Recent reviews by programaths

I like the concept, but I will not really use it. (And neither refund)
It's lacking one simple thing, autocomplete for imported libraries. It could scan the library folder and allow you to pick the library to include.
Another thing it could do is provide autocomplete for the included library methods.

Those are things that classical IDEs do.

I do think it's good for beginners as it ease a bit the learning process by offering less friction for the base components.

Maybe the developer can look at MPS, which would allow to do crazy stuff!

Simple to play hard to master.

The game is infinitely replayable due to RNG being very present, There is a bit of learning to not make stupid move and you will quickly catch up on that, which means that you will also enjoy a quick improvement in performance.

You'll have to balance risk and reward. Either you try to make vlobs disapear as quickly as possible or you try to maximize the size of your "group".

It also play like 9 men moris, where you try to place your vlobs strategically so that you've multiple moves possibles to counter RNG.

The game has some twists...literally ^^

Also, it's dirty cheap!

Small game with a good selection of upgrades. Easy to get through, even if I took 7 death.

I put that first, because the game has quite some bugs (as an example, when you use the ability with a bull icon, you can end up flying across the map. It's fixed by hitting the hotkey 0 to teleport back to your home solace)
Animation is quite stiff, which lessen the perception of quality.
The game has no "loop" per se. It really depends on what you want to achieve. Currently, I am trying to boost my character while going as far as I can from the origin. I also enjoy crafting better gears and homes.
It's more about exploring and building for now.
The game offers at least 3 travelling options: teleportation from solace to solace, teleportation from a "door" in one of the 4 cardinal direction and a set distance and, obviously, by foot.
Crafting can be confusing due to requirements. Upgrading facilities too as it will ask you T1 Wood, while you only have T0 Wood at the beginning.
The further you go from the origin (first solace), the higher tier is everything (enemies AND resources).
Read the descriptions to learn how to build things. Everything is explained in game. People get confused because they do not read!
Each time you get skill points, assign them and craft new equipment. Craft a lot! As soon as possible to enhance your progression.
Now, there are constraints. You need to upgrade your faclities AND you can only equip tools and weapons according to levels of your personage. So, if mining skill is LVL3 and you craft a pickaxe of LVL4, you won't be able to equip it. Same with weapons, bound to your adventure level.
Tiers bring huge upgrades too, so you want to move away from your starting solace.
It's just intimidating, but really easy. You use WASD to move the selection around, W pushing afar and S pulling toward you. You use Z and X to rotate the selection and space to place. There is even a video tutorial available.

Well, I did already 12 hours. The game would win big with smoother animation, enemies disappearing properly. Graphics are not the most fantastic, but game-play is more important.
Some hints are not up to date though. One writing says that ~ (under escape) shift from 3rd to 1st person view...it doesn't, you need to scroll the mouse wheel.
When the avatar move weirdly, hit escape twice and it fixes it. You may also try hitting V too. It often comes from pushing escape to close a window...then the game open the menu....
With a bit of playing time, you'll know how to fix weird UX and not even notice it anymore.
So, quite a good game that is just missing polish.
I didn't engage with the town building mechanisms yet, so I can't evaluate that part.
As for objectives, you've to set your owns!

I am a professional developer, who also create games with Godot. I even created a shmup tutorial https://github.com/programaths/shmup-tuto.

So, why am I recommending this software if I can do something better and more flexible ?

Because this is not a all purpose game making software, it's dedicated to shmup. Which means that it has UI geared toward the specifics of the genre.

Don't expect to make a Mario clone, don't expect to even create a twin stick shooter. That's like tacking a raster editing programs and wanting to edit vector graphics and videos.

You may also think it pricey, after all, you could use a game engine for free. But what you pay is the work to piece the software together so you only have to click few buttons and get your shmup of your dreams on track! You are paying for the ease of use and the work behind it.

I will not really use the software, because it's limited for me, and I can make a better thing from scratch. I bought out of curiosity. Still, I highly recommend it, if you don't want to spend years before even reaching the same level of effectiveness when using this software. I have a bachelor in industrial computing (the hardest curriculum at that level in IT, with more that 25 years in IT and 14 of them professionally. So, it's quite normal that this software is irrelevant to me.

Yet, I am recommending it, because I don't think everyone want to spend that much time before being able to get close to what this can output.

So, if you want to have fun instead of having to learn a lot before even moving a ship on the screen, buy this.

You can think if this as RPG Maker, but for shmups.

Also, it's not bad at all to use this and RPG maker to learn the game play, story telling and see those in action while quickly iterating. Once in ease with that, then you can move on one step closer to generic game engines, then, why not, make your own!

Don't be fooled by tutorial to create games in 10 minutes. I made a comprehensive tutorial on Shmup, it's 5 hours and it's only an introduction.

If you are unsure, buy this. Get a taste of game design first.

What ?! I didn't yet wrote a review for NMS ?!

Ok, you've to know that metroid defined the metroidvania genre. NMS defined a whole expression: pulling a No Man's Sky.

That game did suck, Cyberpunk 2077 was the best qualitative game in comparison, well polished and bug free.

What you see now is some hard work from Hello Games where they pushed their game really close to their vision of grandeur they had,

The game is easy to pick and understand, there are diversified activities. Planets offer very different biomes, hazards, fauna, flora.

You have base building, frigate building, resources gathering and processing, weapon and tool upgrades, suit upgrades. Dogfighting in space and in athmosphere. You've ground fight with sentinels (flying robots, quadripedes and bipeds!)

You can do research, have a farm, have a mmining facility (basic automation).

If you are the creative type, besides the base building, you can also make music and use lighting.

That game did quite a journey to get where it is today!

And two important things: no pay to win and all updates were free.

That game did history once and is on good track to make it again, but for good reason this time.

I have the game on the other platform, it's a good metroidvania. I hope they will bring in the same options as in AV1. Speedrun and random.

The environments are varied and the skills are delivered a bit differently than in previous version, It's non linear, though you tend to explore each area separately, until it happens. (vague on purpose)

This game is for those who enjoy exploration and can be a bit hard at times. Yet, you should consider pushing through instead of lowering the difficulty.

I feel obligated to write this: FIRST.

Seems realistic. I suck at driving like crazy and even in real karting, everyone takes at least one lap on me. I also routinely spin and hit the tyres or whatever is on the side of the circuit.

I do suck the same in the game! So, good to have a bit of training! Also good to do something way out of your comfort zone, it's good for the brain and do more for you than playing brain games.

I play with ALL assist off, except the gearbox setup in full automatic and the indication of the best trajectory and speed on the track. I also use the G920 (Steering wheel) and it's set to "raw" (to have to work your turn and fight back the wheel).

Time goes fast when you play this, because you do laps without realizing the time, then retry, retry...then two hours went by and you feel your harms ^^

Don't be fooled by the small size and the graphics. The game is deep ^^

Information you need to know is disclosed at the time you need them. Puzzles start really easy, until you hit a string of harder ones. Luckily, if you take your time, it's doable.

This game implement the idea of delay and throughput, things I had to battle in real life scenario in automation. The idea of a token taking a journey is a metaphor used in BPMN (notation used to describe business processes accurately).

Even better, YOU make the component, so, if the delay is unbearable or the throughput very low, it's on you ^^

This review is a warning. I detected misleading reviews saying features are not available, luckily, those comments can't change the date they were posted. One common issue is the lack of straight line tool, it's available AND documented. Just right click for the first point and left click for the second point, Available since version 1.0.11 (So, all reviews after December 2029 saying there is no line tools are purposely misleading)
Also, circle and rectangle tools are there since version 1.2.00 (So, circa 2019), same idea, comments after 2028 telling it is lacking those tools are misleading.

As of today, it has a lot of tools including custom dither patterns.

The only tool I miss is a tilemap tool.