Amazing Cultivation Simulator

I bought this a few months ago and got really hooked. It plays a lot like RimWorld, but has a fair few unique points too. The broad goal of the game is to 'cultivate' your disciples into gods. But there is a fair few things that the game doesn't do a great job of telling you. For example, temperature, the game tells you about Feng Shui, but it doesn't do a great job explaining that if you use Water or Fire in a room you will decrease/increase the temperature respectively. So you might get the Feng Shui of the room correct, but accidentally bake the residents in summer. There is also a fair few translation errors. But none of them were game destroying though. Broadly it's a lot of fun, but like a lot of these games you will need a Wiki/guide to figure out some of the more advanced mechanics.

I played this game on steam, so the review is based on that version. This game is often compared to Rimworld since they look similar and there are some colony management mechanics in Amazing Cultivation Simulator (just ACS further). This is where the similarities end. Here's why: - Colony management is really basic in ACS, workers' stats are not important - Invasions are fought off by the caste of magical superheroes and usually only the most powerful one is needed since the fighter's abilities work kind of exponentially here - Most resources are trash. Instead, you look out for the rarest materials and artifacts available - The mood system only matters for your warrior caste and even than you only need to intervene at a certain point in their training to maximize results or keep them from insanity. Long term consequences of deteriorating mood and a planned effort to keep it in check is unneeded, unlike in Rimworld What you actually do in ACS: - Throw a bunch of rooms down according to Feng Shui (you will need to look that up elsewhere, the game does a poor job of explaining some important mechanics), which usually leads to an ugly base - Get new followers, check their stats, discard useless ones, get good ones to ascend into a magical warrior caste - Wait till your warriors grind their skills by sitting around - Try to kill big monsters and other factions for rarities or sometimes trade for them - Arrange conditions for your warriors' "breakthroughs" (ascension to an exponentially more powerful level) and hope they do not die during this - Rinse and repeat, sometimes resetting a whole warrior's life to the beginning to get better stats So the game is mostly about getting the warrior caste people to a higher level and stats and you need to find tricks for that yourself (even the Internet does not help with that much). Do look up gameplay before buying, it is a very peculiar type of game. SSseth's youtube review is a good summary of different stages of the game.

I've been playing this game for a year on steam, and the thing about it is there's always more to discover. Constantly realizing you can do stuff or reading what other players are getting up to and thinking 'Who would even think of this, let alone code it in. SUPER SIMPLIFIED EXPLANATION You effectively run a wizard school, but chinese martial arts wizard, think Legend of the Condor Heroes, Monkey King, DBZ, Avatar:TLA. You have inner circle who sit around all day training, cultivating their magical energies and preparing themselves for the tribulations (Tests that drain their QI energy so you need to have them high enough QI, or environments that recharge their QI fast enough to keep them alive.), the more tribulations the more powerful wizards they become on the next tier. The more your school achieves the more powerful rivals and bandits (and demons) attack you. Also if you upset the local dragon, you can get dragon-ed. So you need powerful wizards/cultivators. Then the outer circle characters, who are DF dwarves/Rimworld colonists/etc they build, farm, clean, do the jobs that keep your cultivators alive and happy. The game has a full feng shui system which effects how plants grow, the happiness rooms create and how your cultivators can develop. 5 elements to balance, a world to travel and do quests on, good and evil system, artifacts to create, talismans to learn. SO MUCH ALCHEMY and crafting and systems that look simple but have so many conditional variations and combinations it's endlessly complicated so that I'm still learning. Oh and you can also have disciples who are demons who have to face tribulations just to stay 'human' if you want a harder game. If you love DF, Rimworld, or the genre of Chinese Cultivation fantasy, then this game is for you. It's brilliant. You're not going to master it in a week and move on, as there's just so much depth here. Also it's kinda pretty.

TLDR : Offishal Recipe - Take one part Dwarf Fortress, two parts Rimworld, one part Hogwarts, one part Shaolin monk, one cup stock mix of Animal Crossing & Harvest Moon. Stir until combined completely. Cover with several layers of complex mechanics. Leave overnight at room temperature in darkness. Add 2 buckets of unlabelled chinese steroids. Add 2 tsp ginseng and one grated chicken foot. Throw in two decent handfuls of wtfery. Cook till frustration. Remove from oven and allow to cool between eating attempts. I'll state up front - I'm terrible at this game. I also don't care that I'm terrible at it. When I started playing this on a platform that shall not be named (I had NO idea it would be coming to GOG or I would have waited *shakes fist vaguely threateningly at a cloud*). I can't tell you how many of my games have ended in failure. How my best hopes were dashed. My attempts at fighting a storm wolf thrown in my face.... Yes this game has similarities to Rimworld - that comparison can't be avoided. It is NOT a clone. The depth of feng shui, the combination of elements, the unexpected talisman minigames, the character growth mechanics... all function to either completely tick you off or drag you in for 'ten more minutes'. Are translations bad? Yes Will you get frustrated because you teleported accidently into a pit full of demons and died? Yes Do you shake your head in disbelief when someone kills you with a bucket of water? Yes Is it a great feeling when your latest pet student wakes up alive and stronger? Yes Did you feel slightly abused on your third attempt to explore the south east corner and die? Yes Will you be slightly annoyed that your neighbors consider you a pathetic mess via diplomacy? Yes Will you be incredibly happy they consider you a pathetic mess and ignore you? Absolutely yes! If you know chinese will you still be confused? Yes Can you go over 9000? Yes! Will you be sorry you bought this game? Sometimes!