The choices can really reward you, or even end up in a death if you're not careful. I haven't gotten more involved in the wellbeing of a game's characters in quite some time, though in this game I find myself desperately trying to make the best choices so they can be happy, or even survive!

The combat, though it lacks variation, reminds me a bit of chess. It would benefit greatly from anything that could introduce deviation from the repetitive battles (though some specific battles can be exciting and different). My favorite point of the difficulties though, is that if you choose to play on Easy mode, you can play through the entire story without having to worry about battles, as some can be even skipped! If you choose to play on Hard mode, it is ACTUALLY a challenge. This is a nice change from "hard" modes on games lately not actually challenging their users.

This game is worth the full price, and more. I look forward to any sequels that come out from Stoic.

Difficult to get into and to understand the mechanics at first, but once you do it's an unending whirlwhind of excitement. I found myself thinking about it even when I wasn't playing, trying to plan out what I wanted to do next. Very great game so far, and I look forward to future updates and bugfixes as it's still in beta.