Recent reviews by Spoit

At first the 3d building felt awkward and harder to tile than other builders, but the ability to decorate is much better than in other factorio likes

To be honest, probably a better tactics game than xcom

One of the only idle games that I've been able to get into. Being able to automate stuff through your own code is a lot better than having to just play with UI elements to set up farming loops

Surprisingly awesome, after avengers

This is a neat twist on solitare, the royalty of each suite (there are more than 4) has special powers which you can use to manipulate the board. These let you dig or shuffle for the cards you need to finish a round. TBH, it might actually make it a bit too easy, since I only encountered a fail state once

Heaven's vault is an interesting game which I'd recommend, but with reservations.

The core gameplay idea is really solid, where you're an archeologist translating fragments of ancient text, with you trying to put together words from smaller concepts. Especially how as you go through the game (And especially the NG+), you're building longer and more complex words and phrases.

However, I do hesistate to give this a full throated reccomendation because the UI actively fights you. In order to check your work, you either have to use a word like 4-5 times, or you can take it to Huang to check your translation. However, since you only get 3 dialogue items at a time, the list of items to check quickly becomes untenable after your 2nd planet. Combine that with the slow walking speed and traversal mechanic between each area, and it becomes an exercize in fustration

A MMO that would really be better as a SP game.

SWL is basically the same game as TSW, just with the gameplay systems streamlined and made more annoyingly grindy. It'd still be worth a playthrough for the story content, as even the sidequests are usually of fairly high quality, full of interesting lore and fun characters. But that's about all I can really recomend playing, as the changes to the progression make long term playing untennable without BOTH subscribing and dedicating an unrealistic amount of time maxing out your daily grinds. And to be quite honest, I'm not sure how sustainable this game will be in the long run, as the population numbers have not been on a good trendline

The natural progression from TIS-100, Shenzhen combines the pseudo assembly programing, but adds the additional challenge of routing and placing components onto a (limited) board as well, taking the complexity to another level. And really, that's what elevates Shenzhen to the next level compared to the other, more abstract zach-games. The restricted solution space forces you to come up with more clever solutions to solve the problems, without overwhelming you with possiblities.