Recent reviews by TurtleSwift

Dust curls in the breeze,
engines scream through forest turns,
victory drifts near.

Art of rally is a minimalist rally racing game, simple in presentation, deep in spirit. True to its name, like a haiku, it tastefully presents rally as an art. No fuss, no filler, just driving in gorgeous colors.

The low poly art style, complimented by gorgeous lighting presents lovely visuals across different locations such a snowy Finland, coniferous Norwegian forested fjords, rolling hills of sunny Sardinia, mountainous Sakura littered Japan, dry Kenyan savanna, tropical and humid Indonesia and …boring old Germany. Each location brings its own charm and colors and they all look stunning to race in.

More importantly though, are the cars. You work your way from the classic era, first time rally racers like the BMW 2002 all the way through to the 90’s era cars like the Impreza. Although no real names are used, you know the look of each legend. The cars feel superb to drive and are more aligned to simulation style driving rather than arcade. The drifting feels right as you manage shifting the weight of your car through each corner and throttle when the wight lands on the drive wheels. Each turn you successfully drift through feels rewarding and satisfactory to make. It can be a little intimidating, especially considering the drop-down camera and not being able to really manage the view point. You do get used to it fairly quickly and become a natural in no time… or drop the difficulty.

All races are done in a tournament style timed stages with maintenance stops in between. No codriver is present – or really needed since the top-down camera enables you to see well ahead of every turn. Apart from the gorgeous visuals, the music sets the scene to every race. The soundtrack is synth heavy, a mixture of chillwave and electronica and sometimes ambient tunes. It fits perfectly with the relaxed feel of the game. I wouldn’t think twice about listening to it in my car, but I’m afraid I’d lose touch with reality and start drifting down the highway really fast.

There is a free drive mode, though not really as engaging, it does allow for some relaxed driving and shutter bugging (yes, there is a camera mode). I like this game. From its pretty scenery, soundtrack and tight gameplay, it doesn’t overstay its welcome or feel dull at any time. I would say it is a true contender in the rally racing genre. Its played best with a controller and takes around 18 hours to complete – though contradictory, it’s no race to finish it!
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3508620091

Have you ever wanted to just get behind the wheel of something with enough torque to reverse the rotation of the earth? Something which burns through enough diesel to start a new ice age? A machine that epitomizes the destruction of nature’s only remaining habitat? That was, of course, a rhetorical question because I know the answer is yes and the game that does it is MudRunner.

You know how first-person shooters let you live the fantasy of just going nuts and shooting things you can’t normally shoot in real live? MudRunner does that too. But instead of shooting people, you destroy mother earth. The game presents you with a handful of levels or maps with each requiring you to select a truck, attach a trailer, go to a logging station and transport logs to a mill. Do it a few times, move to the next map and do it again. There are certain optional challenges on each map, like finding secret areas and smashing pumpkins, reaching all outposts and things of that nature. These give you something extra to do and are always welcome and rewarding with achievements or a beautiful vista of the Siberian wilderness.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3442749910
At its core, the game is a careful driving game in which you drive soviet era off road trucks, transporting logs from point A to B. The meat of the game is in the driving mechanics. They, depending on your difficulty settings, determine how engaging the driving will be. You can manage gears, differential lock, all wheel drive, fuel consumption, trailer attachments and winch yourself out of a jam. The trucks are slow and have a hefty feel to them. Turning the key puffs up a cloud of black smoke, signalling to the heavens that you are about to burn through some serious dinosaur liquid.

While I was initially reminded of Euro Truck Simulator, the game is only similar in its simulator nature but not much else. You complete transportation objectives in both but that’s where it ends. While I did miss it, MudRunner does not present any economy mechanics like those in ETS. Instead, we are given extra challenges to complete and I was fine by that. The game can be easily played with a controller or keyboard, solo or co-op and runs fine on a steam deck.

All in all, MudRunner scratches an ich for a more particular driving experience in which you need to take it slow and either think things through or bring an extra vehicle to winch you out of an inevitable mud jam. Although brief at 13 hours, I enjoyed my time with it.

Minami Lane is a short and sweet management style game. It takes you through a set of levels, with defined goals you need to reach to complete. This entails building houses, parks and various shops. Then tweaking certain things like what shops sell to make everyone happy. Pick up some trash, pet some cats and off you go.

It is not particularly deep, difficult, long or sophisticated. Is that a bad thing? Not really. Whatever the game lacks, makes up for in charm, art design and overall cuteness. Its price reflects the product perfectly.

If you are looking for a meaningful management game with charm, this game might not be for you. More easy-going experience? This is probably what you want. I played it for 4 hours over a lazy weekend and enjoyed my time with it.

Are you ready to experience what life is like for a struggling fisherman, taking their boat out to sea each day in hopes of catching a few crabs to live another day? Until you realize something is off in the waters you are told to fish? Until you realize the deep is where the unknown dwells? The unknown that surfaces under the cover of night.

DREDGE is an exploration adventure game drenched in Lovecraftian horror – the horror of the unknown. You play the role of a fishman, primarily driving around in a fishing boat and catch fish and other various objects and sell them in town. But something isn’t right… there’s monsters in these waters! But don’t worry, they mostly come out at night… mostly. Now its up to you to uncover the mysteries of the deep. Your travels will take you to four islands, around which you will search for answers and of course fish.

The main gameplay loop will take you boating around, exploring new locations and fishing. The fishing itself is presented as a minigame that feels just right, not meaningless. Fish take storage space which you need to manage. They can then be sold and upgrades bought to make your fishing life a little easier. All while being stalked by sea monsters of course.

The atmosphere is something of note here. I’ve mentioned the sea monsters and they do come out and they do kill you and you don’t know what they are or what they want. This is the main driver of the exploration on your adventure. Complimented by the sound of gulls, the waves hitting the boat and the occasional sighting of whales paints the canvas of a perfect fishing day. While the background music turns eery towards the sunset and starts escalating when danger is about.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3102940707
I liked DREDGE, the atmosphere conveys the Lovecraftian element perfectly. No gameplay element overstayed its welcome. The story and mystery ware satisfactory. The environments impeccable. I felt like an early 20th century sea captain, hoping I wouldn’t get stuck with Willem Dafoe in a lighthouse. No notes.

Played it for 13 hours, primarily on a steam deck.

Scorn is an artsy and atmospheric carnival ride through the gruesome wonders of what biology can produce. At its core, it is a first-person puzzler, intermittent with more engaging action-enticed elements in the form of gruesome horrors one could only think of in a state of delirium. Were it not for the latter, I'd sooner call it a walking sim through the mind of H.R. Giger. There is no traditional storytelling, no narration, no text. Just you and the game.

So, you walk, take in the sights, solve puzzles, and 'dispose of' some baddies. The tourist part of the game had me contemplating the meaning of life, what is sex, what are organs, and where the hell I even am (physically, in the game, and life!). The game does very well as a walking sim, as it looks beautiful through a very morbid and macabre lens. Enclosed areas of alien machinery, old relics of a forgotten civilization, and fallen soldiers on the steps of toppled monuments. Walls depicting reproduction, gore, sex, the perfect human form, and all that good stuff. It's philosophical and the strongest part of the game, though it can be seen as too ambiguous since there is no traditional storytelling.

The secondary mechanic of the game involves solving puzzles. Some are literal 2D puzzle pieces you may need to move to fit to get a viable egg from a grid storage area. The result of the next one may provide power to a train cart, and the next one may culminate in moving said egg in said train cart to move it to an embryo scooper and... I'm not going to spoil it for you, but it's morbid while fascinating. I liked how the puzzles complement each other to build on something larger. The payoff is often satisfying, especially since the difficulty of most puzzles is not exactly low. What I disliked though was when the puzzles were disconnected from each other and far apart enough to make me run around and frantically search for something that made no sense. There is no guidance in the game to help, so you are often on your own. This problem was exacerbated by repeating and look-alike alien hallways.

Action is provided by strange creatures lurking about, trying to, well, murder you. It makes for some tense encounters as weapons are old, archaic things with little ammo to spare. I'm split on whether I liked it or if it just got in the way. While it is a nice break from just the puzzles, combat mechanically lacks the oomph to make it truly satisfying. While combat was probably included as a means to up the ante on the horror, it remains the weakest part of the game. Shooting things does take a back seat here, and that is probably for the better. An outlier is an encounter with a rather portly creature you need to dispose of by means of throwing explosives. 

I played it on a steam deck, docked to a TV, with a controller, and had no technical problems. Finished in 11 hours and lost 2 hours looking for my own ass in some alien tunnels. I'd recommend this game to anyone with a morbid curiosity looking to solve puzzles and willing to look past its lackluster combat. While I can appreciate the amount of effort they put into the game, I don't believe the finished product translates well to the full asking price. At a discount, it can be worthwhile.

Cocoon is an adventure puzzle game focused on atmosphere and gameplay. There is no text, no spoken words, just you and your controller. There's hardly even a menu.

It manages to tell its story through locations and actions rather than the traditional method of text or voice. Though it does rely on the players imagination to fill in the gaps. It is a novel approach to storytelling that doesn't fall flat thanks to the ambience and mood of every scene set by the music and artistic setpieces. The fantastic background music paints you as a small cog in the machine with deep, low, and echoing tones giving a sense of scale while short and sweet pitched effects provide feedback when progressing through areas or solving a puzzle correctly. Visually, the game is presented in appealing colors with not too much detail in texture but rather uses high-contrast pastel solid colors, which reminded me of Wii era Nintendo games or TF2 even. Warm orange rocks and canyons, luscious green water-flooded forests, dark and grey tech landscapes... You are a bug finding your way in the big and scary world.

Gameplay wise, it is a puzzle game at heart. There isn't much in the repertoire of abilities except for movement and the good old 'use' button. The puzzles are the environment blocking your path forward. It is quite similar to games like INSIDE. Which coincidentally is something I've been reminded of every step through playing the game. The atmosphere, the gameplay, the music... no wonder, COCOON comes from the same gameplay designer!

I have very few negative things to say about COCOON. Its short. It ends just as the puzzles start getting recursive and gradually require more brain power to process, thereby increasing the pleasure of solving them. On the other hand, the ambiguous and abstract nature of the world could get tiresome, and the end does come as a sweet conclusion.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3118572305
I enjoyed my time with COCOON. It took about 5 hours to complete and should be a must-play for any fans of atmospheric puzzlers like LIMBO or INSIDE or for any entomophile.

Stacklands is a game about stacking cards. It is not a card game yet has everything to do with cards. Everything is a card and all of them can be stacked as a means of progression.

See a rock? That’s a card. See a villager? Card again. Stack them. Get some stone out of it. That stone? Yup, another card. Stack three stone and you got a block, which is a card. You get the idea. The basic formula is a tried and true one; villagers are workers and get fed once a day or die, resources get worked, farmed and improved, research is done and the game progresses. Oh no, what’s this? An evil witch has sent monsters to kill you? Kill them back, find out where they are coming from and prepare for a boss battle.

The formula works well and Stacklands doesn’t push any new boundaries there but manages to strike the perfect balance between survival, combat and growth. This makes the game easy to get into while packaging it in a card format makes it unique and interesting enough to keep one engaged.

Combat is simple and consists of turn based auto attacking by every card in the bout. No user input required. The meat of the game is resource management and growth anyway so keeping the focus away from micro managing combat is a good way to achieve that. Most of the time will be spent on making sure your villagers have enough to eat by the end of the day and securing enough resources to make the next big thig that will progress you further. Combat comes when progress is halted due to missing key components which can only be obtained through combat. Either you choose to fight or the fight comes to you eventually. Resource progression and advancement doesn’t get too deep which keeps the game short and sweet while the mystery of what’s to come keeps you plugged in and stacking cards.

Sokpop Collective have outdone themselves with this game. Their philosophy of making short games and pumping them out one by one with technical quality and a loving hand proves once again; while these games may not be as deep and lengthy as one hopes, especially when they are at the level of quality as Stacklands, it is reassuring to know we get to try more unique experiences than the collective 20 year output of a triple A studio.

Stacklands is great: fun, easy to pick up, unique and full of references. 10-15 hours to 100% for 4€, dare I even ask?

A few years ago, cookie clicker blew up milk and cookie chunks all over the internet. It got so popular; Valve made their own summer sale clicker game. Good times. This, is the original game that started it all, on steam. The original browser game is still available free online… this is pretty much the same game with a few benefits like steam achievements, cloud saves, steam workshop support and some chill ass music by C418. Runs better too.

The gist of it is clicking, getting cookies and spending them to buy things that click for you. Simple game really. Idle-mania galore. Its all neatly wrapped in a blanket of warm milk beneath the bosom of your grandmother’s teat. Allegorically, it offers a comparison for addiction and greed. The act of playing can become as addictive as sugar is, in the cookies we eat. Playing (or eating) is only met with more playing (and eating).

Deeper still, one’s greed in the game results in an interesting turn of events. One can either play the game by clicking just as a baker (worker) makes cookies. Or one can choose to employ grandmas to bake for them, as a sort of capitalist if you will. Your capital being cookies, naturally. After some time, one gets greedy, as all capitalists do, you employ more and more and bake more and more. One day, the workers realize you do verry little, yet take much more than them (class consciousness) and start turning against you. This is cartoonishly represented by worm-like beings from another dimension who eat at your ‘hard earned’ cookies. Only when this occurs, can you step in, squash the resistance and get your workers back in line. Ironically still, this produces more cookies as the other workers have now seen your disregard for life and now fear your repressive cookie regime. Will they rise up again? Will they overthrow you and sieze the means of production?

The price tag seems fair to relive some old memories, support the dev and enjoy some fine tunes. It’s a fun way to kill a few hours (or a few hundred). After playing, I got hungry. I’ll let you guess what I ate.

Image & Form Games releases a new title every few years to an audience that seems to be dwindling as of late. Their previous titles, Dig, Dig 2 and Heist (all bearing the SteamWorld marque) enjoyed higher praise but weren't necessarily better. I like how this developer chooses to keep the same kind of look and feel across all their products while producing a different game every time (apart from the well-justified sequel Dig 2). Manages to keep them fresh, technically sound and fun at the same time. It is a shame Quest was overlooked by its audience this time round as the former applies to this title just the same.

SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech takes the form of an adventure RPG with turn based battles using decks of cards. Your pick from the classic lineup of RPG characters determines how battles will play out. Warrior, assassin, high DPS/low HP mage, healer/buffer/tank… They're all there, and they all feel fun to play. Party members can be swapped out after each battle, so things don't get to dry. Building or modifying each character's deck is key to success with the larger boss battles towards the end of each chapter. Modification allows for character combos such as magnifying magical, or specific elemental, damage and having two characters do that type of damage… You know, the thing most games do. My favorite combo towards the end was having a character just heal and tank, one buffing my main with critical and a mage main. Progressing further also opens up opportunities for new cards, new combos and new card upgrades.
Card variety does leave something to be desired but for an entry card battler, I wouldn't look too deep into it. A small complaint here is how the game doesn't let you know just how much damage a character will be able to dish out before ending your turn. Each card clearly displays the expected damage based on how buffed the character is, but while throwing an extra power up card before a damage card will clearly up the hurt, you aren't told by how much. The UI doesn't help much either. In a game like this, I'd expect to be given the ability to check whether an enemy is immune to a certain damage type, but the given tools don't provide much info apart from what each icon means.
The damage system with all these cards and combos sounds like a complicated mess, but I'm very glad to say, each character can only have a deck of 8 cards. With three characters bringing your deck to 24 cards. This does make the game a lot more accessible to anyone wanting to try out a card battler while still staying true to the genre.

While the story leaves much to be desired, it feels good enough for what the game is. It's the classic good vs evil, heroes in a world of dragons and magic saving the world fantasy trope you hear all the time. True to their previous titles, the lighthearted humor is still there and the steampunk aesthetic is of course central to everything. The deck of cards you build? They are punch cards for steam driven machines! It works and I like that.

Technically, the game is excellent. I did not encounter any bugs from start to finish of my 19-ish hour play through. The game ends on a high note (the following is optional content, not the ending), giving you a final challenge of 7 consecutive boss battles in an arena. I got to the 6th, asked the audience whether they were entertained or not and stopped playing.

Quest is a fun game and an entry card battler. There are better ones out there but being fun to play, easy to start, it is a good choice for anyone looking to get into that. Since better (more difficult, more varied), and cheaper card games exist, I recommend getting it at a discount. But do get it when you can, a rainy weekend will be over much quicker when you do.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2492725322

Banished is getting on in years now with over 6 years since its release and just about as much since it’s last patch. Never the less, I still remember my playthrough of it all those eons ago. It is fair to say it has stuck with me as a competent, pocket sized, town builder.

The game focuses on the smaller village to town setting. Preferring to engage the player with its economy system. I would describe it as similar but more lightweight than Blue Byte’s The Settlers. Villagers are tasked with gathering resources like ore or wood, other villagers process it into usable materials and yet others refine it. Balancing the supply and demand of materials and resources can be tricky but feels rewarding when done right. In some ways It fells like you are THE invisible hand. The point here being… without going too into the meta of what the point of life is, to make everyone happy, allowing a healthy expansion of the town and being self-sufficient in the process.

The settlers, villagers have needs that need to be met or else they leave your paradise on earth. Makes me wonder, where are they going to go? Weren’t they banished from everywhere else? They get hungry, so farms or fishers need to be placed. They get sick so a hospital is needed. They even have the audacity to get cold during the winter. Every job needs a villager assigned to it. This adds more difficult to expanding the town and opening the gameplay up a bit more. The goal here is preventing hunger, disease, cold, pest infestations...

Though it can be difficult at first, the foremost important thing I found was expanding very slowly. Knowing exactly how many people your town can sustain is key.
Helped by a simple interface, the game does a good job at explaining what everything is and how it works. There is no monetary economy and very little trading is done. No combat is present, no diplomacy or politics. Only the people and the land. I think this is what makes Banished great. It is a simple game with enough depth to keep players engaged, has an easy barrier to entry and hooks right away with is steep difficulty that can be mastered swiftly once one uses their head.

The downside is the end game. Once you’ve built everything and have balanced the economy, there is little left to do other than achievement hunting. I’m not going to say it is shallow, but the end game does feel like a swimming pool you’ve outgrown. If you find it particularly fun and don’t mind starting over, the challenge is there to start with fewer resources or on different sized maps. I had fun with my time with Banished. I think the asking price is fair but considering the age and alternatives out there today, I’d buy it on a sale if you enjoy city builders / economy sims.

Mods are supported but active development has ceased.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=281760356