Game Reviews

Game Title: Dysmantle Released:  November 16, 2021 Game Length: 72 Hours Grade:  A Early Game Environment:  At the very beginning of the game, you find yourself coming out of a shelter into an enclosed subdivision. There are question and exclamation marks that you can interact with that teach you the basics of the game. When you enter certain areas of the game, quests will be given in a similar fashion. While you can only have a selected number of tools available, you can switch them out for other unlocked tools. You aren't going to find another human being. Everyone around has been turned into a zombie. Turrets and rocket launchers are also going to betray you as they will only target you! Almost anything from cars to brick walls can be broken down for resources only if you have the right tool for the job. If you die, you will revive at the last campfire. There will be a marker for you to retrieve the goods from your body. It will always be moved inward if you fell out ...

Game Title: Everdell Released:  July 28, 2022 Game Length: N/A Grade:  B Board Game Original:  The video game  Everdell  is actually based on a  board game  designed by James Wilson and published by Starling Games in 2018. There are 128 cards with 25 different critters and 25 different constructions. Although up to four players are dealt cards for their objective, there is a long list of parts involved like workers, resources, and a tree of achievements. You accumulate points in various activities from cards that allow you to donate resources to other players or building a specific number of one type of card onto the board.  Expansions:  In addition to the original game, you can also purchase the  Glimmergold  Edition that adds about a dozen cards in three new ways to play. The Extra! Extra! adds six cards displayed on the page. Legends allows you to play evolved cards. You can also play against Rugwort with new mechanics that ma...

Game Title: Potionomics Released:  October 17, 2022 Game Length: 44 Hours Grade:  B+   Visual Novel Relationship:  One of the biggest aspects of the game revolves around building relationships with the characters that become available as you progress through the story. This is very important as each milestone provides you a new card to use in your haggling tactics or a discount through their services. It becomes clear pretty quickly that this mechanic also has a problem with how much a certain activity contributes to your relationship. The only thing that displays on the screen is whether your relationship builds by one or two stars. However in my case, gifting a character something that they like that provides two stars everyday may not be enough to reach the final milestone before the 50th day. While there are a lot of theory-crafting available online, gifting them ingredients that are better quality dictated by the color behind their name (bronze, silver, go...

Game Title: Snacko Released:  May 25, 2025 Game Length:  25+ Hours Grade:  A-  Development History:   Snacko  is one of those games where learning about the developers is probably a more fascinating tale than the content itself. Amusingly at the moment of writing this, the entire website that contained all the data expired for roughly 24 hours. The  team  consisted of a gal who handles the art, writing, and business, a guy who handles the programming, and the cats who star as the main attractions of the game. They started demonstrations of their game  back in 2018  before COVID. They shared their game at conventions, quit their job, started working on the game full time , and worked with income from their patrons  in 2019. They had a  kickstarter page  in 2020 and worked on game assets in 2021. Early Access on Steam started in 2023 when improvements were made to almost every system. The magic system was only par...

Game Title: Dinkum Released:  April 22, 2025 Game Length:  Too Long Grade:  A-  Gameplay Limits:  As a solo player, the game has a problem keeping your attention. That's because this cozy game is built with multiplayer in mind from the very beginning. The first year is designed to be gruesomely tiring in order to incentivize exploration, introduce new concepts, and upgrade mechanics overtime at a very slow pace. Almost no resources can be purchased, products can only be purchased one at a time, and there are restrictions to what might be available at any given time. Some players immediately pull up online videos and lists to help them determine the most efficient way to make it through these hurdles. I'm here to say that my experience was completely blind to any outside sources within the first year. Around the second year, there was a need to learn specifics about certain accomplishments and activities as my frustration was reaching its peak. Modi...