Recent reviews by Tefnut

Atlyss was a really fun game when I played it, would genuinely recommend. I got caught up in a hate mob over someone making stuff up that the dev was doing, but still good game

Spyware. Simple as. If you accept their new EULA you "consent" to them spying on you. NOT okay.

Great game, fun to blast bugs, aliens, and drones with all the power of a Cleric of Lockheed-Martin.

Just, watch any video on the EDF series, and youll know its a recommendation.

Shame EDF6 turned out the way it did, but EDF5 will remain good unless they decide to double down on their bad decision.

Dwarf Fortress is an absolute classic of a game, and has been for well over a decade. Its the definition of a passion project, having been made by two siblings for well over a decade.

Ignore my playtime, my ACTUAL playtime is best measured in months of pure play-time, and years of time almost-single-mindedly obessing over it. Months of real time spent basically entranced by ascii dwarves, only stopping to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and go to school.

The Steam version, and the relevant update for the free version, are not without their flaws, but they're easily worked past; really the only major one is "I dont like the new control scheme as much", which is only half-true. The new control scheme is a lot to get used to, playing more like Rimworld than the Dorf Fort of old, but its still a lot better. you're not constantly mashing your keyboard.

The steam update also has brought modding to a far more easily managed format than the dorf fort of old. Where as before, you'd have to manually tie any mods you wanted combined together, modding is now much more sensible. updates to vanilla files can easily be done with extentions.

all in all, great game, way too addictive.

Note: This review is based on the very early days, most things are subject to change

The game is an incredibly novel one, gameplay-wise. The core concept can be boiled down to answering a single question. "What if, in Pokemon or Digimon, you were just as much a combatant as the titular collectible monsters?" Unlike in other monster-collection games, where the most you can do is evade the monsters' attacks and throw capture methods at them outside of combat, and command your own monsters in combat, Palworld requires you deck the little bugger you want to catch in the face, whittling down its hit points personally before you can catch them most of the time. This can be quite cathartic.

Besides the monsters, the game has a heavy focus on survival. Imagine your ARK or your Rust. This aspect can lead to fun, but it also leads to a lot of pacing issues, where you have to grind for resources to do the most basic of things. It's fine usually, but if you're the sort to often be in a rush to progress, it can get frustrating, especially with the next two aspects.

The games a lot more punishing than Pokemon by default. Like most survival games, you drop your stuff when you die. This, from what I can gleam, includes your active pals, but fortunately, you don't have to play with death penalties at all. What you can't disable, is the level scaling. Sometimes, the one key ingredient to the item you want to make next, is only dropped by enemies that are out of your league. For example, Pal Oil is only dropped by tough enemies in the mid 20s to early 30s in level, so if you beeline a Musket, you'll have a hard time fighting most enemies who drop it. There isn't even much of a smooth transition; One moment you'll be fighting everything with ease, and next, you'll be stonewalled and sent back to the grindstone, nose first. Additionally, if one of your pals faints, you're out of luck. There is no item that will bring them back, and resting won't do you any good either. All you can do, is take them out of duty, and wait ten real world minutes.

The game currently doesnt have an easily accessible map; the only kind of work around is going into your Paldeck and looking at the habitats of a species of Pal. This is a bit of an issue, but not the biggest. Just try and keep your bearings with the compass and paying attention to local landmarks. This does mean its hard to tell where bosses, rarer resources, and merchants are.

The last major issue I personally have is one thats almost certain to be rectified; a lack of variety in the early game. Rather quickly, the pals you encounter will become samey. While there are 111 base monsters, some with alternate forms, most of what you'll be encountering is the same 10 or so common monsters, and one or two mid-tier monsters depending on where you are.

Adding onto that final negative, one small nitpick. The game lacks the Evolution mechanic most of the competition has; with any given Pal, what you see is what you get. This is a bit of a double edged sword; you dont have to evolve your cute friends into less-cute forms to keep playing, but conversely, any Pal who starts to lag behind in combat doesn't really have a way to catch back up; a major issue if you play the game from a Monster Battler's perspective rather than a survival one.

Finally, a positive to round things out. The general tone and sense of humor. Alluded to in my initial description, the game is very much a homage and parody to the monster battling genre, bringing more special attention to the impact these fantastical creatures would have on the world. To play the game optimally, or even access early-midgame gear at all, you'll need to employ Pal labor to some extent; whether its a firey pal smelting your ore for you, or a little penguin running some water-based machinery, you'll be working your little friends, which, to the delight of Rimworld players, can lead to some darkly comedic moments of mistreating pals, if you want (You don't have to mistreat them in the slightest, the games only as dark as you want it to be.)

In conclusion, 9/10, needs more Pals.

Edit: I still recommend the game, but due to legal action, they have made too many compromises that have, fittingly, compromised the feel of the game. The recommendation has been getting shakier at this, as I cannot fully support a game that kneecaps itself over the demands of spoiled billion dollar corporations. Never kowtow to bullies.

Nearly 10 years in development, at time of review, and they still haven't decided what they want the primary gameplay loop to be like, completely overhauling progression every few updates.

Change is to be expected in an Alpha, but usually that change comes alongside expansion, something this game has sorely lacked for years; the game lacks longevity unless you keep horde nights enabled, but they're such a poorly integrated mechanic. Anything you might think of to do to attempt to survive them has already been thought of by someone else, and promptly nerfed into uselessness by the devs. Want to use a car to outspeed the hordes? Sorry, if you so much as step near a bicycle, ten thousand supersonic zombie vultures will materialize on your location and instakill you. Want to fortify your base to survive the horde night in comfort? Your turrets WILL run out of ammo, the hordes WILL breach your defenses, and you WILL die. Want to use the games stealth mechanics to wait out the horde? Sorry, just like seemingly every other enemy in the game, horde night zombies autodetect you. All you can do is either fight them out like a wannabe action movie hero, or use the latest cheese strat that will work for exactly one version before getting neutered.

The game had potential, but after nearly a decade in alpha stages, its just not worth holding out any more.

Its the only somewhat accessible option for VR chatrooms, but it consistently causes issues, crashing my PC, crashing to desktop, insisting I dont have its unnecessary anti-cheat when OBVIOUSLY I do, because I installed it with this horrific game in the first place.

Also seriously, why is there anti-cheat on a game that doesnt even have competitive play? What is there to gain from it?

Great fighting game! Recently removed some edgy background details that probably shouldn't have made it to the game in the first place!

Best 15 minutes of my life

First up, its about time there was some form of integrated support for a colonist being anything but a pure baseline human. That has been in the lore doc since day 1, but the game has never reflected it.

Now, this DLC is great, but it feels unfinished. The mechanics are all good, but lack little bits of polish. For example, theres a complete and utter lack of ideology integration, there are no memes or precepts related to children, childbirth, or even xenotypes.

Children themselves can be enslaved, but slave equipment doesn't fit on them, meaning suppression is incredibly hard to keep on them.

Compare this to Ideology, which, while not inherently integrated with Royalty, still had a lot of synergy with it, and things just feel lacking.

All this on top of a higher price point than past DLC makes the recommendation a lot less enthusiastic. Its still good, I'd argue still probably worth the money, but some people may not find it worth its price, and since sales don't exist for the game and its DLC, passing on it is understandable.