Crashlands Review

Crashlands is an outlandish story-driven action-adventure game, set in a world of hidden magic and high technology. Tame and milk alien beasts, craft resources into menacing weaponry, befriend the locals, and go toe-to-chin with a maniac. All in the name of on-time delivery!

Not the coolest base out there...

Gameplay is very simple, you move around the map interacting with the wildlife, crafting structures and items. You can build everywhere, literally, EVERYWHERE. Can't reach that enemy? Build a bridge! Some mean creatures are threatening your beautiful garden? Wall it up! The creative space for the game is enormous. On the combat side, you have your melee weapon to kill said wildlife while using and abusing from a plethora of trinkets to increase your destruction power. From bombs and pets to laser beams and bladed boomerangs, to mention a few. Unlike most games where you just slam the buttons and kills creatures, every enemy in Crashlands has an attack pattern that you need to understand in order to defeat them.

That is a LOT to explore.

Progression in the game happens mostly through the story, which is directly attached to increasing your crafting options. The more recipes your discover the further you go. There is an enormous amount of side quests to explore, as well as a vast diversity of structures and furniture to build and explore. The map itself is realistically infinite, so you can build to your hearts content.

The creative space and crafting for the game is impressive. Unfortunately you will go through killing, harvesting and building over and over as you advance through the game. Every new level of gear require new parts, making all older resources almost useless. Some very interesting mechanics, like the gear upgrade, will save you a lot of re-crafting. Crashlands is a great game, with some amazing integration and portability. On top of a unique sense of humor, it provides a very enjoyable experience that we definitely savored for more hours than we should.

Minecraft Review

Minecraft is a game that needs no introduction. What started as a single man hobby has become a mark of the greatest success in the game industry, breaking every rule in the book at the same time breaking every ceiling ever set. Mojang was bought by Microsoft in 2014 by nothing less than 2.5 billion dollars and counts with over 100 millions units sold to date. A nice and extremely rare transparency counter, from the days Mojang was a private company, marks over 28 millions of copies sold on PC alone.

An explored gigantic cave formation.

Gameplay itself is very simple, you can move around, jump and smack things. The world is made by square blocks that can be broken. Once broken, you can keep and place the block wherever and whenever you want. Not only the procedural and near infinite world makes for a blank canvas of creativity, the algorithms of creation make some natural structures that are a wonder to explore. The game is divided in two main modes, Creative and Survival. In the Creative mode you have infinite access to every single thing, you are invulnerable and can fly, almost like a God Mode. That way you can enjoy building and exploring without worries. The survival mode on the other hand is what we could call "real life". You got to eat to keep alive, monsters will chase and kill you and if you want a block/resource you gotta go get it yourself.

A very enchanted tool.

Because of the way the game is, progression comes from crafting and building. As you explore the world and find the rare resources, you will use them to craft and build whatever your mind desires. You will also become more resilient and be able to take greater challenges by using experience acquired through your actions (killing creatures, mining, etc.) to enchant your gear with powerful effects. There is "an end" to the game, but it is not "the end", just the toughest creature around to be faced.

Very simple Redstone example.

To wrap things up there is a little thing called Redstone. And what makes it extra special is that Redstone works as a circuit. Once activated it carries a signal (or energy/electricity if you prefer), not just making you able to activate things remotely, but opening up the options of buildings you can create. Complex and autonomous structures are a thing on itself, from secret passages to crazy contraptions, Redstone is by far our favorite aspect of the game.

Minecraft is a game of imagination. The possibilities are enormous, and that's not even considering the multiplayer aspect the game has to offer. From the simplest buildings to the most intricate survival experience, there is a lot to be enjoyed by a lot of people. It's no wonder that Minecraft is one of the most popular games of all time, enjoyed by all ages. Happy building.

Reigns Review

Reigns is a game where you sit on the throne as a benevolent (or malevolent) medieval monarch of the modern age and swipe your royal controller either left or right to impose your will upon the kingdom.

Gameplay is very simple, a card is drawn and each situation can only be resolved by two choices. Your ultimate goal is to remain in power as long as possible, balancing the four currencies of your kingdom: Church, People, Army and Treasury. If at any moment any of these reach one of the extremes, either full or empty, you will suffer very abrupt and life ending consequences.

Perks

As you progress through the years of ruling, you will discover some secrets and unlock new interactions, growing your deck of cards. Some of them will allow you to acquire some kind of perk either temporarily or until destroyed, like building a tower to prevent invading armies from taking over your kingdom.

I was good to them!

Reigns is a short, simple and entertaining game. There is an ending to it, but it can be played simply as a challenge to remain in power for as long as possible. Or maybe you just want to die having being a good ruler. Whatever your goal is, reigns show how some creativity can give rise to interesting choices, and how ruling is not as simple as it looks.

bit Dungeon II Review

bit Dungeon II is a pixelated rogue-like action adventure game. Your goal is to return the soul of your "loved one" to her grave.

The life of a newbie.

Gameplay is extremely simple, you just move around and as you touch the enemies your character automatically attacks. The only other thing you can do is holding a button to block and activate your weapons power. Power aside, when health is limited blocking becomes fundamental to survival. It is also not a procedural world. The world itself is fixed, only the enemies and loot are proceduraly generated. Dungeons are randomly picked from a set of layouts.

Huge level and attribute gap,
but still better due to the bonus.

Speaking of loot, as you slash the creatures in your path you will rack up experience and tons of loot. Rule of thumb is that the higher the rarity of the item, the better it is, even if of lower level. If you manage to reach the final boss you will get one or two drops of the very best rarity of the game, which is the only place where you can get it. Fret not, once you beat the final boss you will go to back to the beginning of the game for a repeat. You can keep this cycle until you die, leveling up and getting better and better gear. Unfortunately there are a couple of items that have secret attributes or the display just doesn't scale with how powerful they are. So make sure to thoroughly compare rare items.

Black Coin trader.

To lightly wrap things up we have the Black Coins that you will gather from defeated enemies and crates. You can only use them to buy gear and is the only thing in the game that remains after a full death. So if you had a good run and accumulated plenty of coins, you can kick start your next run by buying near state of the art gear.

Overall is a great little game that can entertain for couple of hours or dozens of hours depending on how power hungry you are. A great feature that it has is that you do get ONE chance to die and not loose your progress. If you manage to reach your death spot you can gather your life again and keep that peace of mind for some more time. The art style is simple but well done, with decent soundtrack. There are many quality of life improvements that could make the game better, but the one thing that really lacks is a clear explanation for the bonuses. Even the community couldn't figure out what Super Proc is. Simple yet enjoyable, bit Dungeon II is a great example of a neat game that a small team can produce.

PS: You can lock your inventory so even if you are frenetically pressing the button, you won't swap gear by mistake. Took us a long time to stumble upon it, but definitely made a much more enjoyable experience. Open your inventory and press "X" on the controller.

If you'd like to explore more on item rarity and bonuses we definitely recommend reading the guides on the Steam Community page. One of them we used as a base to make our own path run map that we share with you all. Enjoy.

Path Run Map

And here is our best run so far, we dare you to beat it:

Tower of Guns Review

Tower of Guns is a simple rogue-like First Player Shooter. You move through randomly generated stages until the final boss. ToG is one of the few games to explore this niche of FPS + Rogue-Like games.

Bullet Storm!

Unlike most shooters nowadays, the game has a simple gameplay. You can only move, shoot and jump. With the occasional item usage, there isn't much more than shooting endless robots, going through the stages and repeating. Although simple, it has very demanding action with a lot of bullets flying everywhere. If you are not familiar with FPS games, we highly recommend using the perk that makes the game easier.

Our best run. Lots of badges!

Speaking of perks, let's talk about the progression systems in the game. They are fairly straight forward: You move through the levels until you reach the final boss. There is an endless mode where you repeat endlessly after defeating it, if you so desire. As you defeat your enemies and explore the stage, you have a chance of finding Badges. Badges are a secondary form of progression that usually increase your characters attribute in any way. It is as simple as more health/damage/speed/jump etc, but when fighting an infinite amount of bullets, every little bit helps!

As you defeat enemies you will gather "experience" which will make your weapon more powerful. Beware, as taking damage will decrease your experience and level down your weapon. The final method of progression is unlocking weapons and perks to use in your run. These are permanent unlocks by simple challenges like destroying an enemy a number of times and defeating the final boss. Perks are mostly variations of starting bonuses like extra jumps, luck, health, etc... A couple of them offer exclusive modifiers, like having infinite jumps but receiving damage if you touch the floor.

Item Station.

As you wreck through enemies you will drop gold. The gold can be used to buy upgrades in a random item station. Usually you will find badges, but very rarely you can find guns! Beware though, it might not be a good one.

Tower of Guns is an interesting game, rough on the edges but still enjoyable. Many things could be improved, like having an option to come back to your 2 hour run at a latter moment. If you enjoy rogue-like and FPS games alike, you might just find a sweet spot in this fast paced shooter.