Recent reviews by Socialist Tsar

The game is simple and fun. It's the type of game where if you don't have much energy, you can jump in and accomplish a lot, without needing to put a ton of thinking into it.

You can put a lot of thinking into the game if you want and you will be rewarded, most of the time, but it isn't a requirement to play.

The gameplay loop is solid and there's enough mechanics to keep you invested for long periods of time.
Overall, I highly recommend the game.

Mfw I was expecting this to be $30-$40 but ended up being less than $20 (AUD)

There's no reason to not recommend getting this DLC. You get essentially unlimited replayability with the Warpaths mode and a whole host of other features for less than $20.

If you're interested in Regiments, you don't even have to worry about deciding whether it's worth it or not.

RtW3 is essentially a much more expanded and pretty RtW2.

It's exactly what I wanted from this game and it'll be a favourite of mine in the naval genre.

A super in-depth space mining sim where you mine asteroids in the Rings of Saturn.

It's one of those games where it's easy to learn but hard to master, with many variables to learn about.

The demo has the entire game in it, but I highly recommend buying it to support the dev's amazing work. It's being constantly updated and has been since I bought it, and even before that.

If you're into space, industry or relaxation type games, I highly recommend this game.

Another great work by Love in Space. I have read all their other VNs (Sunrider series) and this one is the best so far.

I have only completed the Mariya route and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The way the characters developed throughout the story kept me interested, even in the side characters as you began to focus on Mariya more. The music was also pretty good and didn't suffer from loop overload. My one quarm is that the voice overs got a bit annoying at times, more so the short ones.

Overall the positives outweigh the negatives so I would reccomend this title. It is mature though so I wouldn't reccomend it to anyone under the age of 15.

(I'll add more as I go through the different routes)
Ciao and have a nice day :3

Oh boi. I have been making a VN on Visual Novel Engine for about 40 hours now. I think I might do a review.

Pros
- Really easy to use (Took me 10 minutes to learn the entire thing)
- Plays music and SoundFX quite well
- Displays pictures at a nice resolution
- You can right click to view the entire image while playing any VN
- You can share your VN to the community
- Has a dedicated folder for the VN (Where you put your music and pictures in)

Pros with DLC
-You can export your VN and email to people (I made a guide showing how to do it)

Cons
- Can't adjust volume for music or SoundFX
- If you have too many .txt files it tends to randomly send you to another one while you were working on the previous one (Annoying when you haven't saved in a while ;w;)
- Text is too slow (You can just click to load it all at once but it gets tedious)
- Can only use .mp3 files for music

Cons for DLC
-None because it does its job well

I believe the Pros heavily outweigh the Cons. The lack of complexity and dedicated resource folder are the main reasons I would definitely reccomend this software.

Edit: I now have 50 hours and can add new things to the review

A con I forgot to add was about proofreading. You cannot go to a single point in the VN, you have to start from the start which can be annoying if your VN is quite long and full of text like mine.

However I still reccomend this this software 100%.

Edit: 60 hours.
Still pretty good. Only problem is that my VN is 660Mb so it takes a long time for it to upload to the database. To find a work-around I have started posting a google drive version in the discussion of VNE.
Check it out if you want. :D

Edit: 70 hours
Nothing new to report. :D

Edit: 80 hours
Nothing new to report. :D


Edit: 90 hours
Nothing new to report. :D

Edit: 100 hours
I am getting featured on VNE for my work on Black Soul which is quite good.
Other than that, "Nothing new to report :D"

Edit: 110 hours
Nothing new to report :D

Edit: 120 hours
Nothing new to report :D

Edit: 130 hours
Nothing new to report :D

Edit: 140 hours
Nothing new to report :D

Edit: 150 hours
Nothing new to report :D

Edit: 160 hours
I got new stuff to report.
The latest update for VNE was released around April. The update adds new features in terms of choice making, characters and text with the fixing of the help menu. This allows these elements to be used as they were previously unavaliable to use, due to not being able to be accessed. The positives of this is more creative freedom and streamlining of .txt files, as you don't have to create numerous amounts of them when doing choices such as a name or favourite colour. The negatives of this is that it just slightly increases complexity, but that is really about it.

After having such a long break and coming back to this I have noticed that the text speed is still unbearably slow, which can be mitigated by clicking but, that comes with its own fair share of issues such as text duplication and glitches. The bug of the engine switching which .txt file I was on is still occuring and seems to have gotten worse but is still uncommon. You just have to save often when this occurs.

Overall I still recommed this as it is easy the use and only has minor bugs and issues.

P.S. I have started the work on my VN again. Updates and general news about the project can be found here https://gtm.you1.cn/app/665040/discussions/0/1486613649675527136/

Edit: 170 hours
Nothing new to report :D

Edit: A special 173 hours review :D

The 2.0 Update just dropped and so far I am really impressed. The new UI is really easy to work with, especially the new "Elements" Tab. The update is called "Drag 'n Drop" and with that namee I will talk about the main new feature of the update.

The update allows you to drag and drop parts into your visual novel like Text, BG, and Characters just the name a few. This feature allows for rapidly increased work rate (I have definetly noticed this) which solved one of my main personal issues with the engine (I didn't list it because I didn't think it was important). This means I can potentially reduce the time I spend writing a part by 1/5th which doesn't seem like alot but over the span of 2 hours that means alot. This is only for text as well. You can now more easily add pictures by it going directly into the folder where your pictures are located. It is really convenient as I don't have to copy and paste out the pictures name (It kills your fingers after I certain amount of time, trust me). Qberty also added a "Quantify" tab which allows you to see how big your visual novel is with it showing: how many lines of text you have, how many images you have, how many sound clips you have, how many choices/branches you have and how many endings you have. It is really useful to gauge how big your visual novel is.

The new update removes a ton of gripes and when I mean a ton, I only mean the very few I had xD. The major gripe I had was the random .txt files changing when I moved my mouse up and down near the top of the window for the engine. Now you select them from your VN folder which makes locating folders so much easier. That's another thing the new update fixes. I have over 40 .txt files and it was time consuming trying to find a specific folder that started with a letter near the end of the alphabet, bu tnow I can easily scroll through my VN folder to find a specific .txt file, which saves so much time. Another thing that the VN fixes is that you can pin specific parts of your VN which helps when I can't remember what .txt file I was last working on. It saves around a minute or two, which I can use to work on my VN. The last problem that it fixes it removes the blandness of the UI. It looks fresh and inviting while the other one looked rigid and tough. That's all the gripes I had that were fixed.

There were some gripes that weren't fixed though (These are pretty small and I don't mind that the author didn't fix them since this update was more important). The text speed is still not able to be changed which is okay but can be a bit annoying when you have alot of text on one line or lots of small lines. You also can't modify music volume which is annoying as one of the sound clips I have is quite quiet. The help menu has also been removed which I can understand but, some people may be confused on what each thing does, if they are new. Other than that, there are no gripes I have other than these. Alot of stuff was fixed so the negatives are very small.

Overall, this was a very helpful update for the engine allowing for easier use and learning of the engine with negligible negatives that can be fixed using some work-arounds. Very good job Qberty. I look forward to working with this updated engine and the updates that come in the future.

Edit: 180 hours
Nothing new to report. :D

Edit: 190 hours
Nothing new to report. :D

Edit: 200 hours
Nothing new to report. :D

Edit: 210 hours
Nothing new to report. :D

After the new update for the game I have been having no troubles. This game is quite alot of fun in my opinion. It is like another game called Executive Assault where the mechanics are sort of the same. The only thing I dislike is the insane difficulty but I might just need to "git gud". I would reccomend this game now since it has the graphic option changes. I can run this game smoothly on Simple graphics.

Edit: With the difficulty as long as you have assault troops you'll be fine for a while. I found that out yesterday. Also EXP is kinda hard to get at the start. Maybe if the Flags gave 5 EXP each it would be easier. Just one last thing maybe you could have variants of units like the Mechs with Specific Weapons eg one with just Machine guns, one with just Rockets.

Edit: I realised I was playing on the hardest difficulty so the EXP is fair.

Hearts of Iron 4 is a WW2 war RTS (Can be WW1 or Modern Age with mods). Like Stellaris, the game is alot more fun when you have mods on. I have up to 6 mods on at once (Same as Stellaris). I wouldn't bother buying the DLC since it is overpriced.

The mods for this game are essentially DLC at this point where you can get "The Great War" mod which allows you to start from WW1 and go through to WW2. Mods are almost essential (Unless you want to get achievements).

Personally I like to go as Argentina since you don't really get involved with WW1 or WW2. Also the shortest war I have ever fought was with Chile. It only took 12 days and I only took 2 states XD

I rate this 9 salty squids/10 (when mods are on)
7 salty squids/10 (Without mods)

Stellaris is a RTS space game. Pretty obvious. I believe that this game is alot better when you install mods. I have up to six mods going at once. It just gives the game more depth than the base game.

The base game is fine, it just doesn't give the player as much to do. Buying the DLC and installing mods is a really good idea (If you don't have enough money just install mods because not all mods require the Utopia DLC) since it gives the player more to do in those "starting up" periods of the game like giving events.

I would rate this 8 salty squids/10 (With mods and DLC). This is due to the amount of money you will spend on the base game and DLC.

P.S I am not joking but in my latest game it took 69 years to find my first civilisation. 16 civs and 2 were next to me. I don't know how.

Ok time for Carpe Diem (sounds like carp demon) anyway this game is like not even 3 mins but I really liked the art style and a note to the developer this game could be made into a full scale visual novel by adding more story and maybe characters? If you want to that is, but never the less it was a bit sad and enjoyable at the same time so I can't really reccomend this game to anyone in particular I would rate this 6 salty squids/10

It was six because of the length but good game.