Recent reviews by zae

It's very, very disappointing that the developers did not include skirmish in multiplayer. I think that my fondest memories of Stronghold gameplay were late-night local games with a friend against bots. I understand that the original game may not have had it, but I firmly believe they missed the mark by not including it in the "definitive edition".

Five minutes into the game, I was fired from a toy shop as the only functioning employee, went homeless, slept on a bench in the park, and was then gifted an old toy shop by my grandfather. With a small loan of sixty dollars, I turned it into a toy empire to-be.

There’s an underlying story, which is something, for sure. You get to sabotage the competitor who fired you in the tutorial of the game. The menu is cute and fits the theme perfectly, it’s simple, yet beyond what I expected when I loaded the game up the first time.

Some features found in Toy Shop Simulator haven’t been explored much in the other “big” games in this genre, like being able to strike up profound philosophical conversations with the random NPCs in the street. There’s also the “online orders”, which have you packing items into a box, hopping on a scooter, and dropping them off at a post box. It’s entertaining and fun enough, I don’t have much more to say about it, I like when games similar in nature use something as a foundation upon which they build and expand further, as opposed to simply putting a new coat of paint on the established foundation.

That said, at times, there were added features that I wasn’t sure about. I wasn’t sure what they really added to the game, but even then, there’s a split for me. For example, most shop simulator games that have card payments simply have you enter the dollar amount and continue, Toy Shop Simulator has you looking at their card color, which can be one of three, and selecting it on the machine. I suppose it adds flavor, but what it adds to the experience besides getting “Card Wrong!” in a notification, I’m not sure.

On the other hand, at the end of the day, the customers still in the shop with items in their hands just simply… do a spin and throw their products around the store, which you then have to collect and put back on the shelves. I don’t entirely see what this adds besides busy work, so it’s not a design choice that I understand.

Then when it comes to base features, there are times when it seems relatively bare bones. It was pretty rough figuring out that I couldn’t just choose where to place a box, and that I had to throw it where I wanted it.

I’m not sure where the developer is from, but at times, it is relatively easy to tell that English may not be their native language. For example, when you try to move a shelf with items on it, it simply gives you a brief pop-up notification stating “Shelf Empty”. Except, the shelf isn’t empty, it’s telling you that it needs to be empty for you to be able to move it. It’s the small things, really. It doesn’t impact much at all, but I do think that it adds, or in this case, takes away, from the polish.

It’s probably relevant to note that toy textures are created with AI, as denoted at the bottom of the store page. So, it’s up to the individual whether that’s something they enjoy or not.

All in all though, even with my short time spent in this game so far, I believe that the foundation exists and that with time and effort to polish and build upon it, there’s a strong case to leave a mark in the “shop simulator” genre that has seen a surge in popularity in the last year. The colorful and joyful aspect of a toy shop has its appeal over a supermarket, and I think that there’s room for that in the market.

It’s an early access game, so you sort of know what you’re getting, but it’s one that I’ll keep in my library, play a bit longer, revisit to check in on updates, and generally see what’s up with. In any case, while there are improvements that need to be seen and definite work ahead for the developer, I’m generally positive and think it’s worth a shot for its current price, so long as updates are forthcoming.

I'm not sure anyone expected this game to kick off the way it did, especially in the era of "store sim" games being produced faster than anything else. Few games will succeed whereas many fail, trying to build on the foundation established by one game that managed to go big.

TCG Card Shop Simulator stands out because of the fact that it is not only a fun enough store simulator game on its own, but also that there's a whole other side of activities to it that gives it its own identity. The gameplay loop of the store side of things is relatively simple, you license products, buy products, sell products, level up to unlock more products, license these, sell these, and so on and so forth. There's a curve, meaning that the higher the level of products you stock, the longer it will take before you get to the next.

The gameplay loop of the cards, however, is what pulls many people in, especially as it plays into the addiction of opening card packs and collecting trading cards, for dozens of hours, at a one-time purchase fee of a reasonable ~$13, at full price. Your store will run itself after a certain point, meaning that you can spend your remaining hours (of which there'll likely be many) opening packs and collecting the cards.

There's an ambitious road map for development which includes items such as the actual implementation of a playable card game in which the collected cards can be used, though it remains to be seen how far into the future that will be, or if it will be realized at all.

Either way, the game is enjoyable, and easily makes you lose track of time. You can get the dopamine hits of pulling really expensive and rare cards, without having to take out a second mortgage on your home to fund the hobby past the initial purchase. At a specific point, the point of running the shop becomes second to collecting the cards, especially with recent updates that saw the introduction of customers being able to trade and sell cards to the player.

It's alright. I mean, if you can live with the fact that on certain systems, at least on mine, the game just crashes when sleeping to save and progress to the next day. That's only one of a plethora of bugs, which I suppose could be understandable in an early access game if the developers showed any further sign of support for the game.

There haven't been any updates or, more importantly, fixes since at the very least, late August/early September 2024. The developer announced that they were working on at least one other game, and were understandably criticized for Storage Hustle's state in early access. In response, multiple replies with a rather passive-aggressive tone were written, which indicated the team would take a brief break and return to it, dividing their attention between multiple projects. This was mid-August, latest, and nothing has come of it, no progress on their "work in progress fix(es)", radio silence.

As for the gameplay loop itself, I feel that everything ramps up gradually in a curve unless you get a hang of yard sales quickly and use them to your advantage. There's equipment to upgrade, different vehicles and homes to purchase, and a skill tree to progress through. Beyond that, though, it's a grind, as any such game would be, and it does get repetitive at a certain point.

What you see is what you get. A variety of items, obtainable through either yard sales or storage locker auctions, a decently-sized map (though, the map in itself doesn't have much going for it), and a "career" aspect to it with respect to the advancement in the skill tree, purchasable upgrades through cars and property.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed my time, though it was rather shortlived and once I stopped playing for a while, I actually had no drive to come back and put more time in. That said, given the absence of the developers, the way they handled the criticism of announcing and spending time on other projects while not properly supporting this game, I'm not so sure I can recommend it.

It’s been quite some time since a game captured me the way Once Human did. Not much can pull me in for dozens of hours in such a short timeframe these days, especially during summertime, but here we are.

Initially, I was a little confused. There are quite a few aspects to the game to learn when you begin playing, but it all ends up tying into each other quite well, meaning that as time goes on, it all becomes second nature. Turns out the game is a mixture of what feels like Rust, The Division, Palworld, and more, and that may just have been what caught my eye.

The gameplay loop is satisfying enough and, for the most part, paced relatively well. It is not necessarily “too grindy”, though it can be if you want it to be that way; gradual improvements over time as your character levels up mean that the materials (for example, ore or wood) you gather increase in quantity while the gathering time stays the same, so long as you upgrade your tools in the skill tree and the new materials. In any case, you can make it as grindy as you want it to be, but for the most part, you do not have to grind too much.

Base building is fun, straightforward, and easy-going, but sometimes a little rough around the edges. Snapping is sometimes intuitive and sometimes makes you want to punch a wall, and moving your base may come out relatively odd at the end if your base is not built around the center of your claimed territory.

The monster design is fantastic. I can’t with any certainty say that there has been any (recent) game that comes to mind with the design of monsters that is akin to or comes close to Once Human. Spiders with lights as bodies that overheat and explode when they approach you? Yup. Zombies with spotlights or briefcases as heads? Absolutely. The game has both super creative creatures and animals grounded in our reality, such as simple deer or capybaras. I haven’t even begun to touch on the large-scale monsters roaming the world, or the bosses in the world or dungeons, who have even more creativity invested into them to make them stand out.

Monetization is done well, everything is either purely cosmetic, or a small bonus such as a can of soda, canned meat, or fuel in relatively limited quantities (1, 2, or 5). There’s no need at all to spend any money, and everything is relatively affordable if you do want to. That said, some items are priced ridiculously high; having to spend roughly $40-$50 to obtain a furniture pack that contains glass walls, whereas an average outfit would set you back upwards of $15, or $9.99 for the battle pass.

Just like anything, however, the game is not perfect by any means. The game doesn’t tell you everything you need to know as a new player, and while one could argue it is part of the learning experience, I think it’s pretty important to find a balance. Vehicle durability is a point of contention, even with upgrades to the vehicle chassis increasing its health. When building, something may not work, but the game won’t tell you why it doesn’t work.

All in all, it’s definitely a game, a game of all time, for sure. It’s fun, and it pulls you in if this is your kind of game, but it’s also rough around the edges with room for improvement. That said, it’s free, so I will always recommend giving it a go. It has certainly been fun for my friends and me.

Life is Strange: True Colors was an enjoyable addition to the Life is Strange franchise. The setting of a small town coupled with the graphical improvement over the last titles create an incredibly charming atmosphere.

The story was enjoyable and I think that, irrespective of personal experiences potentially impacting views, the subject matter of loss is handled well. It wouldn't be an entry into the Life is Strange franchise without the loss of a person near and dear to the main character, and I think that they've handled the display of grief well across several characters with differing emotions, considering that everyone has their own ways of dealing with grief and mourning.

In terms of gameplay, there was a little less than other games when you think of puzzles, but I don't personally feel like it fell short. In fact, there's a pleasant and somewhat funny surprise around halfway through the game with respect to gameplay and the style of the game itself. In comparison to other entries, however, the game definitely leaves something to be desired with regard to the whole "choices have consequences" aspect and the impact that the choices have as a whole but I don't think it's bad by any means.

The cast did great and their performance definitely contributed to the ability to feel connected to the characters and drove home their involvement in the story.

All in all, it was a fun, emotional, and enjoyable experience in charming Haven Springs that took about 10 hours to complete in its entirety. Whether it's worth it at full price or better to wait for sale is entirely dependent on your own circumstances and not something I could necessarily comment on, having received this through a gifted humble choice, but I would perhaps recommend to wait for a sale.