dotAGE

a single dev spent 9 years of his spare time to develop a game with now 1900 steam-reviews with an average rating of "overwhelmingly positive". Such a life achievement, which tells a story of dedication! This game solved an issue a lot of strategy-resource-management games have: you either perma-pause your game or you accept that slow-thinking gives you a disadvantage. Makes sense, right? It leads to a stress-level which you don't enjoy. Or: you stuck in pause and have the feeling you interrupt your city (or whatever). This game is different: It's turn-based and while you are thinking, people move around and do things. But: the stats are not changing until you press spacebar for next day (=next round). This is great. You are chilled, you don't need to pause (you can't even pause). If your turns needs 15 minutes (girlfriends calls) you don't have a disadvantage. If you are an experienced player, you can "run through" the turns like a maniac. Obviously they were turn-based games before, but I haven't seen it in a resource-management roguelike game with a very appealing pixel-art. Roguelike you said? Yes, 3-4 stupid turns in a row can ruin your whole "run". But after that you are not mad, you are excited to do it better next time. It reminds me of Oxygen Not Included and Against the Storm in a way (which is a big compliment). You have this permanent pressure of the environment. Winter is coming? Better create some heat. The more heat the better your chances the coinflip is in your favor and the nature disaster won't come. You just have medium-heat? Then the chances are 50-50. No heat at all? Well, some thing like [Spoiler A], [Spoiler B] etc. will come. So it become boring real quick because you do the same things over and over? Nope, there is another thing I haven't seen before: your tech-tree is different every run. ... my text limit is reached.. I could tell you that this game is GREAT.. regulary updates after 9 years of development is CRAZY! 9,5/10!

I bought this game out of curiosity and within 2 hours was immersed (If you have an OLED display, turning the gamma in the games settings down to 30 or 35 makes the pixel art crisp without being too bright). There is a massive amount of content to unlock. No two runs are the same and memories are unlocked which effects the next run through so even losing the village feels like a satisfying defeat. The way choices have a lasting impact adds to the fun. There is also a story being told as you strive to keep your pips safe which adds immersion. Patch 1.2.0 is arriving today and adds many quality of life improvements. The developer also seems to care about the players in the sense that the games does occasionally reminds you to take a break and this is implemented in a non-intrusive way. I am very much enjoying this game and highly recommend it!

The mechanics are really fun. The game is worth the price and generally speaking a lot of fun. The turn based strategy is interesting and the mistakes dire. Now to the stuff I don't like. The music layers onto itself sometimes very unpleasantly. I'm going to guess a fix for this is coming up some time (haven't looked at the roadmap). The clicking gets teadious. I don't want to have to click every time the elder has a vision or whatever, just get to it. At first it was cute but after reading the same dialog for the 50th time, not so cute. Clicking the skip button can also take just as long. The problems, to me anyway, seem easily fixable so that's why the title. This game has serious potential alone for the mechanics and the blends of genres. Definately worth the time.

The game is actively trying to kill your pips, as all strategy games with a "cute" aesthetic should. Great mix of random/beneficial events, and well balanced/surprisingly complex gathering/development system.