Endless Space 2

The never-ending sequel to the never-ending space 4X.

It surprises me how little the 4X genre has changed in the last 30 years. Endless Space adds some interesting features, but it's fails to address the core gameplay issues that really make or break a 4X game.

When comparing Endless Space 2 to a classic like Masters of Orion, I am struck by how many of the new systems feel like they add complexity without depth. For example, consider space combat.

Space Combat

There are an amazing number of options for space combat. There are different hulls, half a dozen basic types of weapon, two defense systems, and dozens of optional modules. All of those can be further modified into a mind-boggling number of combinations. Using a hero adds a whole new dimension of specific fleet bonuses. Then, depending on the engagement, you can choose from a number of battle plans. That all sounds great, but in the end you are just playing rock-paper-scissors. If the AI is smart enough to counter a focused build, the best strategy is to use a balanced mix. 

To be fair, it's not quite that simple. When you research better scissors, the enemy has to build more rocks to counter. However, the complexity involved is largely unnecessary.

Heroes

Including heroes in this type of game is always a bit awkward. It's easy for them to be either meaningless or overpowered. The balance seems about right in Endless Space 2. My biggest complaint is the skills interface. For the most part, the skill choice is obvious depending if the hero leads a fleet or sits on a planet. However, the interface makes it difficult to distinguish between the two. Eventually I dreaded having to choose new skills. Also, sometimes it is unclear where a hero would be most effective. I really want a button to auto-assign the hero to where he will be most effective. It doesn't have to be perfect, but I really don't want to sit around doing math to figure out where to send my economy hero ever 10 turns.

Species

There are quite a few different species in the game. This is a great feature that's been popular since Masters of Orion. However, this implementation leaves something to be desired. 

The worst problem is the annoying micromanagement. I want a button to "optimize research" or something like that. Such a button exists, but it doesn't work. This is a constant problem because of population growth, planetary developments, terraforming, and population transfer.

There is a missing feature to destroy population. For this, there are some poor workarounds. You can convert population into generic military force (which is wasted during peacetime). That would be fine except it takes precious planetary build time. Also, I don't think you can select the specific species to convert, which defeats the purpose. Another solution is to send population to a full planet. They spend the rest of the game in orbit. That's fine, but it feels like cheating. It also requires a planet that you don't mind being constantly full and unable to change the species. The easy solution for this would be to get rid of the "send them away" loophole and then provide another mechanism to remove the population. Perhaps the military conversion is good enough, even though it is expensive.

Politics

Actually, this feels about right. There is a lot of complexity there, but I was able to largely ignore it and just suffer the consequences. It remains an area where I can get better at the game, and it doesn't seem overbearing. 

System Build Queues

Why is this so hard to get right? For every colony, I want to start with building-A, building-B, and building-C. I want a button to automatically filter out upgrades that use scarce resources. Some upgrades, I don't want to see unless my colony is sufficiently developed. The AI governors are terrible, and for me, this should be the fun part of the game. The interface is poor. There are only 20 or 30 total possible things to build -- why do I have to scroll so much, and why isn't there a brief summary of what each upgrade does? This should be a core features of the game, why is it worse than what we had 30 years ago?

Diplomacy

The diplomacy in these games is always pretty bad. This one seems better, but not great. Still, I'm happy to see these system improve.

Story / Random Events

This was kind of new to me and it was surprisingly satisfying. It injects a bit of flavor into a dry game and mixes things up a bit. I couldn't really tell how impactful the events are. I imagine it might drive diplomacy and alliances. It might give incentive to avoid a full peaceful or military strategy.

Research

My main complaint is the poor interface on the technology tree. It takes too long to figure out what each technology does. 

Conclusion

I got too bored to complete my first game. I was spending 90% of my time doing tasks which should have been automated or simplified. I don't know what the gold standard is today for a 4X space game, but I hope it isn't this.

Crashlands

 Crashlands

A fun little game with some action, crafting, and collection elements. Kind of like Don't Starve, but less survival and more action. It has more direction and is much less of a sandbox than Don't Starve.

It's a fine game for light action and some crafting. I'd rather play Diablo, Don't Starve, or Realm of the Mad God, but for an easy single-player experience, Crashlands is just fine.

 Bomber Crew

A cute game of crew management.

Overview

In Bomber Crew, you send your plane out to do bombing missions in WW2 Western Europe. Most encounters involve trying to destroy a ground target while being harassed by enemy fighters. Most tasks are pretty simple but the meat of the game comes when you need to do too many things at once. 

Various Mechanics

Management

For the most part, your seven crew members do not need to be managed. When everything is going well, very little interaction is required. The stress of the game comes when problems arise. If the electrical system goes out, you need to order someone to repair it, then later order him back to his station. When a lot of things go wrong at the same time, it is overwhelming. Two gunners run out of ammo, the mechanic needs medical attention, an engine catches fire, and you are passing over your bombing target -- what do you do? This stress brilliantly captures the feel of "long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror", although without the boredom.

RPG

Your crew gains levels, you buy equipment, you unlock new stuff, you improve your airplane. The RPG elements could be improved, but they aren't bad for such a simple game.

Permadeath

The game is a little awkward when you lose your plane and crew. Instead of losing the game, you get replacements. These replacements are fairly well leveled, but likely weaker than what you had. This means that death just makes the game harder until you can recover. However, it makes me lose the connection I feel with my crew. Losing your plane is fairly easy to do.

Mechanics That Don't Work Well

This game has some cool mechanics that don't really play well.

Parachutes: In practice, it is rare to be in a situation where you need parachutes and have time to use them. Earlier in the game, medkits are far more useful.

Item Unlocks: This just feels clunky to me. Why not have everything unlocked from the beginning but be cost prohibitive? 

Survival Skills: If you plane goes down behind enemy lines, your crewmen might survive. That's cool and all, but it wasn't an important part of the game. My crew are far more likely to die during a mission. This mechanic should either be magnified or removed.

Crew Advancement: This is a huge missed opportunity. You only have one set of crew, they have unique roles, and death is reasonably frequent. When a crewman dies, you recruit a replacement. When a crewman is wounded, he is ready for the next battle. This isn't bad, but with a few tweaks, it could have been a really fun system of recruitment and training, similar to XCom. You could maintain backup crew that slowly gain levels from training. On easy missions you could swap some of your backup crew to give them more xp. With a full backup crew, losing your primary crew wouldn't hurt, but if you then lost your backup crew that could signal the end of the game. Forcing wounded crew to lose a few missions while they recover would make for interesting strategic choices. The frustrating thing is that all of those system almost exist -- crew gets wounded, there is a screen for recruitment, etc.

Other Annoyances

• Ordering the crew is often awkward. If a wounded guy is next to a turret, clicking in the area might heal the crew, man the turret, or just stand there doing nothing.
• Not enough feedback for who is selected. You are ordering people around but didn't realize you had the pilot selected? The ship starts to plummet.
• Selecting things is difficult. I've lost a few missions because I simply couldn't convince the crewman to pick up a medkit. I still haven't figured this out, even after asking Google.
• Parts of the plane are difficult to access. The inner port engine is hard to click on. The bomber station is hard to click on while doing an emergency dive. 

Should You Buy It

Despite the complaints, I do recommend Bomber Crew. It is cheap, easy to get into, and fun. It has some depth and replayability. I didn't finish the campaign, but someone with more patience, a faster brain, or the willingness to save-cheat would not have any problems.

Dicey Dungeons

 A cute roguelike deckbuilding dice game.

Overview

Dicey Dungeons is another entry in the genre of permadeath exploration card games. However, instead of a deck of cards, Dicey Dungeon uses collectible equipment. Instead of shuffling a deck, Dicey Dungeons rolls dice.

Similarities

Dicey Dungeons would like to claim similarity to the popular Slay the Spire (see my review of Slay the Spire). However, Dicey Dungeons is much less complex. A better comparison would be to Dreamquest. 

Style

The sound and graphics are simplistic and cutesy. It wasn't for me, but not especially distracting. When the sound got repetitive, I turned it off.

The Bad

It forces you to play all of the classes on an easy level before you can ramp up the difficulty. This meant I was bored while playing, but there seemed like the promise of an interesting game later. By the time I hit the "interesting" part, I was ready to shelve the game and didn't give it much of a chance.

Some of the classes require a lot of unnecessary analysis. The Witch has a lot of choices available depending how you wish to arrange your dice. For me this leads to analysis paralysis as I seek to find the optimal solution. It is a common complaint I have with games -- where I wish there was an undo button so I could rollback any predictable choice. So long as I don't reveal anything hidden or trigger a random event, a game should let me easily explore different choices.

Should You Buy It?

I would likely recommend Dreamquest and Slay the Spire before Dicey Dungeons. However, everyone has different tastes and Dicey Dungeons offers something unique.

Factorio

This was one of my most highly anticipated games. I waited for years for it to come out of early access and happily paid full price when it did.

Overview

Factorio is a game of optimization and refactoring. You build machines that build better machines that build even better machines. The bulk of the game is figuring out how to optimize supply chains. There are aliens who attack from time to time, but that feels like a minor element of the overall game play.

For me, the fun of the game was trying to come up with good designs that were scalable. There normally isn't much time pressure, but you have to design in real-time so if you are constantly interrupted by alien attacks. 

Multiplayer is lots of fun, but I love cooperative multiplayer games. In Factorio, having another player around has three advantages. First, it lets two brains solve problems. Some designs are complicated and it's nice to say, "you make the widgets and I'll make the gadgets." Second, there are lots of distractions in Factorio. Aliens attack, systems run out of materials, etc. Often one player will be deep in thought what the other is able to handle maintenance. Third, it's always nice to have another person around to celebrate accomplishments and discover cool things. 

Replayability

After one playthough, I don't feel the need to play any more. I probably will start up a new game to see if it's like a new game, or just drudgery. 

Compare to Other Games

I'm going to make a separate blog entry to compare Factorio, Rimworld, Don't Starve, and Oxygen Not Included.

Factorio is extremely similar to Mindustry, although it's a lot deeper. Mindustry has more "game" where you have challenges to overcome. Factorio is more about the process. 

Should You Buy It?

Factorio is a winner for me, but it's exactly the game I've wanted for a long time. This is not a simple question. 

20XX

 A mediocre port of a mediocre game in my least favorite genre. Online coop was awkward. Not recommended.

Star Control: Origins

Overview

Star Control: Origins is somewhat of a sequel to the wonderful Star Control 2. It's a game of exploration and space combat with a plot and a comical backdrop.

My Take

Overall, I found the game to boring and quit after 16 hours, barely scratching the plot. Combat using the Earth ship isn't much fun. The plot is too farcical to be engaging, while the humor isn't funny enough to hold my interest. Exploration is dull, perhaps because I wasn't engaged. Collecting minerals is also dull.

Nostalgia

I loved Star Control 2 and was hoping to revisit that love. I wanted to see the giant Urquan dreadnaughts. I wanted to hear "launch fighters". I wanted the pkunk to swear at me to keep from becoming "too good". None of that exists in Origins. The framework of the game is the same -- explore, fight, get minerals, talk to aliens -- but it's with new races that I don't care about. 

Perhaps games have evolved far past Star Control 2 and a remake wouldn't stand up. Maybe I need faster engagement, although 16 hours feels like a fine effort on my part. 

Recommendation

Sadly, I wouldn't recommend Star Control: Origins to anyone. If you decide to give it a try, commit to playing for longer than I did. Maybe the game is lots of fun when you aren't using the Earth ship for fighting. Perhaps someone other than me will feel the sense of adventure when entering unknown territory. Maybe I am old and jaded, but a fresher mind would find the humor engaging.

XCOM: Chimera Squad

XCOM: Chimera Squad

Chimera Squad tries to boil down the essence of XCom. In some ways, it is more streamlined. In others, it does not have as much soul.

I'll assume people are pretty familiar with XCom, so I'll just address the differences here. When I write XCom I generally mean XCom 2.

Tone

XCom tries to be gritty and realistic, given the ridiculous premise of alien invasion. Chimera takes a more lighthearted approach. Instead of 3D cutscenes, it has comic book panels. Where random commentary in XCom was serious with some humor, Chimera is more humor with rare bits of seriousness. XCom is often very cheesy, but it takes itself seriously. Chimera Squad is much less so. This had the effect of me being far less engaged in the plot.

Operatives

In Chimera Squad there are 11 different operators. In XCom there are 5. However, the roles in XCom are far more customizeable. The end result is that it is far easier to build tailored squad in XCom. 

Another big difference, is that you only have a fixed number of operatives in Chimera Squad. You start with 4 and acquire 4 more often the course of the game. The operatives are always healthy enough to join a mission, although they can accumulate enough wounds so that you will voluntarily hold them back to heal. Basically this means you could play the entire game using only 5 squad members (4 for the mission and 1 to heal or train). For me, a big part of the charm of XCom is juggling wounded operatives.

Missions

The biggest change in Chimera Squad is the breach system. Encounters are played out sequentially. This counters my biggest complaint about XCom, the possibility of activating multiple pods at once. However, the actual encounters have small maps with few real tactical options. Furthermore, there is no strategic planning possible. You can't choose to sneak around the back, or send an operative to flank. Also, it has one of my biggest pet peeves in games, which is when you can heal during an encounter but not between encounters. I found myself intentionally delaying ending an encounter to give my healer time to top everyone off. This effect isn't so bad in Chimera Squad -- only one of the roles can heal, and it's not required. Also, you can change the settings to automatically heal between encounters. Perhaps I could try playing where full-heal was enabled on missions when I send the healer but not otherwise. It still doesn't help with the suit of armor that slowly heals the person wearing it.

Overall

In the end I could finish my first campaign because I wasn't engaged. Perhaps I needed a harder difficulty setting. But really, the tactical battles were not deep, there was no exploration and strategy during missions, and the "world map" decisions were not especially deep or interesting. There is a lot of competition for tactical games out there. Chimera Squad is quite good at that and is cheap, so in the end I would recommend it for that. However, I hope XCom 3 has a lot more meat to it.

Another similar tactical game is Into the Breach.

Curious Expedition

Curious Expedition

Curious Expedition is an entertaining roguelite game. 

Who Should Buy It

Anyone who is a fan of the turn-based roguelite genre should enjoy this game, at least for a while. I petered out after 20 hours having played fewer than half the available classes. It's not nearly as deep as some of my favorite roguelikes, like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, but it really scratches the itch to explore and there are some fun systems going on. 

Who Should Not Buy It

This game is so cheap and accessible, I'd recommend it to just about anybody who showed interest. However, if you aren't a fan of strategy, roguelike, or turn-based games, this isn't for you. Also, the art style is very retro, which could be a turn-off for some people.

The Room 3

The Room 3

There are currently three episodes of The Room. It's a beautiful escape-room style of puzzle game. The plot is interesting but can be ignored if you just want to do puzzles. For the most part, the game is pretty linear. There are a few satisfying opportunities for cleverness, but for the most part you just appreciate the artistic design. 

Normally I prefer deep puzzles, but those are easy to get in other places. The lore and beautiful design make The Room (and sequels) very satisfying to me.

Frostpunk

A city-building survival game.

Frostpunk

If I had known this was the same developers as This War of Mine (review), I would not have played it. Still, it was fun for the 10 hours it took to see the first story.

Overview

Frostpunk is a game that tells a story of survival while building your base and exploring the world. There are a number of resources to manage and varied ways to manage them. The dropping temperature is a unique mechanic that informs how your base will evolve. 

Story

The story aspect of Frostpunk is strong. I tend to ignore story in favor of gameplay, but Frostpunk has numerous choose-your-own-adventure style decisions to make, and those decisions have a large impact on the story and the gameplay. I imagine the game would be fairly dull after one or perhaps two playthroughs.

Base Building

Not bad. The interesting temperature mechanic breathes some life into what would otherwise be a mediocre building game. 

Technology Tree

There are two different tech trees. One is very typical of the types of research we have seen a thousand times. The other is a system to write laws. It is interesting in that the effect happens immediately, with a waiting period before another law can be passed. At first it seemed the laws were neutral in that they provide both a bonus and a penalty. I expected it to be an interesting way to respond to emergencies -- for example you could set guards to patrol, which would reduce crime but require more labor. However in practice, laws have little downside and you generally want to pass new laws as quickly as possible.

Exploration

You can build scouts to explore the surrounding world. This is pretty neat, but really it's just one more option for resource generation. "Should I build another coal mine for coal or a scout that will discover random resources?"

Should You Buy It?

If you liked This War of Mine, then yes. If you want to see an interesting combination of survival, base-building, and storytelling, then yes. If you want to explore difficult moral choices in your strategy game, then yes. Otherwise, no. Frostpunk combines these elements in an interesting way, but doesn't excel at any of them.

Rimworld

Sims, survival, and base building.

Rimworld

Rimworld is a fun game of base-building and survival. Depending on your settings, it can be brutal and unfair. 

Gameplay

Rimworld is largely a sim type game where you give your dupes/pawns/sims do all the work. However Rimworld has a bit more micromanagement than most. Quite a few things have to be ordered directly. Also, there is very little automation in the game. The job priority system is pretty good, but there are many situations that are not covered so be prepared to frequently override orders.

Goals

There is a lot of sandbox in Rimworld. Simply surviving can be challenging and it's easy to make your own goals. The victory condition isn't especially satisfying but there is a lot of fun to be had on the way.

Compared to Other Games

Dwarf Fortress: Rimworld is very much like Dwarf Fortress but more accessible. The graphics are primitive and the interface is decent but not great. It's not especially noob friendly, but compared to dwarf fortress it's a piece of cake. There isn't as much depth as Dwarf Fortress, but there is as much "game".

Sims: If you removed graphics from Sims, it would have a lot of similarities. You build houses and manage pawns needs. You can do a lot of evil things in Sims, but nothing compared to Rimworld where you can harvest organs, get your enemies addicted to narcotics, and sell slaves.

Oxygen Not Included: ONI is nicer to play, a better sandbox, and much prettier. It feels smoother, like Rimworld has disjointed systems cobbled together. ONI also has a great system for automation of machinery and pawn. While I generally think Oxygen Not Included is better, Rimworld has more game to it. For the most part it's easy to survive in Oxygen Not Included but beyond that you have to establish your own goals. It's a whole lot of fun getting to those goals but challenges are self created. It's "fun" figuring out how to clean the carbon dioxide from the base, but it's your fault you got there in the first place. Rimworld throws periodic events at you that have to be dealt with immediately.

Recommendation

Watch someone play for a bit. If the art style is a turn off, skip it. I liked it a lot, but I burned out after 100 hours and that doesn't come close to Oxygen Not Included.

Slime Rancher

Slime Rancher

Kind of a simple silly game but it scratched an itch. I liked the collection, exploration, and base building.

Everspace

Everspace

Not my thing. I've never loved keyboard+mouse for action spaceflight. This game doesn't seem to add much to the genre.

The Escapists

A cute game of prison break.

Brief Review

I gave this less than an hour. It isn't my thing. There is much repetition, and it's easy to lose progress. There is some fun game to it, but not worth the effort. 

Surviving Mars

Simcity on Mars

Overview

The Sim City genre has really exploded since Maxis' masterpiece from the 80s. Surviving Mars is a nice balance of sandbox, game, and story.

Three important aspects of Surviving Mars are managing the economy, planning, and experiencing the story.

Economic Management

A large part of the game is managing resources. There are about a dozen different resources and some short supply chains. For the most part, this is satisfying. There is a lot of automation and it's fun to watch your drones carry things around. The transport drone and the cargo rockets from Earth will cover you if you find yourself scare in a resource. It's fun to set up supply chains, and there isn't much stress about getting it perfect because Earth will save you.

Planning and Technology Research

Early on there are a few important decisions to make. Do you try to mine rare minerals to sell to Earth? Do you research advanced factories, buy the factories from earth, or just buy the finished good from Earth? Can you harvest loose surface metal or do you need to build a metal extractor?

In the two games I played, I didn't feel these decisions were important. I had enough money that I could buy whatever I needed from Earth. Factories are cheap to buy but expensive to research, and having one of each is enough to last for a very long time. 

Research is slow and most of the upgrades don't feel especially meaningful.

Planning location and contents of living domes is very important and interesting.

The Story

There are about a dozen "mysteries" to choose from every time you play. These have only a mild impact on the game, but do provide a nice distraction. Every time I was getting bored, this nice piece of fiction would show up to engage me. All in all, it is minor but nice.

Complaints

Lack of Depth

My biggest complaint is the lack of depth. There aren't that many different things to build. There aren't many different types of resources to exploit. The research path doesn't seem to vary much. I played two games. Neither was very tense, but I suspect that the tension wouldn't be fun. Much of the game isn't precise, but the game is quite forgiving. Being forced to play more precise would likely not be much fun.

Managing Colonists

I read an excellent piece of advice that said to not micromanage the colonists. Dealing with them is often frustrating and the UI for managing them is clunky. Sometimes this is a big deal. Rather than stress about it, it's better to play on an easier difficulty and try to organize your buildings in such a way for them to sort themselves out. Still, given that colonist management is the majority of the late game, this was disappointing.

Recommendation

This is a really tough one. As a Sim City sandbox game on Mars I got 20 hours of fun. The "game" aspect was not strong, but it was fun to see the different events once or twice. If pressed, I would reluctantly give Surviving Mars a thumbs-down.