Recent reviews by ZiggyD

The publisher Goblinz was kind enough to sponsor me to check out Racine, it looked fantastic so I was keen to give it a go.

Here's my video showcasing the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q34WxsWB92k

I was very impressed with how uniquely it plays, the atmosphere and and moreish feeling of incremental character growth. Racine is well worth a look if you like autobattlers or incremental games but want something a bit more action-packed.

Thanks team! I have had a good time with the game.

A viewer had me play this game because it shares my name (as good a reason as any I suppose). And I had a fun 30 mins with it, in which time I completed about half the levels. So it's not going to be a long game unless you really struggle. But for the price that's probably reasonable.

While this isn't really my genre it seems like there are a few things done right here. The dash is a fun twist that factors into your strategy a lot. The levels felt tight to me, though not a big fan of the wind. Controls overall felt decent though Ziggy could be a little faster.

Here's the VoD of my play session if you want a better look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt-Vo8K0vO0

Thanks for the giggles.

Note: I was sponsored to stream and make a YouTube video on this game so take that into consideration with my review. I was not paid to post a review, however, that's of my own volition. I decided to post one because this game is very promising and doesn't have many reviews yet.

Fans of slay the spire and other similar deckbuilders will immediately feel at home with the meta aspects of the game. How you progress through the maps, concepts such as cutting cards and keeping a deck lean to focus in on a core strategy and how relics can alter your strategy. Risk reward plays out well with plenty of events to make sacrifice for the chance to obtain new relics or upgrade or cut cards and there's always that strong temptation to upgrade a card at the campsite instead of resting to heal. Card upgrading is always a question I have when I see these cards, there's a solid mix here. Some cards just get a little stronger with their core effect, making them more efficient, but there is also my favourite, cards that get new effects. The wizard for example has a group armor ability that also gains a thorns effect to damage enemies when it's upgraded.

The combat is suprisingly fluid at times, playing defensively can be the right choice but even then it's often a good idea to reposition and move around the battlefield each turn. Being able to move one champ a little, do something and then move another champ and then return to the first really makes things much more dynamic than if there was a strict turn order for champs. The rack system is also a brilliant touch, allowing you to store cards (and mana effectively) for use on later turns.

I do have one caveat about the combat for players though, if you feel compelled to play perfectly you're either going to be in heaven or hell here. On one hand you have perfect information, so with good attention to detail you can play perfectly in response, there's not much RNG here in the actual combat. On the other hand checking who each enemy is prioritizing, how far they can move AND which ability they are using is a lot of information to go through. If you're comfortable just playing well you can get enough info at a glance, but if you must play perfectly it'll take some time to plan each turn - you may love that or you may not.

The deckbuilding in particular is interesting as you can focus on one champion and even completely cut all of the cards of another hero out of your combined deck. Or you can carefully arrange a deck with some synergistic combinations between champions. And then when you consider that you can create custom parties with different champ combinations you get a ton of options for deck and strategy building. Something about the combination of moving around a party and playing three decks together transforms the game from just being about deckbuilding to also being about strategy, there's more strategy building here than some other deckbuilders I've played.

Overall the game is gorgeous, and the gameplay manages to be unique and compelling in a genre that's got a lot of competition. It's in early access with the developer saying they are keen to start getting player feedback, but it already feels it's earning it's pricetag of $15 US.

Sampled this game for an hour on my "Indie Tryouts" Day - what a banger. It's an unholy eldritch combination of bullet heaven and hell - as a viewer put it "Bullet Purgatory". Throw in some wild roguelike "Binding of Isaac"-style relics and upgrades and it's well worth a look. Cool to uncover an old hidden indie gem.

Nails the deckbuilding roguelite format.
Tons of possible combos and builds from 5 clans (combine 2 = 20 combinations of "class") - the satisfaction of creating something powerful is very addictive.
Runs last from 30mins to 1.5 hours and it's very east to start another run immediately after.
Upgrading cards with modular upgrades gives a lot better customization than other games in the genre.
The best multiplayer implementation I've seen in this genre, playing with friends is a blast.
With more support after launch could easily rival Slay the Spire as the best in the genre, already my personal favourite.

(Disclosure: I got a free review copy and had 6 hours of sponsored Twitch streams for that game, but I'm under no obligation to leave a review. I simply fell in love with the game which should be clear from my playtime).

Star Valor does an excellent job of capturing what makes this genre great: a sense of progression and freedom to make your own way in the universe.

The ship customization is some of the best in the genre with a well-designed and rather relaxed limitations on how your design your ships. You're limited by space and opportunity cost rather than arbitrary restrictions. Want to run 10 layers of shielding? Sure but you're probably going to need to use weapons that don't consume energy from your overburdened reactors. Want to run 5 mega death laser beams? Go ahead, but you better not miss your first shot because you'll be overheating in 0.2 seconds flat. I've never had more fun tinkering with my ships than in Star Valor.

Grim Dawn is one of the most richly detailed and beutifully sculpted unfinished game I've ever played! It's definitely one to keep your eye on.

I'm a massive Action RPG player/addict with 1000s of hours in Diablo, Path of Exile, Torchlight, Van Helsing & countless others. Hell, I've even made a career out of making YouTube videos for them. Grim Dawn was little more than a curiosity to me when I first checked it out in the Alpha. But since then I have repeatedly come back to it whenever a new build is released and each time I play it I fall a little more in love with it!

Development progress has been slow, I wouldn't expect a launch this year, but the quality of updates has been phenomenal. The devs at Crate have their finger of the pulse of the community and have a very clear vision for the game they want to make - it's the game they want to play. I recently spoke to Mediera one of the developers and he said that he barely even played Titan Quest when he was developing it - but while developing Grim Dawn he can barely tear himself away from it, with 100s of hours spent 'playtesting'.

This game is the spiritual successor to Titan Quest, with some of the developers that originally worked on the game now making up the indie dev team at Crate Entertainment. The game is built on a heavily modified version of the same engine Titan Quest was built on. You'll notice the similarities between the games if you're a fan. But this game is not Titan Quest reskinned - it's a much better game in my opinion. It's taken some of the best features and mechanics from that game, put them into an immersive post-apocalyptic world and expanded themin interesting ways.

Grim Dawn is the type of game early access should embrace - supporting great and communicativbe developers make games the fans want to play. Keep this one on your radar!

If you want to see more of the game and my thoughts on it you can find me on YouTube & Twitch as 'ZiggyD'.