Recent reviews by Mickmane

Refunded because the window is too small for my monitor. Couldn't properly see stuff.

Fun little math game with cute "uncool" monsters.

Most important info first, options!
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3118894510

You enter dungeons, mines, forests, with each a certain amount of floors (one monster per floor), and one or more zones (each with their own amount of floors), and have to solve math problems with operators + - * or / to deal damage to the monsters. Later the operators get combined, too.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3119206856

If you play with timer, you take damage when the timer runs out before you give your answer. With or without timer, you take damage when your solution is wrong. When you're low on hitpoints, food items turn up that heal you when you beat them. Outside a dungeon, you can heal in the tavern. When you run out of hitpoints, you get chucked out of the dungeon.

You earn money, with which you can unlock further areas, and xp, which makes you stronger when you level up.

There's a nice in-game help that explains it all, too.

You can go back and redo any previous area. There's a nice shortcut that lists all those you unlocked, and how well you did in them (up to 100% at no wrong answer).

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3119206455

You can play in practice mode without stats or timer, but now that a no timer option has been added, you can just as well 'practice' in the dungeons. :)

There's also mention of an ascension in the in-game help. I'm not there yet though.

I've not yet looked at the other characters from the DLC, planning to get them in the next sale.

Input is easiest with a mouse, but you can use just keyboard too. (Options also mention a controller, I don't have one though.)

It's cute, it jogs the brain, it's a nice way to pass the time when you don't feel like games with story, or frantic action, or just want to excercise your gray cells :)

It's a mix of turn based managing coffee production and detective story.

There's a demo that I suggest you try if you think this might be your game.

I played on easy.

Most important thing first (what I want to see in any review, and won't bother to read if I can't spot it): Options!

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3064303023
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3064303183

Be warned, spoiler protected comments in this review are real actual story spoilers. I had to put them in because they greatly influenced my opinion. But only look at them if you really want to know why I am annoyed with the devs. (Or you like spoilers - I do. Maybe I should have looked for them before buying this.)

Gameplay:

At first you're led through a detailed tutorial touching everything you need to know about the tasks to attend.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3062223779

You get bits of story in cartoon format.

Tasks are:

You go to meetings with potential buyers, go through a dialogue with multiple replies to choose from, which can make them like you more or less. After you offer a contract, you get more dialogue with multiple options to choose from that influence the discount you end up settling on. You can just leave and try again, or even reload a previous (manually saved) state in the conversation.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3063433629

You set up production of up to three different types of coffee (with options to upgrade the warehouse, and a bit at a time per chapter; the coffee production).

You assign up to 5 employees (you start with 3) to do the jobs of producing, delivery, finding information about and setting up a meeting with potential buyers, upgrading your production or marketing, and training. You can assign one employee to more than one task, but not more than one employee to the same task.

You go to the sales screen and send off the coffee to be delivered.

When you got new clues (not every turn), you go to the investigation board and sort through the clues, check what new facts you have for the characters you know about, and get to connect clues.

You can also arrange for some advertisement.

There's no benefit to being fast. You might as well use all the weeks you got per chapter to rack up cash. (Though that can get a bit repetitive.)


https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3063381272

Pro:
- Interesting story.
- Interesting setting.
- Excellent Voice audio.
- Clear interface.
- You can save at any time and try again, wether in the middle of a conversation, or reloading after a production accident and hitting End of Turn again, or loading a save before you tried connections on the investigation board. Or reload after you bought an auto-connect, to then do it manually and save the cash.
- You got a to-do list with required and optional goals.
- You can read up on all clues and information on characters and story bits any time you like (except in the middle of a conversation).

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3064355926


Neutral:
- There are 3 different ways to motivate your employees, which you can use 3 times per employee. After that I guess they'll just eventually leave if you can't keep them happy.
- It jumps between following the story and sorting clues, and the management simulation. I can't say I like being jostled from one to the other and back. I think two separate games, one more fleshed out coffee production (without the negotiations) and the other the story with all the cartoons and chat would suit me better. (But then I'd probably just stick to the management simulation.)
- On its own the coffee producing/selling is a bit too barebones. Most work goes into the conversations, the rest is assigning staff, and then clicking the same stuff each turn.


Con:
- Quick Time Event during an auction (late in the game), gah! Terrible!
- AND a Quick Time Event in the last scene, ruining it with the urge to yell at whoever thought adding QTE was a good idea.
- Stupid story ending. And there is only one ending.
- Some text is a bit small.
- You can't skip dialogue you've already read.
- It doesn't remember for you which connections you already tried on the investigation board. (Why are there only 3 tries per turn, when you can just reload anyway?)
- You're forced to overwork your staff. No choice in whether you hire more staff to have them be happier, or decide to overwork a few employees. (I guess less profitable contracts with less to do would work.)


Why Thumbs down: Right until the very end I was going to give it a thumbs up. But after getting to the end, I am just annoyed. I was going to say "I don't regret buying this at 75% off." but now I do regret it. No happy, "Oh this was nice." feeling, just a "bleh", with a knot in my chest.

Heavy spoiler detail: The viewpoint character shouldn't get freaking killed at the end!

I looked at the demo a while ago, and had been waiting for a discount that fits my small wallet. I guess people for whom those 3.49 euro (at 75% off) are a mere cup of coffee (rather than half a week's supply, brewed at home in a coffee machine for 1l pots) could afford a lesser or no discount and wouldn't be disappointed. (Unless you react the way I do to the spoily bit.)

Finally THE game I have been looking for for decades. Turn based building without fighting or pushing units around!

It's like Sim City, Theme Hospital, Startopia (with combat turned off) in Turn Based. Building, managing.

The thing I want to know first about any game I might be interested in:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2920147977

Can't rebind keys yet, but the dev has that on their list of things to add. Once I can use F3 for screenshots of the map (rather than it changing the view to plumbing) I'll add some more. :)

You can choose whether you want to have to complete the goals within a limited amount of turns, or as many as you like. I like that I can take my time. :)

Since so many people complain and give misleading reviews:

After playing for a bit, I realized that terraforming isn't much needed anymore above ground, and there are different ways to get more of it than just the free supply every few turns. (I see it as the company supplying the terraforming only having these available.) By now I tend to just use TNT underground. :)

Not sure I'd trade the current system for a simple choice of 1 tile terraformed any way I want every few turns, or having to pay lots for that choice from the start. I get more done the way it is now! :)

Electricity, food, water, building resources are important and have to be managed. Choose wisely what you research first. Follow the missions as strictly as possible, or build a stable colony first? You decide.

Plan ahead where you put your buildings, so you can put a happiness raising building near housing, and move its area of influence over them without the building itself taking up a spot in the area of influence. Leave room for 'roads' (Passages). Don't forget the landing platforms and trading!

(I'm reminded of endless hours spent drawing layouts for the above mentioned RTS building games. My mind is already thinking about best arrangements. :) And here it's my pace, yay! :)))) )

Oh, here's a screenshot I did with alt+print and pasted into one done with Steam:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2920155744

The graphics are nice and clear, things are well recognizable for what they are once you know what they look like.

Btw, when you start the next mission in the campaign, you can keep restarting until you got a map layout you like. Edit: You can now edit the seed in campaign maps, too!

It's not a puzzle game. Unless you think Sim City is a puzzle game.

Recommended for anyone who likes colony building without fighting, and is as tired of RTS just letting you wait most of the time as I am. :)

I played the demo, and when the game launched I took a bit to think about buying it for much more than I usually spend on games (I don't have a big wallet). Then I couldn't resist, and I don't regret it!

Now back to playing! :) (A wonder that I actually got round to writing a review, but I wanted to counter the misleading ones.)

...

I finished the campaign's 7 chapters, and wanted to add that the story is interesting. Kept me wondering about what's next. (There's still free play, and sandbox is announced for a future update.)

I also had a peek at the music (turning it off is usually the first thing I do along with getting any game into a window of a size I like). It's nice! Some bits remind me of a long ago game called Ascendency (4X in space, turn based), others of Jan Hammer, as well as a meditation music CD I have somewhere that someone gifted me in the early 90s. Maybe that gives you an idea of what it's like. :)

----

Edit: Nominated for various categories in the Steam Awards 2023.
Game of the Year Award
Best Game on Steam Deck Award
Most Innovative Gameplay Award
Best Game You Suck At Award - (I'd like a different game here.)
Best Soundtrack Award
Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award

Very nice game where you move the numbers, all up, all down, all left or all right, and when two identical numbers bump into each other, they merge and become one with twice their value.

The goal is to get as far as possible before you are out of moves.

I see people say that you can get games like this for free? Well, I like Steam, Steam screenshots, and options. And you certainly get the options here:

Options:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2594101224

Resolution options:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2594113963

Game Modes:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2594103031

Classic: You can do undo the last three moves.

Unmistakable: No undo.

Survival: You have a few seconds to start with, and you get an additional second every time you combine 2 numbers.

Time Trial: You have 60 seconds to get as far as you can.


I had a problem the other day, and the dev fixed it super speedily! Now that's support. :))

And that for such a tiny price.

Definitely recommended! :)

Maybe on sale, when it's 75% or more off, one could think about getting it.

It's got minimum options, with proper windowed mode. (And not some tiny one on my 3840x2160 monitor.)
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2455040894

First attempt to turn off fullscreen mode just closed the game when I hit the X on the menu, 2nd attempt game ran fine.

You can use 3 different profiles.

In the Ho scenes, some items maybe blend too well. Could be you like that, could be you think it unfair, or just difficult.

Story seems quite short. It strings the puzzles and HO scenes together, and the running back and forth.

Pro:

Interesting facts strewen across the locations and HO scenes.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2455043916

Some interesting puzzles here and there.

Graphics are ok (some people might even think they're nice).

Contra:

No fast travel map. Lots of running back and forth.

HO scenes are re-used, and the 2nd time they again have the stuff you already found.

The hint system is useless outside HO scenes, it's just telling you to do something you've already done, or something you can't yet do, or is just not helping with what you need to do right then. Inside HO scenes I often hit hint just to get rid of the irritating animation. (At least it helps there with the well blending items.)

The tutorial isn't any better.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2454565216

No journal.

Overall, I don't think I'd pay 39 cent again.

Nice puzzle game for in-between bigger games, or while eating. :)

There are a ton of options, including tileset, various sound volumes, background colours, and resolutions.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2349157296

Despite its looks, it's not like the mahjong games I'm familiar with; you can click on any visible tile, and have to find a match with at most 2 bends in the line between them.

There is a tutorial explaining what you have to do. :)

Playing the campaign, you can pick from ever more levels that are ahead, but it's a bit confusing to find just the next one you haven't done. :) Progression is through slowly more complicated levels, but it never gets overly difficult.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2349166606

When you do get stuck you can just hit the hint button and it'll show you a combo. You can also undo your last moves, and it points out when you have no more moves and suggests undoing.

Apart from Campaign, there is also Casual Game, Time Attack, and Mini Game (no hints or undo there), where you can set the board size you want, and whether you want a timer in the Mini Game.

I don't know what joker tiles are for, they just vanish when you click on them.

It saves your progress when you leave a puzzle before finishing it.

There are also Player Stats and Leaderboards for those who like them.

Overall, a really amazing amount of options, some bigger games could well learn from this one!

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2349170398

Only flaw I could find was that I have to move the mouse, or hit enter, for going to the next level. Once you win it tells you to click, and when you click it opens a menu offering to go to the next level, play again, campaign menu, and main menu.


I got this from a give-away.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/puzzlelovers/announcements/detail/2899718323769338509
The maintainer of the Puzzle Lovers group actually bought the game, it wasn't from a key.

Thank you, Dohi64!

Nice Puzzle game with a quirky background that's revealed bit by bit.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2301630418
As you can see, good window and sound options, as well as plenty options to remove stuff that lets you wait.

I don't really know what penalty you get when you fail while not using unlimited solutions, I tried and could just continue to guess. Maybe you might want to have free solutions later on for tough stuff, but I want to solve them myself anyway. :)

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2301670357

The puzzles themselves need you to put blocks on the right places, starting easy, getting more difficult over time. Blocks can have numbers, may be empty (placable anywhere), or have mathematical functions going in one or more direction, affecting the neighbouring block(s), including blocks that affect neighbouring blocks.

You do not have to move the blocks with your character. As you're told early on, you have a super power to move them with your mind! :)

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2301643062

There are also different colours to the blocks, affecting only matching colours, or changing colours. And after a while shapes are added, neighbouring blocks have to fit into each other.

New blocks are introduced in easier puzzles, where it should be obvious what you have to do with them.

There is no level selection, but you can start over any time, losing previous progress.

There is no indication of how many levels there are. A guide on Steam here says it is 67 levels.

The interface works fine, the graphics are ok, though I could do without the fake 'snow' fuzzying some locations.

The character you start watching at the start isn't the most likable, but I guess you can imagine just watching the folks, and not actually playing him.

Definitely recommended for people who like to jog their gray cells and chuckle at the text now and then. Even fuzzy old me got to the end once, and I'm now playing it again. :)

Edit: After playing it some more again, I added additional info.

Stuck on loading screen.

Don't know why it says 18h, probably card drops back when I got it in 2016? Haven't played it until I wanted to try it with a friend today.

Mendel says hello and lets you play with his laws, mixing in a bit of Darwin, too.

(Runs on Linux Mint Mate with Steam Play/Proton.)

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1856938817

You direct the actions of what fans call Nichelings, picking/digging for/fishing/... food, beating up or walking away from dangerous creatures, and most importantly breeding the next generation(s). Genes become available through actions, travelling to certain islands, or inviting random Nichelings into your tribe.

The genes determine how well and what food your Nichelings can gather, how strong they are, whether they fly, or can breathe in water. Smell, sight, and hearing are also separate senses that they can do well or not so well, and they matter for some things. There are also plenty options for how they look, fur colour, pattern, and horn colour, are all cosmetic. (Horns themselves are not, though, most add strength.)

Immunity genes are also important. And for story mode, it's better to keep the home island immunity in your tribe (the one shown as a star, where all others are capital letters).

You have to find the creature you like best, or which survives best, but you can't make one that can do everything. You can of course keep 2 or more different kind of creatures around, fighters, gatherers, and fishers, for example, but on the very hard islands you can only take 5 Nichelings with you to the next one, that's at most 2 couples and 1 extra.

The mutation menu tells you how to get each gene, just hover over the locked ones.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1718817816

In the Story mode, there's a tutorial that explains everything you need to know, in easy steps. There's not much of a story, you just learn to play, and then get told to find back to your home island (how you left it is shown in an intro video).

There's also Sandbox mode where you can tweak all sorts of things, what genes you start with, how long your Nichelings live, and more.

In the end, you have to make up your own reason to play on, after finding home or in sandbox mode.

I see people posting challenges, do this or that with only those genes. I don't quite 'get' that those, but obviously some people really like that kind of thing. Also, role-playing and inventing stories about their Nichelings even.

Me, I now go for how fast I can unlock all genes, that's a goal I understand. :)

Plenty options for window and fullscreen mode, sound and ambience and music sliders, and keyboard controls.

Some of the critters are also quite cute. Graphics are fitting and camera controls work fine.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1811265999

Oh, and Niche is now free for schools & teachers:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/games/440650/announcements/detail/1617275205635683225