Recent reviews by Ranneko

This is a pretty good kids adventure game. Surprisingly complicated for one and actually contains multiple paths. Make sure you and your child have a high tolerance for puns.

I have spent far too much time playing this game in the past year or so. I play primarily on my phone but the DLC is transferable between all of the clients.

It plays like a mix between magic and dominion. You and your opponents build up your deck through the same pool of cards over the course of the game, no game runs exactly the same as you have to adapt your strategy to the trade row. I only wish they would bring the rest of the expansions from the physical game to the digital version.

If you want to send me a challenge, my username in the game is Ranneko

Cthulhu Realms is is a deckbuilding dueling game.

Unlike say Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone, you do not preconstruct decks, you start with a fixed set of cards and then modify your deck as you play, balancing getting cards that add to your economy with those that do damage or thin out weak or useless cards.

It using most of the underlying concepts of Star Realms, but brings its own twists and flavour. There is a lot more interaction with the ability to remove or abjure cards and significantly more complicated reactions and symbols which does make it a less readable game.

There is are two AI based single player campaigns, one of which you get for free. To play online, or to play the second campaign you have to buy the DLC. Worth noting that the purchase and account is shared with the phone apps, buy it once play it anywhere. Also keep in mind that the multiplayer is turn based, there are no interrupts and so you can comfortably play a game out over the course of a week or so, or if both you and your opponent are about and actively playing then you can knock a game over in as little as 10-15 minutes.

I have spent a lot more time on Star Realms than I have on Cthulhu Realms but this does make for a nice variation.

This is a "kinetic" visual novel, meaning there are no decisions, it is effectively a comic book with music and fairly static characters and backgrounds.

Unfortunately for me that is basically the worst way to deliver a story to me, especially a fairly slow paced one. Even with the text and auto advancement speeds at max it the game moves incredibly slowly and I got really sick of sitting there tapping space or clicking the mouse every second or two.

A fun little infinite runner, not something I think I will sink a lot of time into but I it was fun to play through and grab all of the achievements, it was nice and cheap.

It is singing a similar song to Super Hexagon, but doesn't quite hit the same notes to me.

Train your heroes, guide them in battle and then make sure that enough of them get married and have children that you can repeat the process.

This game is all about pitting the needs of the realm's future against the need to guard the realm from present danger and I loved playing through it even in its current early access state.

The turn based combat is reminiscent of XCOM or Shadowrun returns but instead of managing cover you need to manage line of sight, enemies that cannot see you cannot shoot you. Keep that in mind and remember neither side gets overwatch.

I liked the way they brought back Doctor Proton, it is nice having an enemy that actually talks and taunts you, but you take him out halfway through the campaign and it is back to the fight against the aliens.

In the end this is more Duke Nukem Forever and while it is slightly better than the main campaign, it still isn't a particularly great game and there are just much better shooters out there to spend your time on.

Hack 'n' Slash is a fun hacking based puzzle game. It has a good sense of humour and rolls out new mechanics and abilities at a nice pace; unfortunately the puzzle difficulty can be pretty spiky and I am not sure it really provides enough support for someone unfamiliar with programming to have a great time.

As the game progresses the level of abstraction increases and so there is a growing disconnect between your actions and the puzzles themselves. The end result is a puzzle solving process that is both more complicated and confusing, which means you really need to enjoy the process of experimenting in those machine states to continue to have fun.

If you enjoy programming and puzzle games I definitely recommend it otherwise I suspect there are better uses for your money.

The advanced edition just came out and there is a lot of new content available. I love the sheer number of options in this game. Playing FTL is all about making the right decisions with the resources you have, saving where you can to take advantage of stores but spending to try to ensure you are ahead of the power curve.

It is a difficult game that feels more random than it really is, because in general the unwinnable situation you find yourself in is mostly a result of a chain of sub-optimal choices, not a single calamitous event.

I love the new strategies available with the new systems, I still love boarding my enemies, but it no longer feels like clearly the best strategy.

This is a great visual novel. There is not a great deal of art assets in the game, and there are only 2 characters that you are able to interact with, but it manages to tell a very moving tragedy of the final years of a colony ship.