Recent reviews by Dowgle

Excellent adaption of a great board game. The care an attention to detail that has gone into this adaption is admirable, from the cute bird animations to the chirps, soundtrack and more. It is a very polished game and being able to boot up a quick game is great. Hopefully they will add the expansion soon and the new Oceania one, when it releases.

A solid digital implementation of the board game. It is good to be able to play against AI of various difficulties, online, or even the solo challenge mode from the tabletop game, which plays very differently. The tutorial does a good job of giving you the basics and the UI is clean and functional.

My only gripe would be that it doesn't include any of the expansions from the board game such as the Hellas and Elysium alternative maps, or the Venus, Colonies or Turmoil add-ons. These would significantly increase the replay value on offer.

Good digital port of an excellent solitaire card game. The difficulty is perfectly balanced to ensure you are always on a knife edge, with one bad move signalling your doom. What I like about Onirim, is that although that is an element of luck involved in the order you draw cards, it feels a lot more skill based than similar games. I genuinely feel like I improve my decision making every round and what seems like a simple premise on the surface has hidden depth that you will keep learning as you play.

The fact that it is free to play and the expansions are super cheap is the icing on the cake.

Excellent adaption of an excellent worker placement and engine building board game. I like that the developers have gone the extra mile and included things such as the options to have the minis and workers painted, and the option to view the fantastic art in it's own gallery. Offers local play, against AI or online so you are covered whatever you fancy.

My only gripes are the tutorial, which takes about an hour and doesn't really teach you in an efficient manner, you are better off playing and learning as you go. It also doesn't (at the time of writing) include the 'Wind Gambit' and 'Rise of Fenris' expansions from the board game, which would be nice to add extra variety.

If you like the card game then this is a safe purchase. It includes most of the expansions at a reasonable cost each, has a good tutorial if you have never played before and can be played locally, online or against the AI. The only issue I have with the digital implementation is that although the tutorial does a good job of teaching you the base game rules, each expansion adds its own new gimmick, and the game doesn't explain these, you have to work them out yourself, but they are mostly straightforward enough.

That being said, I think there are better deckbuilders out there that offer a far more engaging experience such as Shards of Infinity, Race for the Galaxy and even Star Realms. The main issue I have with Ascension as a product is it never really feels like you are competing against the other players. You are just playing cards and at the end you tot up the points, there is minimal to no interaction with the contestants. Whereas the other games mentioned over you are directly attacking the other players (with the exception of Race for the Galaxy, but that is just much deeper mechanically and thematically), here you aren't, and that gives the game a lack of competition in my opinion.

I have just completed Ancient Enemy and I just about recommend it. One thing I would say is is you go into this expected a deckbuilding game, it is not that at all so don't expect something like Slay the Spire. Basically before every battle you start with a standard attack and then you can pick a magic attack and defence, but it is just a case of match spells to the enemy weaknesses. I will give my positives and negatives below.

Positives;
The art style is crisp and colourful
The solitaire style minigame is unique and surprisingly addictive, at first at least.
There are a variety of different difficulty settings to tailor the challenge

Negatives;
The game gets repetitive pretty quickly, even during a short 6 hour campaign.
I struggled to care about the overarching story, there is not enough character development.
There are only about 4-5 enemy types, so you will battle them constantly.
As mentioned above, their is little tactical thought needed, you just match your spells against the enemies weakness.

Overall, the game starts off strongly and sets a good first impression, but struggles to maintain that throughout it's runtime, as it doesn't really introduce any new mechanics to keep it fresh. Its good for a couple of nights entertainment, but dont expect to be blown away.

Fantastic, still holds up after 10 years. The game looks surprisingly good compared to newer games with excellent lighting effects and the combat is tense. The story is the usual Remedy craziness but is enthralling all the same. The two DLC episodes are more experimental in a good way and help tie up some loose ends. Highly recommend.

Fantastic art style and soundtrack create an ethereal, dreamlike atmosphere and the story is wonderfully metaphorical, and will have you thinking about it long after completion. Like nothing else on the market.

One of the best roguelike games on the market. The fact I own this on PS4, PC and Switch should tell you all you need to know and the modding community is great, constantly adding new characters and cards to keep you playing infinitely

One of the most accessible and fun tower defense games available. Yes, this is a few years old at this point but it is better the mobile only, microtransaction heavy sequel. Tower defense is usually one of the few genres I don't like but this game has so much heart you cant help but love it.