Recent reviews by malloc

I rarely finish games, but this one left me wanting more after 90 hours. This one has a perfect blend of humor with horror. SCP meets Half Life 2. The growth in power curve as you explore more of the facility is satisfying. The gameplay and story compliment each other. The core systems are set up for infinite expansion - here's to hoping the devs will continue to add new portal worlds and expansions.

Gladiator Space Program

Rewarding power curve - you unlock new capabilities and uncover new bits through the legacy system. New capabilities make the early grind on each new run less painful.

Doesn't have the long-term replay value of top-tier roguelikes - after you beat it, there isn't much left. Still, this is worth the price of admission.

A more polished entry in the Vampire Survivors/SNRX bullet hell/roguelike formula. Walk around automatically killing things, picking up loot and dodging enemies. Lots of upgrades and different playstyles give this more life and replay value than similar titles in the genre.

Its free, its simple, its deep, its silly - what are you waiting for? Roll me, juice me, squeeze me - you piece.

Great puzzle/optimization game that masquerades as space opera. A ton of depth - understanding the interplay of each council race's unique abilities, sector quirks, available technologies and the unique layout of each sector make each game feel unique, even though the underpinnings are very similar. There is a lot of replay value in this one - the layers of this game are deep and very clever, and keep me coming back for more.

Still early access, but super polished. If you like Factorio-style gameplay but thought covering an entire planet in machines was too limiting - this is the game for you.

Graphics are pleasing - great aesthetic. Gameplay loop is essentially finding whatever sells for a nice profit, researching the various technologies you need to make that, building the infrastructure for production then setting up the route to sell it. This game play loop works well in many similar titles, so why does it fall flat here?

- No interesting differences between types of goods - higher tiers sell for a lot more, but the fact a town wants furniture versus toys versus canned goods is totally irrelevant, beyond the potential to feed into some prerequisites you already had (i.e. already making planks? You're in a better place to make furniture than teddy bears).
- Very poor transport simulation. Traffic exists, but there are very few tools to control its flow, and even when you've planned out nice routes, the AI will take bad routes. There is no explanation of why a route is picked making it impossible to tell whether the bad behavior is the player's fault or the game's. Finally, the more advanced transport should enable more efficient and interesting supply chains, but the trains AI is so poor that anything but the simplest rail network results in backups and crashes - no semaphores or signals. It is telling most players prefer Zepplins for end-game routing, which removes all complexities of route planning.
- Poor UI. The most common things you'll be doing is searching out the best prices for goods and routing goods from one place to another. Both of these are hidden in sub menus for each building, requiring multiple clicks on each change. I couldn't find hotkeys nor a copy/paste functionality that would reduce micro-management of buildings. The logistics network available from warehouses is equal parts obtuse and inefficient, automatically pushing all your inputs/outputs into a bottlenecked building.

Ultimately, the art is great, but the gameplay is lackluster. Player OTTD for route planning, play Anno for building placement and supply chain optimization - or just get Factorio and get the best of all worlds.

A great adventure. Some light puzzles but all very fair and consistent with the game world. Puzzles are all about developing your understanding the of unique game world, and you build that understanding through more exploration.

If you like Slay the Spire, you'll like this. Not quite as polished in terms of art and overall ambiance, but the gameplay is rock solid. From the first few hours, gameplay is not as tight as StS but still plenty challenging - its just somewhat easier to pull out ridiculous combos.

Looks like a Chinese mobile knock off of StS, but don't be fooled - there is a very good game in here.