I really enjoyed playing Dysmantle (in single player mode). The basic game mechanics (destroying objects) can get a little repetitive, but solving the twists and turns and puzzles and crafting advancement that led to completion kept things interesting.
I completed Scrapnaut on Normal difficulty. It was relaxing but got a bit repetitive. I persisted to get to the big reveal at the end, but it was such a letdown. Gameplay critiques: I only really built one base, and never had to upgrade the walls or the weapons. I did build extremely minimal satellite bases to the extent necessary to build special stuff that is limited to a single location. After defending my second base, I realized these are never attacked and stopped bothering. I don't think I crafted a single potion and didn't need to. Enemies are very easy to outrun, which is good because it cuts down on the tedium, but bad because c'mon. . . I never collected enough skill books to craft the obsidian chest piece and discovered I absolutely didn't need to. After my initial harvests and processing, I never ran out of seeds again. Seems like these should be more scarce. In summary, the core mechanics, graphics, and music are solid, but it needs a bit more variety and tension, and a far more compelling story.
I purchased Overland on sale, and spent about 13 hours playing it on Normal, with a couple complete restarts and a lot of restarted levels to finish it, ultimately without anyone dying and without losing a vehicle. It was definitely worth playing through once, but I'm not sure I would play through it again.
Full disclosure: I got the game for free. I don't think I would pay full price for it, tbh. It's a tough game and I enjoyed playing it. After about 20 hours, I beat it with 4/5 characters still alive. I don't feel like I want to go back and improve upon that. There's a story, but because the game doesn't pause in any way so you can read the things, you just end up ignoring it. I was disappointed that you couldn't click on the " feels bad" messages to locate them, and that there wasn't some way of preventing them from stupidly going out with low health.
