Recent reviews by argentumsound

I never buy games at full price.
I usually wait literal years, (for some it's been around a decade [!] and get them on sale with all the DLCs whenever I feel up to trying them out.
I bought Dwarf Fortress on 6th of December 2022, minutes after release.
I still think it's an absolute steal for dwarven treasuries worth of value I have gotten out of it and I hardly even played.
[Yeah, I hear you barking big dog, but believe me - 300 hours is nothing! Maybe you'd build a baby's first fort or two in that time but you'd still be sitting high and nigh an absolute top of Mount Everest mound of content, legendary histories and mythical, heroic adventures. Oh the stories you could tell!]

Just get it.

It's 10x times worth the price.

J U S T I C E

First time I played this game when my introverted ass miraculously managed to go to a nerd board game gathering (I loved it, I never went again).
I loved the game so much and I got very excited seeing it has been available on Steam for years now.
Of course I got it (with all the expansions).
The game - as many board games - is very fun with other people, but even alone, playing against the bots works perfectly.
It's a game perfect in it's simplicity, great to just pick up for a game or two when you don't feel like committing to anything bigger or more complicated.
The DLCs provide new game modes. In my opinion, they are nothing special but offer a bit of freshness if you want to switch the things up a bit.
For me, the original game mode is a timeless classic that I will be able to squeeze a session in in 50 years and still enjoy it. I think of it as something like Solitaire.
It's absolutely worth it as much with other people as alone and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Outward brings us something rarely seen in modern games - the sense of adventure and the freedom to fail.
While you can feel some of the indie jank, the world is full of things to do and work towards.
It's not the usual "NPC on every corner" strategy that developers tend to employ lately.
The lands are quite barren and you have to work up to even the starting zone enemies. But what it does is put importance on your choices and actions and forces you to plan and think on how you're going to approach whatever you want to do.
And you really can do anything. Go anywhere. If you can only manage to survive ;)
The voice acting is minimal but it does it's job. I have to give praise to voice actors as the quality of their work is rarely seen in indie games.
There is a lot of unfavourable opinions about voice acting but I think people dislike WHEN and WHAT the lines are saying not necessarily the quality of acting itself, which I personally find surprisingly well performed.
For such a small team, this is a grand achievement and one of the rare games that can offer something different to others - hence why they garnered widespread acclaim and more dedicated players than you will ever see on some AAA MMORPGs these days.
The game does what it intends to do very well and with a bigger team, bigger budget and this added development experience I will definitely keep an eye on Outward 2 and other possible releases from Nine Dots Studio.
There is definitely a heart there but not lacking the attention to detail, optimization and QoL for the players. Anyone who engages in games regularly and reads the news on the topic will know, that this already is more than enough to pay attention to the studio, as respect for the community, love for the world their creating and unrestrained imagination is something that cannot be bought with any amount of AAA money.

Absolutely not finished and is asking much even for that price.
There is so many much better games FOR FREE on itch.io.
It's a great, simple concept but the execution is just kinda annoying.
The glizzy's have such a tiny hitbox I have to focus like I'm going for a headshot achievement in Halo.
You cannot chill because you're getting sabotaged every other second.
You cannot get into a competitive spirit with it because by the time you get into the rhythm of things the day is over and then the whole game is over since it's only 7 day story.
The settings menu is sad but at least it exists which I cannot say for many other much higher priced games.
I'd recommend it if it was smoothed out around the edges and quite a bit longer but right now it's just meh and on the negative side at that, I won't refund it though since I don't think it's just a simple asset flip. I see that the developer actually TRIED. Not much, but they did try a little bit.

TL;DR - Super short, a bit annoying, tense and just meh.

Playing my own miserable life in game. 10/10

This is an exquisite example of art and imagination.
The art is stunning, the story is engaging, the whole piece is carefully crafted.
I watched it first on a Let's Play but played through it myself just to own it and show support.
Will be getting an artbook too, I would absolutely love to have a physical copy of it as well.

Thank you Nathan for being a real artist, it's rare to see these days.
I am in awe and grateful to be able to share in experiencing this creation and I can't wait for what Nathan does next.
Thank you for creating this! It's clear there has been a lot of passion,love and talent put into this.
It clearly shows <3

Artificially bumped up difficulty.
Annoying, not real survival.
Lack of options to upgrade to help you go on.
You can upgrade the storage for materials and the battery but that hardly feels like any progress.
You have to keep an eye on ALL the characters at ALL times, otherwise they will stupidly kill themselves.
Story you heard hundred of times before, not enough to carry the annoying gameplay.
There is a base for a good game here, but it would need a major make and think-over.

I think I wouldn't be mistaken to say that this game would be a dream game for a lot of management/Stardew Valley/cosy style game fans.

I say "would" since even though the game is cute and fun overall, there seems to be a lot of stuff missing.
The visitor numbers and new doggo intake numbers needs a lot of balancing since it seems that you either wait for one or the other.
Haven't encountered many bugs yet but browsing through reviews you can see that it's clearly an issue.
I would just LOVE to see more content overall.
More furniture, more building (please give us a "move" furniture button), more animals, more decorations.
I hope devs keep working on this one as I really want to keep playing but I fear I will start running out of content soon as it is already starting to get repetitive week 1.
(I would even buy a DLC that's how much I like the general idea and feel of this game.)

Please devs, we LOVE your game, just give us more to do and we'll stay playing.

ALSO LET ME PET MY DOG ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Here it is again to the fact that it's not graphics that make a great game, but heart, dedication and absolutely sick mechanics.

You won't be disappointed. I rate it GARLIC out of /fun!