Reus

First: Zooming is useless. There is only 1 option extremely far away and x options for ridiculously close up, building stuff this way under time pressure is really scrolling-galore. The time pressure is the worst thing about this game. After the introduction episodes, you have 30minutes to get as much achievements as you can get in order to unlock more plants, animals, abilities, etc... but since the towns grow extremely slowly and if a bit faster immediately start destroying your titans and other cities because of greed and you need certain unblocked abilites to make them grow a bit more peacefully and faster, you have to play the 30min episode over and over again in order to get the longer eras and more stuff in the real sandbox mode. I played the 30min epidode exactly once and then said "screw this!".

This is a kind of flash, puzzle game. You manage your planet by building the appropriate buildings/farms/biomes. You will have to find the perfect spots to build these also, which kind of cancels the God/do what you want, (because you are the god's) it's more like babysitting the humans perfectly, or they will kill you.

This game saddens me a bit, but it's not because of the game itself - rather what I assume is an inherent limitation of the principles behind it. You start with just an empty planet, you form it, you attract settlers, and you help those settlers achieving their goals. Everything is done with well thought through controls, nice animations, and lovable graphics. But it's similar every time you play it - which is the frustrating part, because it feels like it's not the game's fault. The developers did the almost best thing possible within the concept behind the game, but the concept just sounds better in theory than what it ends up providing in practice. Nonetheless, for the prices it sells these days, I can recommend it for people who like god games and don't care if it's a bit repetitive on replays.

Reus is a puzzle game about building the ecosystem of a planet through the divine powers of manifesting minerals, plants, and animals; and transmuting them to improve them. You do this to the sole benefit of human tribes that live on the planet, and who are quite frankly greedy little pests. By helping people, they provide you upgrades to your abilities, and these abilities let you create more powerful natural resources for the humans to exploit. The goal is to make the human civilizations as bountiful as possible without letting their plenty go to their heads. It's a gentle balancing act that sometimes involves you putting your divine foot down and wiping out belligerents to ensure balance in the ecosystem. Reus is, mechanically, not very complex, but makes up for it in the depth it goes into. Every single resource planted, such as a mineral, is modified by the environment they are placed on and have an entire tech tree devoted to them. Combining resources that benefit from each other, such as animals that feed on specific types of plant, takes equal part experimentation and planning. Where Reus lacks is in that the game, while played in increments of 30, 60, or 120 minutes, can be over after only a few hours of gameplay depending on your skill. The main line of progression is completing challenges to unlock new natural resources, which in turn let you unlock new challenges. So on and so on. However once the relatively meagre supply of challenges are completed there really isn't too much you can do other than play for your own personal high score. This hasn't dulled my enjoyment of the game, but it does leave you wanting more; for good and bad. Where it excels is that the things it does it does very well. There is not a spare ounce of fat here and everything is presented with crystal clear focus. This is a great game for experienced and inexperienced players alike, and it is exactly as challenging as you allow it to be.

The game presents a really neat idea, but lack of necessary video settings and UI without scaling is not something I expect from the game in 2025 (or 2016 when it was first published). The UI is super small and I cannot play in the windowed full screen mode to switch between apps. This is unacceptable. I have to return the game sadly.