Recent reviews by Tekk

I have put a lot of time and a fair amount of money into this game, but with the way the development is going I simply can't recommend it.

Don't get me wrong, I have had a lot of fun and still do have a fair amount.
The thing is, that the monetization is continuously being pushed - as an example, there are always two battle passes running simultaneously, A long one sprinkled with a series of mini battle passes, where the good/useful rewards have been increasingly locked behind a paywall.

Another being that Premium used to be buy-able with the in-game currency, but was later locked behind a second, premium currency.

Now we're at the point where balance is offset in a direction that benefits whales, both in regards to balance but also in regards to overall gameplay.

Specifically, changes have been made to the Challenge system (daily/weekly rewards for doing certain things while playing) to attempt to push more people into the Clan system (Confrontation and Clan wars).
From my experience, that arena is generally dominated by whales, or at least people who've put a lot of money into the game. Which is also why most normal players do not play that content, which leaves the whales with few opponents.

I feel like the game is in a death spiral, and Targem/Gaijin is trying to squeeze as much money as they can out of the game before it crashes.

I think the main reason that the player-base is still the size that it is, is because Crossout basically has monopoly on the genre.
If the game started to have any real competition, I think that the player-base would evaporate overnight.

I feel like the best way to describe this game is a great, studio made, single player RPG game, just scaled down in size.
While it, to me, isn't (yet!) a game to sink hundred of hours into, it kind of still has it all.
Character customization with base attributes that affects dialog/action option, with a lot of options for character building allowing for a pretty large variety of interesting builds.
It has a main story with cut-scenes and (some) voice acting, that can still be bypassed to just free roam, do some, or all, of the many quests and whatever you want really.
There's Crafting, cooking, enchanting and house building.
Dungeons with not only monsters and bosses, but most of them also with some themed mechanic needed to progress through, or some small story unfolding.
There are factions which you can join for special quests, reputation and gear.

The world also features quite a few World Bosses, not to mention Mysteries(puzzles) either solved with wit, knowledge about the world or something you read in some book you bought at some random vendor.

No game is perfect, same goes for Gedonia; It has its kinks and issues, but none have been game-breaking in my experience and the developer is active, so overall in very good condition by Early Access standards.

On its own, I think Gedonia is an excellent Early Access title well worth the money; Considering that it is made by a single developer blows my mind, and seeing how he continues to update the game in a meaningful way, recently adding a new zone and two dungeons, makes buying this game a no-brainer in my opinion.

A couple of things to keep in mind though:
The art style is simplistic, and while i like it, it may be a deal-breaker to some.
As mentioned, the game is made by one guy, and it feels like you can see him getting better as you progress through the game; quests and their characters getting a bit deeper and more well written, dungeons becoming more intricate, landscapes becoming more creative.
This is pretty cool, imo, but also means that the beginning of the game can feel a bit slow, so one might have to get a bit into the game to really see the potential; it is easily doable within the 2-hour window though, and well worth it.

Gorgeous re-creation of Half-Life, with a twist.

Honestly do not recall the original well enough to comment on the changes from the original, i have been told that the Xen portion is completely redone, but the parts i do remember are pretty spot on and i had a great playthrough!

The age of the game shows, and there are some anachronisms in the story, but i thoroughly enjoyed the game, its world and characters. Also loved the varity in things to do; slay monsters, play dice, romance women and get drunk with ya friends!

Would definitely recommend playing with mouse-only movement, sort of like an ARPG.

Buy this if you're a patient person.

The game seems to have a lot of potential, but it is being unlocked quite slowly with a lot of hickups along the way :p

Loving it so far, will have to play quite a bit more before i've tried everything it has to offer.

First off, the game is damned impressive to me, considering it's a 1 man job, that part blows me away.
It seems to get some inspiration from "Hostile Waters" and/or "Savage 1 / Savage 2", both of which are games that i really like.

However, i can't recommend the game, it's just functional as a strategy game.

The whole "player controlled commander" idea is great, but the fact that you can't queue structure construction leaves you hopping between first person and RTS mode constantly, to place buildings After they're finished , which could kind of work if the AI wasn't completely useless,
If you leave your units alone, they'll shoot and follow whatever comes into range, meaning they may follow a damage enemy commander straight into tis base and suicide.
You could set them for guard mode, but that just means they'll stay in place and not engage at all.

Even if you play in full RTS mode, the unit pathfinding is clunky and your units tend to get murdered by the enemy commander and/or turrets because your units are having issues moving around obstacles.

The game needs work, specifically it needs a better system for constructing buildings, eg. queueing of buildings.
The AI also needs a lot of work, better pathfinding that also takes the units terrain and inter-unit hitbox into considering, better commands and better following of command; If i set units to guard mode, i want them to stay in place and rain hell on anything that gets into range.

The price is a bit steep for a game that takes 4-5 hours to complete, even including the "bonus" content, but i loved every bit of it :)

I'm not going to go too much into detail (spoilers and all) but i loved the overall ethical dilemma regarding both humans and A.I and the question of sentience.

If you like The Talos Principle, you're going to love this game, it has a lot of the same qualities, but it's more,, down to earth and has more of a human element.

So, i'm about 60 hours in and i must say, i recommend this game.

Fortresscraft Evolved is an early access game, and as such it has it's kinks (not that many though), but the content so far is great, and over the past few weeks that i have owned the game, i have seen a lot of development activity and content added.

I also think the developers show great transparancy, through detailed patch notes and the ability from the player side to choose what build you want to run, as in you can choose to run the stable version, beta version or bleeding edge if you want to be up to date with the newest of the new developments.

*update*
I'm at 90 something hours played now, and entheusiasm has not faded a bit, i'd just like to add that;
It has been my experience that the devs, to me, seem very open to ideas, but also eager to resolved issues and bugs, i've not had a single bug report or feature request that hasn't recieved attention from the devs yet, seems to me that the developers are very active part of the community.

I'm amazed at this game, especially considering it's place in development.

It has great graphics and physics, coupled with fun and addicting gameplay.

Lastly, optimization; I'm running a computer composed of 4-6 year old parts and this game runs fluently even with graphics at it's highest.

Looking forward to more zones!