Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £22.39 (£9.29 for Supporter Edition upgrade)
Where To Get It: Steam

A nonbinary option for a deity is, honestly, just common sense. Sometimes, you want to manifest as a rock, and sometimes, you want to manifest as an enby. Sometimes, you want to be a wholesome deity, and… Well, it will come as precisely no surprise to anyone who keeps up with me that I have mainly been playing a Dark God of Endless Thirst. Chastity? PFAH. War or Peace? PSHAW. My deity advocates for shipping!

Getting back to talking a little more specifically about the game (ahem), Godhood is a turn-based strategy title by Abbey Games, where you, the newest religion in the mesoamerican world in which the game is set, are kicked out of your home village for your beliefs, and swear, as a result, to spread the name of your deity, by force, by cunning argument, or, as is the case with my head prophetess, by flirtings and smoochings. And it’s a good idea to mix it up a bit, as some enemies are immune to your core attacks when you go looking for believers.

There’s a fair bit going on in the back of this game (to the point where the “Stats” subtab is an intimidating list of numbers), but the main elements are actually pretty clear. You level up by converting folks, it’s a good idea to keep your prophets of various types as happy as possible, and, over time, you build up a village capable of proselytising to ever greater audiences, balancing the faith and levels of your prophets against improving the village through the fact you can only inspire three prophets a day.

It’s good stuff, and I felt challenged so far without being overwhelmed, and, due to the ability to see what a village has by planning to convert it then painlessly backing out to the city (not wasting my turn, as normally a conversion uses a turn) allowed me to use my prophets efficiently (as, after all, the turn will go on, so anyone you don’t send can do prophet things at home)

Aesthetically, it works pretty well so far. Everything (except the stats tab) is clear, you know what resists what while you’re planning things, you get some idea of what keeps the faithful faithful, and what builds what, and the animations are alright.

So, while it’s obvious there’s more development, it’s got a pretty good start, and I’m quite enjoying my time as a thirsty deity.

The Mad Welshman would become a dark deity of Endless Thirst in reality, but alas, Vaudevillain Union rules dictate that I keep my quota of three failed grand schemes a year.

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin
Comments Off on Godhood (Early Access Review)

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam

A while ago, I reviewed Battle Chef Brigade, and… Well, I liked it. It presented an aspect of fantasy worlds we don’t think about too much. And now, we have dungeon cooking… Well, not really explored, per se, but at least a mechanical element in Dungeon Munchies.

It’s… Alright? Okay, obviously I can’t leave it at that. What it is is that it has this interesting mechanic… That it doesn’t quite play with enough to be excellent, but does give enough to see the fun potential. Food as buff. We’ll come back to it, because first… What the heck’s going on?

Well, we are a zombie. A zombie raised by a necromancer chef who does her best to do the whole evil overlady schtick while also having a corporate overlady schtick. And it mostly works, to boot. She charges us, as seemingly the only “employee” who’s been able to do this so far, to get her magical cookbooks from various places, fighting bosses along the way. From there, things get… Interestingly complex, story wise.

Also along the way, we use the monsters as ingredients to form a limited set of buffs, some of which become permanent later on. One of the earliest, for example, is a double jump, made by giant skeeter wings, while others add things like elemental damage, extra damage, extra healing… And with 6 slots allowed, you can’t become some godlike undead shitwrecker through these, which is a nice touch. It has a cool animation (honestly, the animations in general are pretty good, even if weapons don’t really have that much impact, everything else works either smoothly or in a cool fashion), but, essentially, it’s like any other crafting: Got the ingredients? Bam, thing is made.

Structure wise, it’s more of a linear level dealio, although revisiting earlier areas is possible if, say, you need some earlier ingredients too. You wander through, hopefully not dying a lot (You thankfully don’t lose much by dying, but it is annoying to go through an area multiple times), with, of course, a boss at the end. And the bosses, happy to say, are alright to deal with. No super annoying ones, and, since your movement and combat are fairly easy to get the hang of, you can learn their tricks relatively safely, only taking maybe two or three tries until you get the general idea.

Right now, it definitely has charm, and the story seems like it’s going interesting places, with some equally good ideas within the crafting, and I wouldn’t feel guilty saying it’s worth a try right now.

Writing this review has made The Mad Welshman hungry. He could murder a good Beholder Sautee…

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin
Comments Off on Dungeon Munchies (Early Access Review)

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £11.39 (£5.19 each for OST and Print-Ready Posters)
Where To Get It: Steam

Other Reviews: Release Review

At first, I was honestly a little unconvinced by Deck of Ashes. Grimdark world, of grimness and darkness and fire? Hrm. Relatively small deck you have to build up, and if you run out of cards, you lose health to regain some? Hrrrrrm. A limited amount of time in each area before you have to fight the boss? Hrrrrm? Health and cards burned stick with you, and you can only regain a limited amount of them, balancing cards regained versus healing? Aaargh.

But then I gave it a serious chance after some unfortunate runs early on, and… While it looks intimidating, only the boss or elite fights take a fair chunk of time, and it’s not nearly as bad as how it seems at first glance (Although yes, the difficulty does ramp up fairly quickly areawise, as you’d somewhat expect from these procgen card fighting titles.) And some of its ideas really play into its idea of a world fighting against you, and that the bosses are powerful, corrupted entities that, given a choice, you’d probably run from.

For example, bosses can, in the later stages of each area, just… Blow up an area, and if it’s somewhere you wanted to go, well… Sorry. The resting is also more reasonable than it sounds, as quick fights rarely req uire more than 5 cards, which leaves you with 20 percent health to recover. Harder fights, obviously, require more than that, and it’s that grind that leaves you worried, but health cards have been pretty good, and a per-turn limit of cards, obviously, helps a little too. Although it would be nice to fry an enemy in a single turn, it honestly works better this way.

Aesthetically, well… It’s grim, but not necessarily all that dark, saturated colours really making the enemy designs pop, with at least some impact when cards hit. Status symbols could maybe do with being a bit more clear, though. The maps are fine, the cards are clear, and the controls are all mouse based. Finally, the soundtrack is, as you’d expect, grim horns, violins… You know what you’re in for with grimdark games, I’ll definitely give them that.

While it does need some polish and balance, right now, Deck of Ashes is, as noted, less intimidating than it looks, and isn’t a bad card battler, all told.

The Mad Welshman doesn’t really like pacts. He doesn’t like a devilish deal he can’t wriggle out of villainously, you see.

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin
Comments Off on Deck of Ashes (Early Access Review)

Content Warning: While this is mostly a discussion of the current state of NSFW game development, there are some mentions of kink and nonconsent, depictions of nudity, and oral sex.

Oh, and male presenting nipples. Let’s not forget that.

Filed under: Adult Only Games, Culture by admin
Comments Off on Let’s Talk Adult Only Games Part 2 – And You May Ask Yourself… How Did I Get Here?

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £22.49 (£7.49 for soundtrack, game available as part of Steamworld bundle)
Where To Get It: Steam

I knew I’d done the wrong thing when the lovely mage Copernica fell. I won the boss battle, somehow, but I knew… I’d done the wrong thing. And the fact that I very quickly caught on exactly what I’d done wrong… Says nice things about Steamworld Quest, the latest in the growing Steamworld franchise, and this time… It’s a turn-based, card battling RPG with some real time elements.

The general idea is this: Some unlikely heroes (More setting wise than anything else, because they very quickly become quite badass) have, after a short adventure picking mushrooms (Which, yes, results in a boss battle, because it turns out a large mushroom doesn’t appreciate this), they return to town to find it on fire, with the heroes kidnapped by an evil army, of the kind that hasn’t been seen in the land for a long time. And then things get interesting.

So, there’s a fair amount to like about Steamworld Dig, starting with its somewhat unique approach to the card-based combat system of the type we’ve seen often lately. For a start, each character has their own deck, but all of these are shuffled into a single deck, from which you get 6 cards. You can play 3 cards a turn, but it’s heavily to your advantage if you play all three cards from the same character. Okay, that’s one interesting thing, but the other is where I made my mistake. You see, each character’s deck is limited (8 cards at the beginning), which come in two forms: Those that build power… And those that use power. Guess which fule put too many of the latter in their deck before Chapter 2’s boss fight? This fule.

Aesthetically, the game works pretty well: Smooth paperdoll animations for the characters, clear and friendly UX, good and fitting music, and some solid sounds and splashes make up for the fact that the attacks, being of the JRPG style, don’t always connect with as much impact as I’d like.

And then, of course, there’s the humour. The Steamworld games, even when they get dark, have a sense of playfulness about them, and Quest is no exception. In Chapter 3, in particular, we get the distinct impression that the Adventurer’s Guild had been living on easy street up until now (They have their own golf course, the bougie gits), and that the large world… Well, it carries on, even with an evil army on the march… Look for the two robots playing chess in the background. A subtle touch, but an amusing one.

I do have one criticism of the game, but it’s an odd one, because it does tutorialise well: If you do not engage with its core systems (such as, for example, using the redraws you have to maybe make that “Three from the same character” chain), you’re going to have a much harder time. Even early Void Mages can heal each other, or themselves, for definitely more damage per turn than Copernica’s basic attacks, and a little less than what Galeo (the punchy healer) can put out with his… And since they rarely turn up alone, it can make a fight really drag on. Which, considering that the longer a fight drags on, the more you get hurt, and that healing items are not the most plentiful?

Well, please listen to the tutorials. Overall, though, I appreciate Steamworld Quest going for tight play, focusing on managing a small deck with more potential tools as you go on, and even something of an ambush system (Okay, second crit: Since ambushing an enemy means clicking directly on them when you’re close enough, it’s a hassle to get ambushes, and those are that little extra edge that can help a fight a fair bit.) It has style, it has humour, and, as always, I do like a good experiment. Especially when, as with Steamworld Quest, it seems to work.

The Mad Welshman has yet to meet a robot he hasn’t liked. Admittedly, some have been murderous mixes of skeletons, T-Rexes, and lawnmowers, but they were his kind of skeletal murderous lawnmower t-rex robots.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin
Comments Off on Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech (Review)