Kenshi

I didn't even know Kenshi was on GOG, I bought it on Desura, back in 2012, then got a Steam Key for its early access. The game is an amazing sandbox, squad management RPG, with no story, set in an alien world (is not Earth) with a setting that I'd define a post-apolcaliptic samurai society. Even in its very earl version, when all there was a huge desert with some settlements and random bandits it was a pleasure to play, but over the past few years it has changed a lot, in the good direction. The game has an amazing style, very good music (thou I wish there was more) and good mechanics, you can do pretty much whatever you prefer, being a farmer, a thief, an adventurer, a miner, a legendary swordsman... or you can do all of it, with your squads (as you can have more than one). Only issue? Well it has been in development for the past 6 years, apparently it's getting close to release, but you never know.

If you love Fallout 2, Wasteland, modded Jagged Alliance 2, old Eve Online, huge open breathing world - this is the game. Devs are commited and active. Game is unique in genre and well thought through. You can see devs spent a lot of time polishing it. This is not RTS similar to SpellForce2, its more like Fallout2 with RTS, RPG and open world. AI works well, much better then SpellForce2, Stellaris or similar RTS. At this moment dialogs are minimalistic. Hopefully devs would add more backstory into game. Combat is does not have strategic depth as in Jagged Alliance or XCom. Your options are to hold the line, taunt, extra block (without attacking) and positioning your chars. There is a fine balance between overpowering player and combat options given to player. But seeing that devs committed and this is a hot topic of discussion, hopefully in future devs would add more depth into it. As it stands now Kenshi already will become one of those games we remember and love.

I love how this game hate me

I wanted to like this. It's absolutely the general genre I enjoy playing. It's got some major design issues that I can't get past. Half the game is fighting with the camera. It's perpetual adjustment after adjustment -- things get in your way, like towers, tree limbs, anything. There's some aggressive monsters that are small enough you have to zoom waaaay in. Then you gotta fight with the camera to see what's going on, cause one tiny movement suddenly feels huge. Move as a group isn't the default action. "Aw, crap. Forgot Bob again. Let me go get him and wait." It ruins the mood. Fighting is mostly done auto-attack style. Fighting seem to always be in bulk. I can't recall finding a single solo or duo encounter; it's always a large mob of people. Get those companions -- you're gonna need them. Pathing is...interesting. Every vendor I try to talk to, the character runs around the counter to stand on his toes to talk. Normally people talk to vendors across the countertop. Not entirely sure how that made it past beta. I'd hoped by the time I got to base building, I'd find some fun, but building placement is painful. I just wanted a gatehouse. Is that so much to ask for? How do I delete a wall I put down? Why cant I just jam the gate house in here? Somehow the wall section is now turned 180 degrees and? I.. I just shut the game. I don't even want to imagine dealing with defense towers and bars and shops. There's plenty of games where city building is not so complicated. So, as others have said, this is a great idea, but a bad execution. Maybe they'll release an update.

The game is designed to be anti-fun. The whole premise is that you are nothing in a world larger than you and while that might seem like an appealing idea the fact that the game just kicks you down every time you try to get up and blindsides you with bullpoop makes the experience excessively frustrating. We have some games out there that people praise to the high heavens for "not holding your hand SCRUB" but to me it just seems like obstinate game design. Like the developers are hyper fixated on "nocasualizationnocasualizationnocasualizationNOCASUALIZATION" while rocking back and forth and the outcome of that is... This... I don't mind a game that is punishing but in Kenshi it is not just punishing but also time consuming. Anything you want to do, any goal you set out to do will require an immense amount of grinding to actually progress in your skills, stats, base, team composition, currency whatever. And the last point is that the game is clearly still in an alpha state. There is no way that with the amount of issues this game has and lack of basic gameplay functionality and interactivity as well as lack of structure that this is a finalized version. The devs clearly got bored, wrapped it up as neatly as they could to present it as a "game" and then skittered off under a rock. It just isn't fun. The amount of time and effort you have to invest to squeeze out a teensy bit of satisfaction could be spent on an innumerable amount of better games. It has interesting mechanics, interesting design philosophies, but it's like they sat down to write the prologue of a book but then lost interest. If you have a lot of time to kill and I do mean A LOT of time you just gotta murder, absolutely slaughter, flay your personal time alive, then maybe this game will be for you. If you love getting blindsided by bullpoop that can reset your progress back to whenever you last saved then yeah sure get it. But I don't like games that waste my time or jerk me around. Pass.