Recent reviews by Dudealarm

Please ignore the playtime on this one. Started playing and just wanted to get the 100%. Uninstalled immediately on getting the last of the incredibly grindy achievements.

It's basically a runner game where you control a little firefighter and basically have to jump over or duck under obstacles whilst collecting cats and golden cats along the way. The difficulty ramps up pretty slowly before increasing a lot right at the end. There is a combo jump/duck that is borderline impossible on the very last levels.

My main gripe is with just how grindy it is. The achievements are all gained by spending the golden cats you collect on upgrades and collectibles, which take an extremely long time to accrue. The gameplay is not exciting enough to warrant playing it for more than a couple of hours but I've had to stick it out for more than 25, as I'm an idiot who wanted to get all of the pointless achievements.

If you're really bored or are wanting something to half-heartedly fill time whilst doing or watching something else, it may be worth a few pennies.

4/10

This is barely a game; it's mildly interactive art. I do not mind art and games intersecting but this is too short and the "gameplay" too shallow to be worth money.

Took 20 minutes to finish and after that I left it going for the trading cards.

3/10

Just a simple review to big up a small developer making some incredibly well designed (if slightly ugly) games. Played the first Militia and loved it so i bought this. I have other games by the same team that are also excellent.

It's a tactics/puzzle game following a chess type ruleset. You get 3 pieces who all have different powers with the aim of killing the enemy units; specifically the "captains". It's randomly set up each time and the difficulty goes up as you win and decreases if you lose.

Other people have described it better but just wanted to give a positive review as the game seems to be criminally underplayed by people and would love more people to play it and the other games.

8/10

I will caveat my recommendation by saying that it only just makes it over the threshold. It has a couple of nice ideas that make it playable but many small annoyances that make it far less so. It's quite cliched but if I could give it a "meh" I probably would.

There are several reviews that compare it to Darkest Dungeon (one of my all time favourites) so I gave it a go. After an hour playing, I realised that this was not particularly accurate. Other than having turn based combat and a map where you wander round and encounter random things, it is not that similar, please disregard anyone saying that!

The premise involves walking round a series of derelict spaceships with your group of 3 raiders in search of "location information" so you can find your mothership. You're mainly located on a spaceship base but make forays onto these derelicts to look for the information. Unfortunately for your characters you encounter a lot of monsters out to stop/kill you. You also use up energy as you move around and as you fight. If you run out of this energy and can't make it back to a drop-point then you die.

The main thing going for this game is the combat. As you look around each derelict, you will encounter various types of enemies, normally in groups of 1-2 at first and then 3-4 later on. You fight using cards. The cards you get are based on the individual character classes and what gear they have and they are drawn randomly as you take turns during the fight. The cards do damage as well as providing healing, buffs and debuffs. You have a shield that will recharge between fights but if you go through this it will damage health that will not replenish. I enjoyed the combat a lot. Sometimes the fights can be challenging but they are almost all winnable with a bit of luck or reloading and trying again. The combat kept me going to the end of the game but so many things are poorly designed which made the last 10 or 15 hours a massive drag.

- Characters. There are 6 classes to choose from but only ever 3 at once. You don't have a pool that you can rotate or play around with. You pick them at the start and you can only try a different one by firing another, which you realise is fairly pointless early on. DD is a great game because of the synergy you have between characters and because losing one is horrible but you can work around it. Even if one of your party dies in this they can be brought back to life for around the same cost as a new one.

- Exploring. At first you think that the energy mechanism is clever. It limits how far you can go each time you visit a derelict and makes you cautious about being able to make it back. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter at all how often you go back to base and replenish, you just get more energy and go back. Had a fight and a character is slightly injured? Just go back to base, heal and come back again - for free, no penalty. Also, there are obstacles that you will meet as you walk around. They don't do anything except get in the way of progress. You can use an item to dig them out or use energy to do the same. Either way it's just an exercise in clicking and it slows the game down needlessly. There is no jeopardy in doing it, it's just a chore.

- Inventory. You get loot when you kill things and sometimes randomly as you explore. Some of this loot will give you better cards and higher stats. I like this, it mostly works well as you have to prioritise damage or buffs, higher stats or more attack cards? What I don't like is that the inventory makes it hard to see what you have. Also, when you are buying more gear from the onboard shop, you can't see your characters or their inventories so it's more pointless clicking to check between the two to make sure what you are thinking of buying is an improvement. Massive waste or time.

Storyline. I won't write a lot, but the story is only occasionally interesting and if you are handed missions by the few NPCs dotted around, they are basically fetch quests. Bit boring.

I appreciate I've spent a lot of time on the bad and less on the good, but it's because I feel a nicely designed combat system and atmospheric graphics have been tarnished by not fleshing out other parts of the game. If some of these simple annoyances could have been fixed I would have recommended it more wholeheartedly and that makes me a little sad.

6/10

Viking micromanagement survival game. Not the most common genre but I had fun with it.

The basic game loop revolves around positioning your characters around various stations in your camp to best scavenge/mine/create resources that you need to survive. How well they do this depends on their skill levels and a bit of RNG, but not so much randomness that it becomes frustrating. You do this a couple of times a day, being careful not to run out of water, food, wood for the fire etc. Each night a bit of the storyline unfolds, and you mitigate how hungry, tired, thirsty your characters are, then you do it all again. This is set against the backdrop of an impending doom hanging over the family you control.

The micromanagement side is surprisingly enjoyable. Even played on the easier difficulties there will be plenty of decisions early on about which new feature you should build for your camp or which resource you think you can do without for a night. Deciding if you can take on a new camp member, who will consume your precious water and food, but can help elsewhere is often a tough choice.

The mid game becomes about exploring the mysterious island you are on, finding random resources, encountering potential dangers and meeting new recruits; as well as uncovering lore about the world. You're still managing but finding your feet. Still fun.

The issue is with the end game. You get to a point where your camp is well stocked and you are pretty powerful and your characters can easily win the random combats that exploring can bring. The combat mechanism is quite functional for a game like this, if a bit boring after a while and it can drag towards the end. I completed the whole thing after about 80 hours of actual play and by this point it was more of a grind than the tremendous fun it was at the start.

I played on standard settings so it might be that harder settings prevent the challenge from disappearing towards the end. However, I think a 40 hour experience would likely have been better overall.

An excellent game for people who want to play with stats and management and also get a fairly interesting story, but it overstayed its welcome a touch in the latter stages.

8/10

It's a simple concept that's executed brilliantly. You see a word (which is always a colour) but the word is also written in a colour. If the word matches the colour you left click, if not then right click. You get it right and then you get another one, if you get it wrong you lose - no second chances (without using accumulated points to buy one beforehand anyway). You are timed which adds pressure, and new mechanics are added as you go which make it harder.

Played for about 6 hours before I completed it, but I only played it for 30 mins before I bought the DLC which the Devs totally earned by making something fun and interesting. The DLC adds a couple of extra levels and another couple of layers of difficulty along with a bunch of achievements.

You get to play the base for free anyway - give it a go!

8/10

It's a whole lot of freecell. Gets progressively harder with more cards and less columns to transfer them around. You get equipment and spells to make it easier while you traverse the map. Good time kill but could have been implemented a bit better with less pointless spells and easier movement round the map.

7/10

Firstly I have to say that I am all for games without that much gameplay, that are a little more story and atmosphere based rather than action. That being said, this game was just boring.

The first run-through was good. Nice music, pretty minimalist graphics, interesting basic story. The second and third runs were also okay too. After that I just found it a chore. Only a couple of basic choices to make and then the same walking/swimming/floating scenes I've done 4, 5, 6..... 10 times before.

Absolutely not recommended - 4/10

Steam do a lot of things that annoy me. One such thing is making me look through a queue of games that I probably won't like and don't want, just to get the stupid free trading cards every time they do a sale. However, in this case they did me a service.

This game was on the list, and as I like turn-based strategy I stuck it on my wishlist. I didn't buy it until about a year later when there was an offer on it but I wish I'd bought it earlier.

Templar Battleforce is a turn based squad game where you control a team of different classes in various missions against an alien menace. There are several things that I like about it:

Firstly, the different classes feel pretty distinct. There are a few that do similar things but even they have subtle perks that make them different. Maybe not as individualised as the classes on the XCOM games but still a nice selection.

Secondly, despite the fact that I am not finished there is a pretty good storyline, which is often missing in games at this pricepoint. There is a whole lore and universe that is fleshed out fairly well during the missions themselves and in a few expository scenes between the main combat.

Speaking of the missions, there are a lot of them. I recently got the achievement for completing 30 missions and I think there are still 10+ to go (excuse me devs if I'm selling this short). It definitely feels like value for money in terms of longevity. Considering that there are several different difficulty levels and an ironman mode there is also some replayability too.

There are other things I like, such as the music, which ramps up the drama well as you progress through a mission. There are times where you are surrounded or struggling to work out how to defend yourself against a wave of "Xeno" and the music definitely adds to the tension.

I am playing through at normal difficulty and that feels like the perfect challenge already. There are times I have had to reset and redo a mission when I make a mistake like leaving a tactical point undefended, or walking into a horde of tough enemies with just a scout to fend for himself. Even when I have to do this it rarely feels like the game is picking on me, and when i refine my tactics a little I can plough through, but it feels like an accomplishment rather than a chore. Once I complete it I will definitely see if I can handle a tougher difficulty.

To add a little balance to an otherwise positive review, some of the mechanics are a little hard to understand at first. It can take a little effort or some looking through discussion boards to work out what is going on. Even with this relatively minor complaint, the developers are still incredibly helpful. Despite the game being out for a long time already, the two queries I have had have been answered by the devs within minutes of me asking them, and looking at other discussions this is not a fluke.

Overall, if you're a fan of turn based games then it is worth paying the full amount. Even if you're not, get it on sale.

I really don't know why this game has been overlooked as much as it has. Excellent match 3 (or match 4 in this case) that has several different modes and some tricky achivements. Would love to get active in the challenge style multiplayer.

Overall it's gotta be a solid 7/10