The manual already reveals 2 things: 1 You're treated as someone who has never played a video game before. 2 Everything is needlessly complicated and convoluted to infinity (e.g. who the F needs 2 or 3 spells for discovering secrets and another 1 or 2 commands to act on what was found). On top of that, the game functionally foes not work well: e.g. you can't Alt Tab out and you'll be forced to use the power button to turn off the PC, as you'll get stuck with nonresponsive game window and the inability to open or select any other program (and the Task Manager). Selecting the most basic thing is also set up in the dumbest way possible: e.g. why can't I press escape to bring up the save and exit option like in any other game, or how the UI is set up in such a dumb way I'd be hunting for the movement controls or anything else to actually play. On top of all that, the dev is a jerk with a god complex. E.g. he will actively belittle and insult people for solid, informative and constructive negative reviews on Steam in such a way it would be too charitable to call it childish and immature. The worst Internet trolls do not reach his level.
Startup Panic (GOG) + The art and art style are awesome. - It's never specified what the start up even is. I thought I could go straight to having a company that makes games, but the game forces you to do forum/website design first for no reason. You don't make a jack of all trades company and not sink, no market allows that. - The basic rule of safely approaching investments is: "Am I generating enough to cover the costs and have enough left over?" E.g. You won't rent something if the rent is higher than your monthly income. This game HATES the idea of stable monthly income. 1 Even if you design a feature well, it'll get a lower score over time and your monthly income will fall. 2 You can do one time contract work to get money for investments, but that's not how sustainable planing works. It's like saying your monthly paycheck doesn't matter in favor of your savings being high - this is what the game favors and it's stupid. Plus, a lot of the time, you won't be paid the agreed upon amount in the game anyway, sometimes way less. 3 You also need to fund employee vacations and training and that's expensive due to the morale system - the more work someone does, the lower the morale score and they perform worse over time. This cycle gets expensive fast. 4 The game thinks loans are normal and mandatory, while it's actually best to avoid any and all debts and invest or save instead. But again, this game doesn't do smart financial management just because. 5 Your company is randomly hacked all the time and that lowers features scores, making needles revisions necessary for no real reason. 6 Your employees may be randomly kidnapped by pirates and ransoms are high. Yes, somehow something this dumb is in the game too. 6 There's only 1 save file and runs are not at all related. Each time you fail, you can only repeat ALL precious steps all over again with NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER. The exact same dialog, steps, everything. You can't skip dialog either.
+ The graphics are quite realistic and the ants fight other insects and their larva, plus I can zoom in if I feel really brave. - Everything you do uses food: digging out new tiles that you'll need to do to find food and/or enemies (you don't know what you'll encounter where), getting new worker and soldier ants. - Some actions need confirmation with the left mouse button and others with the right. - Sometimes an action you might want to repeat, e.g. "build" another ant (you always need a free tile for that), will sometimes not be shown as available to do, unless you switch to another tab and go back to the previous one. I'd refund it if I could, but I'm out of that window (I bought the game in August). If you're interested, wait for the price to drop to 15€ max.
It's kinda of turn based game with a grid movement system in battle and roguelike features + movement from room to room in real time for no reason. - Units move first by default and attack by commands, but you can't switch targets. You only can hit what the game decides you can hit from a certain position. Sometimes only what don't want to hit. - Your units can level up in a limited capacity. If something as basic as levels are tied to base upgrades, that's unforgivably dumb. + You can unlock items that raise maximum HP, provide armor and such by collecting blueprints on the map or as loot after fights. - Walking around the room manually has no purpose: many rooms will be empty. + The grind is there to help you navigate and figure out how far you can move or what your attack range is, where you'll get a defense bonus behind cover. Said grid is very clear, easy to navigate and easily recognizable thanks to distinct colors and intuitive icons (e.g. cover is marked by a shield icon). - There's a mix of right and left mouse buttons clicking for no reason. - The controls are NOT remapable. - Weapons have been underwhelming so far. + Your ammo automatically refills after battles. - You can unlock some cool stuff at the base after gathering enough of the currency, but you'll need to get lucky on a run to get enough to actually build anything. + The animation is nice as is the visual style, especially the animal character designs. - By comparison, the team banter is funny, but gets old fast as the pool they draw from is too limited and as none of it is voiced, the limit feels lazy. - The censorship is inconsistent: some words will be replaced by **** and "damn" is left in. Either go full in on a child friendly game and either don't use or censor all such words (or at least have an option available to toggle the censorship) OR leave everything in. + There are many lore notes you can collect that gives you more insight into the setting.
If they had stuck with the core of "bear bashes human garbage, cars and whatnot" with light puzzles when you help animals and they help you navigate levels in turn, it would have been great. But they had to put in terrible minigames every few levels. I gave up at the zoo tennis level where you're supposed to hit explosive balls to land at animal cages to break them, but the balls move incredibly slowly and it feels like you're constantly getting in your own way trying to figure out what damn angle or speed of approach is needed here. It's so badly made it doesn't feel solvable and I've only played for an hour. Otherwise, the presentation is great and the story is the kind of simplistic take that doesn't need dialog to work. If you're OK with a clunky game, get it at a deep discount for about 5€, but no more than that.
I expected something like the fighting Paw Paw Paw game on Steam, but instead here the fights are automatic and the levels are part puzzle, part platformer - you can also select food and clothes for your cats. Overall the game looks cute, but places the elements I don't enjoy in gameplay and locking out those that I do enjoy a lot.
+ I love the concept of gladiators fighting undead, monsters, demons and whatnot in inferno-infested ancient Rome. + I love that once combat starts it's actually turn based, so I don't have to worry about say having to decide between moving or doing damage as I would I Might and Magic 8 - combat and movement in LM are 2 separate things and don't interfere with each other at all. + The metal exploration soundtrack rocks. + I love the enemy design: creepy, but not scary and unique for dead gladiators, harpies and whatnot. - I hate how there are a ton of classes and I get nowhere near enough explanation for each one, e.g. some weapon restrictions apply, such as a character being more clumsy with some weapon classes, but I can't check what for who anywhere. -/+ The attack animations are a touch basic, but serviceable. - I hate how the forge screen does not overlap with the inventory screen for individual characters and how I don't get a warning for what each character's optimal equipment class is right in the crafting screen. It'll be annoying as Hell in the long run. - I hate how the game goes WAY over the top to sound Roman in places where it doesn't need to, given the light story, e.g. ditch the fancy class names in favor of something I can differentiate at a glance, please, it'll help a lot. Or character names - I know I can change them to likely whatever I want, but leave such details for the Italian version and ditch them in English since they'll mean nothing to anyone unfamiliar with Latin. -/+ The story feels more like lore, but, eh, serviceable enough. + I love the lockpick minigame: a marker slides on the screen between red and green areas and you need to press C once it's in the green area, but you're not at all time limited. - Change the "to play" in the epilepsy warning text to "playing". + I did love that the epilepsy warning went away with a click and not automatically, so I could read it in full before dismissing it.
- Character creation does NOT mean "roll random stats and gear until you're kinda OK with it". - Lots of complex skills for no good reason that make leveling fragmented and you can only level specific stuff at specific locations or times. E.g. you can practice fighting at the war camp, but the game never tells you how long you'll actually be there for long term - there's a meter, but given how easily the character will tire, it's useless. And why split combat skills into strength, agility, coordination and about 2 or 3 other attributes for a turn based game with 0 flashy combat? - The combat feels random, luck based and is as interesting as waiting for a stationary rock to move: you select what you'll do from a list, there are 2 dice symbols and no idea which is meant for you or the enemy's retaliation (or at least I think that's what it was) and you do the move, the enemy does his move (it's "realistic" with having only men fight) all in floating text above them, no animation whatsoever. Hell, if this is what you go for, make it text only game. Why a visual novel if you can't properly, VISUALLY convey good, exciting combat? - I hate the art style and how everything in the game looks. - The writing is decent - I suspect the game was initially written in Russian and translated into English and I see no grammatical errors or strange phrases; not the standard usually -, but dry as a bone left in the middle of the desert. Again, why make a visual novel with poor visual and dry writing? You have poor results in exactly what the genre is known and beloved for. In short, I hate this game with a passion and can recommend a pure text game that has better combat, writing and mechanics and is cheaper on top of all that: The Great Tournament on Steam (the only PC platform they sell on as far as I know, mobile versions of their games also exist). For less than 6€ you get far more than what HWR:R tries to do and still has the gull to ask for over 12€.
