Recent reviews by BNE Domestic Terminal

It's a rogue-like card game that makes figuring out and then scavenging OP builds into a core mechanic. Such smart and fun gameloop design which packages a similarly interesting and upward fighting storyline - the mechanics really make me feel like I was a captive in this world; which, again, is perfect for the story it want to tell (people [you] getting trapped in a game [this one] by/with primordial gods who both want and NEED to escape.).

Cool stuff.

An excellent loot/shoot risk & reward gameplay loop - and an identifiably defined loop too, which I've come to appreciate. If you want to play only one round, diving into town to try your luck, you can. It's so easy to portion control!

I can't overstate how refreshing and honestly joyful it is to have a game which is easy to pick up - and put down - these days. So good. So much fun. At this point in time, it *is* a bit rough in terms of technical bugs, but absolutely worth working around.

edit: continues to be a fun gameplay loop - the devs are very active in terms of their discord and working on the project. The last update (0.31) *did* introduce a few game breaking bugs which for a very small team is forgivable - just hope they aren't afraid to take their time solidifying the code.
Again, awesome game! Worth working around the 'work in progress' nature of it all.

Believe it or not: good.

Certainly still has improvements to make. The game loop is very... spirally? Like it's very easy to start doing a trade trip with the intention to gather/sell resources but end up finding something else along the way that ALSO requires your attention to get atop of - with it's own set of sub-tasks you ned to do, leading you (me) to forget the initial set of things I set out to do because two IRL hours have passed as I got sidetracked filling up garrisons, finding noble units to replace the units I took out of my party to stock said garrisons, developing working relationships with serfs so I can get more noble units spawned to recruit etc etc etc.

Fun combat. Smithing feels less mechanically/economically broken but it's still one of the most interesting things in the game - so make of that what you will.

This is your medieval sim. Just don't expect a tight gameplay loop. This is a "I'm killing time" game and boy, does it.

You can tell the Devs loved The Stanley Parable.
I do too.
If I were making a game, I would take inspiration from it too.
This feels like they stole the production bible and just went "another one of these" but completely missed all the things & design theory which made it great - I'm genuinely shocked how brazen this is. Like, I'm talking right down to menu fonts - they copied the *font*.

Honestly, that I can forgive. Not everyone has a clear aesthetic vision like that - but the gameplay was trite too. The core of the game was about breaking out of surreal spaces using your wits and the tools at your disposal. Now, I played for close to an hour before I decided I was backing out; for about 15 I was interested in where this perspective puzzle mechanic was going to take me before I realised it wasn't going to advance beyond treating it like traversal mechanic. Nothing incentivised me to play, to experiment: and when I did I HIT INVISIBLE WALLS! I gave the game time and engagement and when you hit an invisible wall in a Stanley Parable/Portal clone? It's just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ level design - there should be answers in the game that aren't "no" for me wanting to push on the games mechanics and setting.
The game is about escaping from a dream. Let me be creative and escape.
This isn't a puzzle sandbox because it's development team just couldn't think that way, this is on-rails design to the core.
There is no choice, there is no real opportunity to play and realise the potential of what is genuinely a really cool world manipulation mechanic. There's just no imagination or imaginative implementation in here.

I waited a while and was really looking forward to getting this one. Very disappointed it couldn't deliver on what its marketing material sold.

I got this on sale for half price and for where I'm at and how I felt playing it, it's still not worth it.
Genuinely shocked that I've ended up refunding this.

It's good. Save scum and experience a fun, casual tactics game. Don't do that and be subjected to a ball bustingly brutal time where you get to, justifiably so, yell at the screen while/for being punished with hours worth of lost equipment, soldiers etc for learning mechanics.

(In my experience: was most fun to play it on easy first, learn your mistakes, then play again on something harder if you enjoyed yourself.)

It's good both ways. Good game. Sometimes there's funky rule/game glitches so I just consider Ironman mode as a functional act of masochism. Still good though.

Holy excoriate the narrative in this game talks down to you.
The character writing is all over the place and crams in so much Mary Sue/barely concealed wish fulfilment it genuinely hurts. There's future/past tense errors that were never edited out in the logs. Your pilots name is so dangerously close to being an anagram for 'Deez Nuts' it genuinely borders on insulting.
tldr; It's bad bad not good writing. The controls are tanky and the default key-binds are rubbish (who puts dodge, a combat critical move on Z where you need to take your fingers away from WASD??).

Now don't get me wrong, my CPU is not the freshest - but damn it lags from CPU processing like crazy. I'm talking HUGE dips for an i5-4670 (again, she's old but above the stated min spec). It's playable, but barely. Input lag kills this game and holy hell - it killed it for me. I've above the stated minimum recommended spec - and my GPU is a 3090 (I'm mid upgrade) so that's not the bottleneck.
Respawn: please, update the spec lists or optimise the game so it performs within the ones you've stated. Finding out 60Gb later that this chugs CPU like a benchmark is kind of a letdown.

edit (@8 hours): some of it gets better, a lot that matters doesn't. The level design doesn't feel organic, like the only reason most of these platforms/walls/pipes/rotating fans exist is because they need to be there for you to play the video game, you big dumb idiot. Kind of counterintuitive to the whole 'immersive, convincing story' shtik they're trying to pull off. The dialogue still feels like pure "you hero! Big totally heaps important to everyone legit hero! Look, characters from movies - they say you inspire them! Wow!" the majority of the time which rolls my eyes like wheels.

Greeze is just the personified stereotype of a man from Brooklyn.

Why am I still playing this.

Nice chilled game to uncurl your brain into - it's been a while since something has encouraged me to think so laterally! Longer still since I've had to stop playing or a bit just to let my head reset so I can approach the puzzle with a clear, unbiased mind.

If that sounds like your bag, I would heartily recommend! (Run is LShift, it'll help!)

An instant favourite: it's such a pure expression of life, emotion and the journey we take with both - it's everything great art is.
I love this game so unreservedly - all I can say is thank you to the devs and encourage you to play it yourself!

Soft, warm and inviting, this game is comfort food in a cozy bed on a rainy day.

The beginning is rough setting yourself up, prepare to manage your time pretty ruthlessly to get everything done - but the game rewards you for your work, the upgrades and payoffs are all worth the effort!
Also, something which is a bit of a double edged sword for me is how each day is approximately 40 real-world minutes.
1. Great because you can ration your time going into a session!
2. Not so great because you can't really have smaller sized bites, as you can only save your progress at the end of a day.

Either way, this is my first real dive into the farm/village/Animal Crossing sub-genre (if you could call it that) but this is an amazing time.
Would highly recommend!

Infinite replayability with intensely engaging mechanics and (suprisingly strong) storytelling.
You will grow to love your pawns, so watching them eat each other after your entire base burns from the inside out, their food stores have been exhausted and Gnomerib is on his deathbed after the colony was attacked by a pack of manhunting labradors is absolutely absurd and joyfully heartbreaking.

Please, do yourself a favour.
If you have any doubts about whether this is for you, watch a couple of streams on Twitch; Rimworld IMO is top tier. Modular, strong mechanics and granular as hell.

EDIT: One and a half years later, I'm still playing this game. It's released now and Nandolant deserve all the praise they recieve. This game is an amazing work of emergent storytelling; I love it. You'll love it! There's so much here to love!
Also, the modding community is still as strong as ever; honestly, this game and it's community are amazing. Get on it!

EDIT EDIT: 2 Years. Still playing it. Still engaging. Still desperately trying to keep my colony alive.
The modding scene is still strong so content flows like the river. Rimworld is without doubt the best game around if you enjoy divergent storytelling and hot damn, I do love some sandbox narrative shenanigans.