Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £11.39
Where To Get It: Steam

The Invisible Fist of Capitalism. It stands ready, waiting to grind you down under its knuckles, to pummel you with sudden charges and unexpected disasters. It feels nothing, being an idea, and yet, it’s an idea that hates you, yes, you, personally. You cannot bring enough to its gaping, central maw to satisfy it, so it will destroy you, singly or in groups. Welcome to Late Stage Capitalism.

So yes, this is another one of those games that has the content warning “Too Fuckin’ Real”, even with deliberate parody. Joy of joys. I needed that in my life right now. And this, funnily enough, is Invisible Fist’s biggest obstacle to success: It does what it sets out to do a little too well.

Okay, let’s unpack that: Invisible Fist is a turn-based, resource management game where your opponent is the Invisible Fist of Capitalism. As one of three characters (In fact, for a while, it will only be one of three characters, more on that in a moment), you attempt to survive, as long as you can, and maybe, just maybe, fight the fucking thing off you.

Suffice to say, what with that “Too fuckin’ real” comment, the odds are not in your favour. Even as your starting character, a douchebag startup techbro who is trying to create and market MONA, Mother of the New Age, an AI claimed to be for “Millennials who need new mommies” (Yes, he’s a sickening shitlord, ignorant of the fact that yes, he’s a Millennial too), while meeting the demands of both capitalism… And his own, clinging mother (Do you, perhaps, see where he might be projecting a bit?)

So… Starting as a rich kid exploiting his workforce, blind to the ills of capitalism could easily be described as “Oooh, aren’t they bold?”, but… No matter who they would have started as, the tone of the game itself would have made this one emotionally draining. Considering the other two are “Self made college student selling weed to get by” and “Indian Factory Worker far from their family and lover”? Yeah, this wasn’t going to be easy. And it could all too easily emotionally backfire, considering… The Announcer.

The Announcer is the fucknugget who enjoys watching the world burn. He’s the shitheel gatekeeper, the Trololol asshole… And his insufferable, hateful spin on things very often veers into “Okay, the writers need to take a fuckin’ step back and seriously consider this guy.” Put it like this… Techbro’s techy startup is emblematic of the worst excesses, just like seemingly everything in this game, and so… Oh look, let’s add a content warning here for a random chance of “Mentions of Non-consensual Sex”, shall we?

Of course, unlocking a new character means new challenges. For example, Rena, the student, has limited funds, and her work options… Well, they don’t always make the bucks that are worth your time. And relaxing costs money. It nearly always costs money. Or health in terms of her pet cat sometimes deciding that no, it wants to roughhouse (nastily) instead of be scratched behind the ears delightfully.

Individual games of Invisible Fist go by quickly, but only by doing well, by meeting its (sometimes deliberately bullshit) challenges, and by defeating the Fist with good work-play balance, can you earn… Two, more difficult challenges. Interesting ones, and with the same level of social commentary (Spun by the Announcer in as shitty a way as possible, sometimes even if you nail it), but… Yeah, this game gets too damn real sometimes, in uncomfortable ways. So… Well designed, in that sense.

The Mad Welshman isn’t sure what to add. The shittiness of Capitalism kinda speaks for itself.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £19.99
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access

I appreciate modular difficulty sliders. I appreciate the ability to customise one’s experience somewhat. I appreciate survival, and I appreciate 4Xs. What I am not, strictly speaking, so fond about, however, is when the percentage of your “Normal” difficulty is 150% difficulty. That, and needing to survive 100 turns on “Normal” difficulty, are a fair portion of my irritation with Thea 2: The Shattering, a survival 4X that I had taken a look at in Early Access.

And, just to make this clear, the game has improved from last time, in several important senses. But in terms of feeling whether the devs actually want me, someone who isn’t dealing amazingly well with Thea’s particular brand of conflicting desires, to see more of its content? Thaaat’s not so hot still.

So, let’s back up a second, quick recap: World’s Nordic in flavour, pantheistic, got a bit of a problem with the world maybe ending sometime in the near-ish future. And your deity has chosen you to lead a small group of folks to grow, to expand, and hopefully to survive long enough to find out what the Darkness is, and, best case scenario, how to defeat it. And, being fair to the developers, they have introduced more to help deal with that. An extra modular difficulty setting, allowing you to autoresolve conflicts more easily (or with more difficulty.) A lumber building that gives wood, even if there’s no wood nearby. That sort of thing.

But, in the end, here’s the thing. As I mentioned right at the top, unlocking more things is a royal pain in the ass. I need 9 God Points to get a new Deity to try out. I need at least 5 to get new potential starting bonuses (At least some of which are locked behind their respective Deities.) I will, if I do well on “Normal” difficulty (Surviving at least 100 turns, completing various events) gain… Maybe 3. For about an hour and a half worth of play, maybe more. And “Normal” difficulty is tough, not least because of conflicting desires.

It wants you to move from Island to Island. It wants you to do events. But it also wants you to hunker down, because this adds its own benefits. It wants you to spread, but gives a pittance of children and growth, slowly depleting the resources, and increasing the hostility. And, in essence, the games feel the same, because they tread along the exact same path. Here, the Witch’s hut, and gathering food, and finding a settlement. There, the Cmuch prince, the Wisps, the Demon Games. That very sameyness means that, to unlock more Gods, more things that maybe help you get further, you have to tread the same path over, and over, and over again, and…

…Thea 2 has some interesting ideas. It has an interesting world. But I’ve never really felt like the game wants me to explore that world, to look down its path. And, even with the narrative conceit that yes, the world is hostile, it is not a game that resists being played in a fun way. It merely resists, struggling against being enjoyed, and that saddens me.

The Mad Welshman wants games to be enjoyed. Sometimes, the games themselves don’t help.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £7.19
Where To Get It: Steam

You can’t please everyone all the time. This is the main thought running through my head as I look at Faerie Solitaire: Harvest, a sequel which has, at release at least, cut the story, cut the purchasing of building aspects, and made pets a little more accesible, but confusingly.

The thing is, its core is still solid, and its soundtrack is really bloody good. So these things shouldn’t matter so much. But it does, nonetheless, feel odd.

Okay, so, last time on Faerie Solitaire, faeries got trapped by an evil wizard (That you were apprenticed to) with layered cards in patterns you got rid of by going up and down the ranks of the cards (With help from powerups and the bottom deck, which could only be shuffled a certain amount of times.) Big combos were good, individual levels had tasks, there was a lot going on, but, at its core, was one particular solitaire variant.

Now, the faeries are again trapped, but somewhere else and by ??? , with the plucky young ??? to save them by matching pairs of the same rank, and, preferably for combos, the same colour, with the aid of the bottom deck, an ability (Wild Cards earned with combos), and, as before, there’s only a limited amount of reshuffles (One, either free, or due to paying 1000 of the ingame currency.) As noted, the core is solid, with exactly the benefits and problems you would expect from a solitaire game. For example, Oh look, the two cards you need to match are directly under each other, and you did not know this. Sod. Well, that happens sometimes, fine.

On the one hand, I can definitely say it doesn’t stint on that Solitaire part. 40 areas, each with 9 levels, and increasingly devilish layouts. That’s the good stuff for someone who likes Solitaire, right there. But, alas, this isn’t just about this Faerie Solitaire, as, as noted, Harvest feels somewhat stripped down compared to its predecessor. A fair bit of that, to be honest, was bloat, trying to add more interest, and not always succeeding. But since some things have changed and others haven’t as much, it ends up feeling a little hollower than its predecessor.

Let’s take the currency of the game, pets, and resources, for example. It’s nice that, if you liked baby pets more, you can switch between baby pet and adult pet forms at will. That’s nice. But, beyond this and a little urge to completionism, with 32 pets to grow from eggs (By playing) and evolve (By playing and gaining resources), there’s… No real reason for them, or the resources. The main currency of the game also buys two of the abilities, an extra card slot, and a reshuffle if you hadn’t managed to land a BIG COMBO to get a free reshuffle. That’s… Er… It. And it is needed when layouts get meaner…

…But, with these cuts, what you have is a pretty solitaire game with some knobs on, and a soundtrack that feels like it comes from an epic JRPG. If this is what you expect coming in, then you’re good. Having played the predecessor, I felt, as noted… A little odd.

The Mad Welshman always feels a little forlorn when a sequel strips things. Even if it makes sense. And he’s aware this isn’t a great feel.

…Doesn’t stop him feeling it, though.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £3.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Cities are interesting places. Some heavily planned, some… Not so much planned as grew. And there have been many arguments as to whether one should take a top down approach (Larger matters to small) or a bottom-up approach.

In Subara City, the answer is “Both.” A simple on the surface match puzzle game, Subara City has you match houses and characters with under-tiles of the same colour to combine them, until they reach Level 10. Then it gets a little tricky. You see, there’s a risk-reward thing going on, where Level 10 buildings can only be combined with each other, and once you do… That building can no longer be combined with anything else.

So, ideally, you want as many Level 10s to combine as you can get… But you also have to make sure you can still combine other blocks, otherwise… Game over. Similarly, on the risk-reward front, you have a certain number of demolitions you can do (one gained every 100 turns, and some for high level buildings), but your score is your population, so demolishing that level 17 building in the hope you get a level 18? Won’t gain you that much, if anything.

And that, essentially, is the game. Scores are local, but, after a while, you’ll find yourself struggling to reach Top 10… Against yourself. So… That’s the game, mechanically. It pretty much does what it says on the tin. How about aesthetically?

Well, musically and soundwise, there’s really not a lot to say. It has one tune for the main game (A choral piece), one for the menu, and the sounds are equally simple… That choral tune may well wear on you, or you might blank on it, so that’s a “Eh” for sound. Visually, it’s nice and clear, so that’s a definite plus, and there’s a little charm in the buildings and characters (Some of which you unlock through play.)

Still, there’s a lot to be said for “Does what it says on the tin”, and while it’s simple on the surface, paying attention to every part of the board is important, as really good play involves thinking several moves ahead. There are, however, a few minor niggles. There are odd (if slight) performance hitches when you select demolition or combining level 10 blocks for the first time, and some of the requirements for character unlocks don’t encourage high score play (A niggle because characters don’t, strictly speaking, have a score element attached to them.) These aside, it is a pleasant game to play, and I think other match puzzler fans will enjoy this one too.

The Mad Welshman is, in particular, fascinated by the most difficult requirement for a character. How many? And that level? Wow.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £15.49 (£22.68 game+soundtrack, £6.47 soundtrack)
Where To Get It: Steam

The only distinction between a Cold War and a normal war is that it’s less obvious about the casualties. Back-room dealings. Thefts. Extractions. Wetwork. It’s a nasty world, the world of espionage.

Similarly, paradigm shifts are often violent things. Every new technology or cultural wave brings with it things that governments and societies don’t necessarily properly get a handle on until decades later. And the most feared kind of paradigm shift of all (or welcomed, depending on your viewpoint and optimism) is Singularity: The point at which our technology takes such a leap forwards, it shakes the world. Free energy. Posthumanism. A workable virtual reality for everyone. Or perhaps the ability to completely accurately predict the financial market. A lot of these sound cool, until you realise they come with changes attached. Big ones, for which there may not be an answer anyone likes.

Sigma Theory: Global Cold War… Takes both of these concepts, and puts them into a (currently) tough turn-based strategy game about hopefully being the first to take the world into a new age, safely. And the hopefully isn’t there just because you’re competing with several other world powers. As noted, these technologies can bite, and since a game generally takes about a game-year’s worth of time… No, nobody really has that much time to prepare.

Part of the reason the game is tough is because it only really tutorialises for your first game (Which you may not even complete), and, generally speaking, it throws you in at the deep end. This partly works due to the subject matter, and it’s quite clear that you are not expected to win your first, or maybe even fifth game (Taking about an hour to two hours per complete run), but it would be nice to see more tutorialising. Nonetheless, the basic idea is that you have four agents (Hopefully the ones you wanted, but failing to answer their own questions won’t allow you to recruit them), and, using these four agents, a pair of tactical drones, a pair of scientists, and your diplomacy, you convert and exfiltrate scientists (Or just kidnap them, although that’s less effective), play the game of politics for favours (and maybe even big favours, if you’ve played your cards right and got good blackmail material), and try to defend your own home turf as other nations do unto you… As you have clearly demonstrated you want to do unto them.

The UI is pretty clear (The one minor exception being that the menu is fond of that glitch effect that I know not everyone’s comfortable with, and no option yet to turn it off), and the notifications solid, so that definitely helps, as does the fact that once you’ve tried something like exfiltration (An affair where, ideally, you want to leave without the police or agents properly noting you, but the best you should hope for is getting out with the scientist), you know roughly how it goes. The music fits the mood, being ambient synth with that distinct Technothriller vibe, and the sound clearly fits with what’s going on, so… Aesthetically, it all works.

Where I think Sigma Theory works best, however, is in how it deals with the subjects in question. There’s a lot of groups interested in your work, not just the other nations, and while they want to embrace certain goals (the Hypercaps, the Ancaps, the Mind Control lovers, and at least one criminal syndicate, to nickname but four), that’s… Not necessarily the best thing. Nor, in fact, is just releasing the technology into the wild. Yes, free energy means we never have to worry about energy again… But it has a knock on effect on industry and employment, and, as noted, there’s no real time to prepare for that. Other technologies, such as mind control, are more easily spotted for their effect on the Doomsday Clock. If that runs down, everyone loses… But other nations may not care, for their desire to be first.

Sigma Theory is an interesting strategy game with some equally interesting takes on various singularity and posthuman related subjects (albeit in passing, mostly), and, while it’s tough as heck right now, it’s still enjoyable to play, and I would recommend it. Could do with some granular difficulty settings, though. That would definitely help.

The Mad Welshman doesn’t worry about the Singularity. His reasons are his own.

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