Recent reviews by Leonora

Love this game so far. The physics are of the slow-acceleration kind that I don't usually like, but executed much better than usual for a game like this, and the graphics, world design, and characters are all very enjoyable.

Very excited to see what the community comes up with, given the awesome built-in mod tools.

Watch Arrival (or read its source novella, "Stories of Your Life") and then play this game. You will learn something.

I cannot tell you anything about this game except that it's about some very cute aliens, called the Hearthians, who live in a very cute star system and have a very cute space program, and that it made me cry my eyes out throughout the entire twenty minute ending sequence.

I can tell you that this is a game about progression without locks and keys; about combining simple rules to create complex outcomes; about physics and magic and fate.

But that doesn't matter. What matters is that this game is about a bunch of cute aliens to whom you will grow very, personally attached, and with whom you will share a significant emotional bond by the end of the ~30-40hrs it takes to see most or all of the content available. And then the game will do something that will make you feel a lot of emotions.

I have not yet played the DLC, but I have heard that it is good.

TL;DR: Great puzzle game. Extremely fun on its own and happens to teach very real computer science concepts.

Summary:
Silicon Zeros is a highly accessible story about a tiny Silicon Valley company at the dawn of the computer age, building digital devices and trying to swim rather than sink in the ocean of the tech industry. The plot is funny and relatively compelling, and the gameplay - building digital devices with an easy-to-use, beautiful editor - is tight, interesting, and never too easy nor too hard.

The core mechanic is this: Given a restricted set of fundamental digital devices, produce the desired output within the given part and time limit. You can also compare your solutions with those of other players.

The game leads you gently between the various challenges, introducing the you to real, useful computer science concepts as you need them to solve puzzles. It is never confusing, though it is often challenging.

I absolutely recommend that everyone play this game. The developer is extremely responsive and highly active. I'm a Linux user, and it works great on Linux, after users asked for it to be ported.

Great game; it really nails the concept of a VR FPS game. The dual-motion type controls are awesome; I use the trackpad until the motion sickness gets to me, then I switch to color maps, where you can only get around by teleporting, and only to the places where your team has laid down their color.

The variety of weapons is a strength; balance could use a bit of work though.

Overall, a decent game with great potential. Buy it.

NOTE: Early Access Review, 2016-04-03
TL;DR was TL;DR: Buy it. Right now. Video review at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzwwVeWKwNc

TL;DR: Do you like Rome: Total War? Do you like Homeworld? Then you absolutely must buy this game. Are you a fan of RTSs but never played Rome or Homeworld? Give it a try anyway. Are you a CoD or DOTA player who's never touched real time strategy? Buy it for the pretty spaceships and explosions. Basically, buy it.

So, what is it? In short, it's Rome: Total War in space. Line up armies, face them off against eachother. A campaign mode is coming, but is not here yet. It's so much more, as well; ship and fleet customization give it a whole extra dimension of depth above most RTSs. Nonetheless, it's very intuitive and feels incredibly responsive.

The good:

• Graphics and UI are beautiful and very well designed
  
• The UI, while not typical of RTS games, is impressively intuitive. I went from "how do I move" to feeling like Ender in about ten minutes, WITHOUT a tutorial. The Tab-key locking and simple move queuing makes complex strategies a joy to plan and execute.
  
• The UI again - it's so good, it deserves another entry. With such a complex game to control, and what with not being finished yet, the game could be forgiven for being confusing and hard to learn, but it's not. In addition to what I've mentioned, the game slows when planning moves or when enemies are first detected, giving you the chance to think a little more about strategy - very important for new players.
  
• The music. I'm not sure if it's dynamic or not, but it's highly appropriate, highly atmospheric, and greatly enhances the immersion.
  
• The fleet maneuver dynamics. Watching an entire flotilla wheel around and steam head first into the enemy, guns blazing, might not be the most astute strategy, but it's certainly impressive. Even just flying a fleet around in space is fun.

The bad:

• The most obvious first: It's not finished. There is no campaign mode and no tutorial. There will be - the buttons for them are there - but they aren't implemented yet. Honestly, I don't think a tutorial is really necessary, but I for one will be happy to see the campaign mode.
  
• Minor gripes in re: not being finished yet: I'd like to be able to move the camera by clicking on the minimap, and a few other things like that, but really who cares? It's Early Access. They'll fix it.

A few observations:
When I first started up a skirmish, I didn't realize it was fully 3D. I accidentally held down the left button during a move and saw the prediction line shoot up into the void, and I thought, "I could really get lost out here." That's a great thing, in my book: a space game that really gives a good idea of the vastness of space.

I run Linux - an unsupported version, no less - and the game runs flawlessly. I do appreciate that effort from the devs.

Conclusion:
Buy it. Just buy it. It's only $15, and it's already an incredible game - and it's certainly not going to get worse as Early Access goes on.

EDIT: Yes, I posted this review after playing for about 30 minutes. The game really is that easy to pick up.

I have no idea about how good the game is - I'm sure it's great. HOWEVER. If you are on SteamOS or Linux, like myself, do NOT buy this game. The "port" was done using Crossover, and it has all the problems therin inherent:

* red shading on dark areas during antialiasing
* very poor performance with AA >= 8x
* very poor network performance
* poorly scheduled disk access

This "port" is an embarrasment. If you are releasing your AAA game to a new audience, at least put one iota of effort into it. If I wanted to play your game using Wine, I could do it myself.

TL;DR: Not flashy, not tactical; pure and unadulterated grand strategy with a beautiful atmosphere and deep, satisfying mechanics. Easily worth twice the price.

This game is everything I've wanted in space grand strategy since I played Empire at War at age 10. The atmosphere, conveyed by the cleverly-animated background, the consistent and beautiful UI style, and the brilliant but subtle music, is reminiscent of DEFCON: Everybody Dies. While the game might appear simplistic and shallow on the surface, the variety and quality of the maps and a well-thought-out, perfectly balanced array of game mechanics makes it infinitely re-playable, especially with friends.

A must for: anyone who wanted to be Ender, who likes DEF CON, or who thinks that the Galactic Map was the best part of Star Wars: Empire at War. This game is effectively the same as playing SWEaW in Galactic Map and always using autoresolve (but, of course, much better balanced for that purpose).

Avoid it if: you preferred Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to Supreme Commander in 2007, or if what you most appreciate most in Total War games is watching the little men fight.

TL;DR Good concept, crappy gameplay, horridly optimized.

This game is an amazing idea, with a mediocre implementation, and a terrible developer team. I have 90 hours in the game, and have been playing since the start. I have also been an active community member and tester since then. However, Garry (the developer), in his infinite arrogance, has decided to stop properly supporting Linux, though support is still advertised. The game was totally broken on Linux for weeks, until a Unity update fixed Garry's mistakes.

For Windows and Mac OS users, the game will technically work, but it is very poorly optimized. I have a GTX 680 and a 4.5 GHz 4th generation Intel i5, and I can barely get 25 FPS at full settings. Fine, whatever. The problem is that I have to set everything to minimum to come anywhere close to 60FPS, and even then the framerate is highly unstable.

Now, about the gameplay. Crafting and loot spawning is illogical (empty cans are more valuable than full ones, and more useful; full cans don't turn into empty ones when emptied; animals all produce wolf meat, even chickens; pistol bullets cost as much as 5.56 ammo; and many other problems). While the game is very much an endless grind occasionally punctuated with excitement, those moments of excitement can be quite gratifying.

Basically, if you run on Linux, you cannot rely on being able to play this game; Garry might break it at any time. If you run on Windows with anything but a top-of-the-line machine, you can barely play this game. In either case, this game is not worth $20. Buy ARK: Survival Evolved or DayZ instead.

This is a fairly decent game, but it currently does NOT work on Linux, and has not for weeks. The developers have shown, through not responding to bug reports, that they do not care about paying customers at all. DO NOT BUY, even if you don't use Linux; the developers don't care about you and may break your game at any time, and not fix it. For proof, see https://github.com/Facepunch/garrysmod-issues/issues/1833#issuecomment-81432410