I'm not one for "New Year's resolutions", but I am one for overly ambitious projects.
For 2023, Project365 is "One New Game Per Day".
Given that I have 634 unplayed games in my Steam account and {mumble} unredeemed bundle Steam keys, there's a reason my unplayed collection is tagged "Pile of Shame".
I'll pin this to my profile, and give a brief summary here each day (or x, if I miss x days due to work or stuff).
I'll play 15-30 minutes of (at least) one new game I've never played before (or played less than 15 minutes of). I'll give every game at least 15 minutes, even if I hate every minute of it.
I'm also open to suggestions; if you reply to this thread with a game, I'll schedule it, or tell you what I thought of it.
One of the things that's come up is that I have a bunch of games that I've played once, and not touched again.
Apr 15, 2023 - Day 105 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 112
Game: Satellite Reign
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Aug 18, 2015
Library Date: Apr 20, 2018
Unplayed: 1822d (4y11m27d)
Playtime: 28m
I have a soft spot for cyberpunk themed games, and one of the unexpected side-effects of this project is discovering how many cyberpunk-themed games that aren't Cyberpunk 2077 I already own.
Satellite Reign is a cyberpunk-themed class-based real-time strategy game.
So far, at the point I'd reached in the game, part-way through what just may be a lengthy tutorial, there's not a lot to critique.
It's a nice, solid little game, and I'm part way through a rescue mission. It captures the dystopian cyberpunk aesthetic nicely, without feeling like a straight rip from Blade Runner, but does feel like it draws from that well, as well as Cyberpunk, and William Gibson.
I'd love to make this a long deep review, but I'm wrestling with fatigue today in a way that seems to have fried my ability to write.
In any case, I'll definitely be going back to play it again, just to see how it unfolds.
Anno 1800 is a 3D real-time strategy city-builder, set in the 19th Century.
I bought it today.
"But Allie, you have too many games. You have new ones coming on Wednesday morning in the November Humble Bundle! Why would you buy a new game?"
Ubisoft had a free weekend, and I made the mistake of installing it. Then playing it. Had I not played it (wouldn't be the first time I installed a game on a free weekend and forgot to play it), I wouldn't have encountered an antagonist so eminently punchable (Edvard Goode) that I wanted to keep playing solely to grind his company into dust.
With a 20% discount on top of the already discounted price through Ubisoft taking it to a historical low of AUD$17.99, it was almost impossible to say "no".
In terms of actual gameplay, it hooked me early, and I was suddenly staring at an in-game popup that said "It's been two hours, how about a cup of coffee."
November 7, 2023 - Day 310 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 330
Game: Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 27, 2019
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 17d
Playtime: 25m
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt is an isometric real-time strategy city-builder, with a medieval setting.
I got a whole bunch of games on the 21st of October. I was talking with my son about how I'd skipped a couple of months of Humble Choice in the past few years, and he gave me most of the games I was missing (because he didn't want them).
Included in those games was Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt; this review could also be "A tale of two city-builders".
The graphics in Townsmen are quite cute, and it makes Townsmen look like it could be a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, that's the best part of this game, because the actual gameplay is incredibly frustrating.
As an aside, in-game grammar and spelling mistakes immediately break my concentration. One typo is an oversight. Multiple typos and grammar errors sets my teeth on edge. This was not a good start for Townsmen.
The biggest issue I had with Townsmen is that it's less a city-building sim, and more of a city-micromanagement sim. I want to build buildings. I don't want to have to go to each building independently and assign and unassign workers (particularly in early game).
Buildings also degrade over time, and can catch on fire if they degrade too much. How do you know? Apparently they start to change colour. So now I have to remember to look at each building individually to see if it's changed colour and might need repairs. To repair a building, click on it to bring up the building interface. Click on a drop-down menu, and choose "Repair Building". Actually, this building is normally that colour, and doesn't need repairs. Like I said, micromanagement.
The tutorial levels give tasks, and give optional tasks, and would intermittently stop everything to remind me to complete the task I was working on.
"You need more wood, build another sawmill. You need another worker to build the sawmill. Build a new townhouse. You need more wood for the townhouse."
So I'm going around pulling workers from other jobs to put them on different jobs so I can complete the jobs to complete the tasks, which you've just paused the entire game to remind me to complete.
Anno 1800 hooked me so deeply that it was a case of "two hours already?", where this had me checking the clock repeatedly.
It's not just that it suffers in comparison to Anno 1800, compared to all of the other citybuilders I've played this year, Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt is:
Release 20230917 news - OpenHV mod for OpenRA (www.moddb.com)
A new stable release with some polishing fixes since the last pre-release.