Recent reviews by psionic_m

+++ TLDR +++
7th Feb 2021: Mixed Review: Reasonable game. Lacks challenge and replayability. End-game is dull.
2nd April 2024: Updated Review. Still Mixed Opinions.

+++ SUMMARY +++
In my first playthrough (Feb 2021), I set the difficulty to Hard, and started a Hardcore game (no pausing). I had expected to fail. I had expected this game to be as challenging as Planetbase. It isn't. Its easier, and in my opinion, is kind of dull. This is my sort of game, and I don't normally not recommend games of this type. If there was a 'Mixed Views' option, I'd have ticked it.

My concluding thought is that: "I've played this game through once. And I don't feel like it's something I will ever want to come back to."

(April 2024): I came back to it. I replayed it, because I thought it would be interesting to collect all of the monolith stones on the map, and stand them up on a hill. However, as my settlement started to hit 150 people, I start to hit the nuances of the AI pathfinding for crop harvesting. There are plenty of people, plenty of tools, crops set to high priority, and plenty of places nearby to store the harvest - the people wander all over the place, in a highly inefficient pattern... which is frustrating. Just harvest the crops before winter. You can put them away afterwards! I still have mixed views on this game.

+++ IMPRESSIONS+++
The early game is of Dawn of Man is great! The wildlife is threatening, and I have to carefully micromanage the activities of the actors in the game to ensure they have enough food, clothing, and tools to do the jobs they are being assigned. Every hunt carries uncertainty. Those first few winters are tough. Every untimely death is felt, and running at 1x speed feels like it's too fast to keep up with.

By the mid game, most tasks can be automated, and the player can ramp up the game speed; 2x, 4x. The role of the player is to manage more of the overall strategy of resource production, while directing the slow build up of technology points towards the growth of the civilisation. The threat of hunting falls away as the more threatening ancient animals fall to extinction, and my technology advances. As I take a step back from the micromanagement, I find myself distanced from the plight of the actors. Deaths, diseases, animal attacks, and other events cease to become significant as the population grows, a feeling that is comparable with other games of this genre; Banished, or Planetbase.

By the end game, I'm playing the game at a constant 8x speed (maximum), and it feels tediously slow. Every event that drops your speed to 1x is frustrating. At one point the game prompts "You should build defences, the raider attacks will be strong". They are barely a hindrance to my settlement. Walls? Towers? I don't need them. My technology and population easily vanquishes every raid. I spend my time scouring the landscape looking for additional monolith stones, now so far away from my settlement that my actors cannot reach them without first dying of starvation, thirst, or cold, and that is frustrating.

I've completed the milestones, and the technology points keep coming, and In the 17 hours I've spent on my first game, I feel like I've exhausted the possibilities that this game offers for play. My growth is halted. There isn't quite enough variety in the late game to keep it interesting. As I said at the beginning, I just don't think I'll ever come back to it after this first playthrough.

+++ POSITIVES +++
All this said, the game has many nice features.
* The environment is lush and verdant, filled with wildlife and terrain variety.
* The seasons change the land, and it's well done.
* The harvesting automation is simple to follow with the work areas.
* The 'resource limits proportional to my population' feature is excellent, more games should carry this feature.
* The 'view associated resource limits' button on each production building makes it very easy to manage.
* The game has a lot of resource types, and it is manageable, because the rate at which you unlock them means you can deal with each in turn, without being overwhelmed.
* The way animals can be hitched up to carts and plows is satisfying.
* The placement of farmland in non-square fields around other objects gives a dynamic and natural looking feel.
* The buildings look pretty good, and it's fun to place them, particularly the roundhouses and huts, giving the settlement an organic feel as it grows.
* Most of the game animations for the work tasks are nice to watch.
* As the game is largely not-threatening, it's nice to explore the town, watch the people work, and use the zoom-in camera to see what's going on.

+++ CONCLUSION+++
This is a reasonable game. It is reasonably priced. It lacks replayability, so I don't feel like I'll get my money's worth out of it.
Buy it, make your own call.

I highly recommend Cliff Empire. It is a science fiction city builder with a level of depth well beyond what I had expected for the price.

The game begins with your storage facility, and some starting resources provided from orbit. You develop your economy, balancing a range of resources, production chains, and population statistics while the game throws tricky events at your fledgling clifftop city.

My favourite of these is the attack of the marauders: the graphics on the weapons and shields are excellent, and the smooth transition between game play and pause, and the ability to rotate and zoom the camera around the action gives it a satisfying matrix-style bullet-time - the only thing missing is a half-speed!

Cliff Empire has a satisfying learning curve: the tutorial guides you into the basics of the game, and the more advanced features are left as a puzzle for the player - a challenge to explore and discover.

The dynamic of the game is steady and strategic. Some reviews have said the game is 'slow'. It is my view that limiting the rate at which you can advance the game forward increases the value and the satisfaction received from your achievements. Expect to sink many hours into your playtime, and expect to learn from your failures to improve your next attempt.

As you progress through the scenario, the game grants 'honour points' used to unlock the next stage of buildings. I was impressed by the scale of the development of the scenario - the game gives you an impression of 'this is my sphere of control', and then blows you away with great expansions of the gameplay horizons.

The mechanics are mostly well balanced - the game is a challenge from the beginning of the scenario right to the end - this is most welcome for a city-builder - even the endgame presents a challenge as you struggle to balance the available resources.

I've played through the main campaign, and it's taken about 50 hours, and three or four attempts to get here. I'm looking forward to finding replayability in the tower defence mode.

An excellent game. Well done Lion's Shade!

Review: Mixed.

Summary: This is strategic tower defence with a strong turtle feel, and some interesting mechanics: I do like this game. But: The bugs are game-breaking.

Gameplay: Your space rocket lands in the centre of a vast crystal field: you build a power line out to the crystal, a few turret bases topped with mining lasers starts off your income, and you've a limited time to build some form of defence before the enemy waves start. At first, simple walls will hold back the enemy while you expand your economy with power generators, energy storage and mining lasers, but later, when they come by ground and air brandishing lasers of their own, you'll need something offensive. Lasers, cannons, and shields are your basic weaponry, as as your arsenal expands, so does the balance of your power grid to keep things running. A few waves in, and large numbers of basic turrets become unwieldy, as they individually have neither the power, nor the range, to be effective against the more powerful enemies. The game dynamic of injectors and stabilisers allow you to boost the range and power of a single turret (including mining lasers and shields), making them significantly more effective. As the waves advance, new enemy types are introduced, each with their own strategies to defend against.

Pros
* injector mechanic makes for interesting base design.
* Freedom to construct your base however you want to build it, with many strategies to try.
* Strong turtle mechanic, multi-layered strategic defensive shields are really my thing!

Cons
* It's a bit slow to play. Having to construct every block takes most of the time.
* There are bugs. And Game-breaking bugs.
* Example small bugs: an enemy ground unit has spawned somewhere within your base, destroying your armour and sucking your power. The only way to find it is to watch for what gets destroyed, take your base apart to insert a turret, to exterminate the ground unit. This annoying, but it is managable, if you can see it as part of the challenge!
* Game-breaking bugs: sometimes, powerful enemy units will ignore your walls, ignore your shields, walk or fly to the centre of your base, waltz inside your rocket, and destroy it from the inside. There is no defence against this that I have yet found. The game is over at this point. Good luck!

At the most recent game version, I've made it to the beginning of wave 11 (for me, about 3 hours of gameplay in), and then lasted about 4 seconds before my base is eliminated. It is... disappointing. But maybe there is something else I can try...