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Recent reviews by Piston Smashed™

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9 people found this review helpful
5.0 hrs on record (5.0 hrs at review time)
With 1,300+ reviews, make sure to follow The Cpt Froggy Club Curator Page for plenty more!

When starting a new game, you will have the option to play either the Campaign or Skirmish modes. I decided to play the Campaign, which is split into two factions, you have the Heathens and Purians. You can choose to play either of the factions as both sides come with their own campaign missions. As the Heathens you play as Elena who is doing her best to protect against the invaders and their new gods. As the Purians you play as Harwig de Trevil a knight of the Albertine Order.

There is a small amount of information on the first mission and the mission objectives. After choosing which faction to play first, a small intro will start after which some chat text between you and some other characters will take part which explains the current situation, this will happen after the start of each new mission. Once the mission starts you will go over a small tutorial explaining how things work.

On the world map you will move Elena and any other units you may have under your control. The world is covered by a fog of war, this will reveal itself as you move about the world. Moving around the world will cost points as will performing an action at a place of interest. Once these points have been used up you will have to end your turn, the enemy will then take any action if required.

Throughout the map there are places of interest, these could be Sign Posts which will uncover some fog of war around the local area. There are Monoliths where you can collect Glyphs, these can give you a bonus in your next battle, health your units or some other bonuses. There are also Battlegrounds where you can find artifacts and altars where you can heal.

There are also places such as enemy camps or enemies which will block your way through to an area. The enemies will have a number above them and a bit of information on how difficult it would be to defeat that enemy. You can get a bit more on the enemy and the units by investigating them. Starting combat will let you choose how to proceed; you can either manually control how the battle plays out or you can have it automatically play out.

When you initiate combat, you will be taken to the combat screen, this is an area divided into square grids. Here you will move your units around the combat area and attack the enemy until you or the enemy are defeated by having no units left or losing Elana. There is an area where you can adjust the starting position of your units and there are squares where you cannot move to. You even at this point decide to choose to have the battle automatically play out or if you feel that you are getting your bottom spanked you can withdrawal so you can save your current units.

You can gain new units from locations around the world but mainly you will have to recruit them from a stronghold. You will require gold to buy new recruits, although you will only have low-ranked recruits to buy to begin with. You must unlock new recruits by unlocking them in Research, which will also cost you gold. Some recruits can also be bought from the Tavern, these units are usually better ones but will cost more than normal if you were to unlock and recruit them from the barracks in your stronghold.

You can have a total of eight units in a group and there are various types of units you can have, spearmen, shielders, archers, horsemen and heals to name a few. It’ll be down to you which ones you have in your group, you can have multiple groups of units to help deal with the enemies throughout the world, but your main group will be the one which contains Elana.

In the Research you can also unlock new technologies for things like hardened arrows or spears and toughened armour along with other things, all of which will cost gold. The only problem with the Research is that when you move to another mission any research you have unlocked will not be unlocked in the new mission. This is not a big problem as gold and units can be found around the world as you move through it. There are also places which can earn you gold such as mines which can earn you gold with each turn.

There are six missions for each of the campaigns, each will have several quests for you to complete in order to move on to the next mission.

In the settings you have Gameplay - Voice Language (English and Polish), Text Language - (English and Polish), Show |Blood and Reset Help Messages. Graphics - Graphics Quality, Resolution, Anisotropic Filtering, Antialiasing, Texture Quality, Shadow Quality, V-Sync and Display Mode. Sound – Master, Music, Speech, Sound Effects, Ambient Sound and UI Sound Volume Sliders. Input - Edge Scrolling, RMB to Speed Up Moving. Common, Camera and Adventure Map Key binds.

The graphics are nice, and the game is fine although I did find it a little bit boring. Some of the text when chatting between characters had white patches around and between the letters. This made it hard to read at times which wasn’t always the easiest for me anyway (yes, I’m booked into Specsavers next week).

Positives
+ Nice graphics
+ Two faction campaigns
+ Manual or automatic combat
+ Has achievements

Negatives
- White patches around the lettering in text chat
- A little bit boring
- No cards currently

The Heathens have been at war for years, vying to protect their lands against the invading Purians who wish to conquer the Heathens' magical lands.

6/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB!

Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


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Posted 5 March.
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10 people found this review helpful
5.4 hrs on record
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You use a dating app called Crush Link and your profile is very popular with you receiving hundreds of messages a day. I get quite a few more messages than most with being a suave, sophisticated, well cultured and damn right good-looking Englishmen. I had so many messages that I broke the game and had to get the developers to sort the mess out so that you good people could play the game on its release. I did mention that I’m also modest, didn’t I?

Anyhoo, it is the evening before St. Valentine’s Day, and you have just found someone who piques your interest on the Crush Link app. However, in the morning you have lost the chat with your crush amongst the countless messages you have receive throughout the night. You must clear all the useless spam and find the messages from your crush so you can arrange a date.

Before starting you will have the choice to choose your avatar and your crush. There are three female and three male options for both your avatar and crush. Once you have made up your mind the first level of the game will begin. At the start of a new level there will be some instructions on how the game plays. You can also skip the information once you know how things work and play through the levels again later.

You must protect your base which is found somewhere on the screen and at the end of a pathway. At the other end of the pathway is where the spam will start from. There could be multiple starting points on a level, but all will lead back to your base.

Your objective is to stop the spam messages from entering your base. There are multiple types of spam which will try to reach your base, every few levels you will have to deal with a boss. The enemy spam will come in waves of attack, as you progress the number of waves a level has slowly creeps up.

You delete the spam by placing various towers on certain points along the route between the enemy start points and your base. To begin with you have three types of towers but you can unlock another five towers as you progress through the game. However, you can only take four of the towers with you as you enter a games level. Which towers is down to you, you may have to trial and error which towers to use if you start having any problems in dealing with a certain level.

At some point in a level the route from the enemy start points to your base will change upon the completion of a wave of spam. This could render some of your towers useless with the being out of range of the spam making its way to your base. You can delete and recoup some of the resources it cost to build the towers. If you have upgraded a tower, then you can move that tower to a new position along the route to your base. However, if you do move a tower in this way, it will downgrade the tower to its previous level.

Each tower can be upgraded in two ways: there are three upgrade packages which will increase the bonuses for Damage, Health Points and Respawn in each upgrade. You can also upgrade the tower type itself; this could increase the power of the tower and give it new abilities. There are five levels of upgrading the tower types for each of the towers. Depending on the type of tower will depend on the type of damage it will do. There are four types of damage which the towers can deal, you have physical, laser, thermal and electro damage types. Some will work better than others against the enemy spam.

Once you defeat all the waves of spam through each level then the messages you are looking for from your crush will make its way to your base. This will then allow you to read the message and it will also give you some dopamine. You also earn dopamine through deleting the spam, earning achievements, reading your crushes messages and through looking at your enemies' details in the spam archive. You also earn stars depending on how well you did on each level. Dopamine can be used to upgrade your towers, the stars you earn through completing levels can be used to unlock new updates for your towers through the update tree.

There are twelve levels in total to complete which get steadily more difficult as you make your way to them.

At times while you are playing the game will stop and you will be informed of something new entering the fray. This is usually a new boss or minion which is on its way to your base. It will give you a bit of information on it. There are other times which will stop you from performing on screen, but I’ll leave that for you to find out.

The graphics are great, and the game has run very well so far. The levels are not very big and don’t take a long time to complete each of them, but they can still give you a good challenge. You can also change the style of game play by using the different types of towers.

I played a version of the game prior to it being released. I did have one problem with the game, but the developers jumped right on the problem and got it sorted straight away which was great.

In the settings you will find Sound and Music Volume Sliders, Effects tick box. Languages English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

Positives
+ Nice graphics and artwork
+ Enjoyable game
+ Multiple tower types
+ Has achievements

Negatives
- Only twelve levels
- No cards currently

You’ve just found the crush of your life using the new dating app Crush Link, however the messages between you and your crush have been lost under waves of spam messages. You must clear through the spam and arrange a date in the tower defense game, Crush Link TD

7/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB!

Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


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Come join us @ www.Zeepond.Com and The Cpt Froggy Club Steam Group
Posted 14 February.
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13 people found this review helpful
178.0 hrs on record (103.3 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
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“Long ago, a wanderer brought an enthralling gift to the people of Embervale. The Elixir. It was a cure, a blessing, a weapon. Once concealed by the ancients, its might had been set free. With it came power, mistrust, and a longing for more. Humanity dug the Elixir Wells, ripping apart the apart and each other to quench their thirst. Elixir and blood, drop for a drop. But from the depths of the Wells an unforeseen curse crept into Embervale. The Shroud, a ruinous fog which sought only to spread and devour. Facing their downfall, humans and Ancients united to forge the Flameborn. Now, your time has come. Awake!”

From the main menu screen selecting Play will take you to the character creation screen. Here you can choose from a number of preset characters, or you can customise your own. After deciding what your characters look, you then have the choice of where to play the game.

You have three options, Private, Host and Join, selecting private will start a private game which is stored locally. Selecting Host will allow you to host a public game with up to sixteen players which is also saved locally, although this could be dependent on how good your PC is. Selecting Join will allow you to join an online game from a list of already hosted games, although not all games in the list are available unless you have the server password allowing you to join that server. I decided to start a private game, you can edit the world's name if you choose now or any time in the future, hitting the Play button will then start your game.

You wake up and you find yourself inside a building containing a flame altar. You must commune with the flame altar, which then explains that you have been awoken after a long slumber. As a Flameborn you must combat the Shroud which has spread throughout the region of Embervale. It is from here that your story will unfold...

The first thing you must do now that you’ve been kicked out of your pit is to build a new place to call your base, a place from where you can create a home. This will be your first quest and a place has already been picked out for you so you must go there and claim the spot by building a Flame Altar. You don’t have to keep this as your main base, as you progress you will be able to create more Flame Altars. So, this will allow you to place them throughout the region of Embervale in places which will suit your needs.

The Flame Altars will provide a safe haven from the Shroud, and it will also protect you, at least for a short while when entering the Shroud. They will allow you to fast travel between other Flame Altars you own and to other locations which allow fast travel. Once you reach the area where you must build your first Flame Altar, you’ll have to find the resources, in this case it will be five stone. This can be found strewn across the ground, once you have some tools you will be able to break bigger chunks of stone and be able to mine it.

You will have a bit of a tutorial as you progress explaining a few details and some of the things in the local area will give you some details, such as a dummy will explain that you can block attacks when using a sword or that berries can replenish your health.

The world map is covered by a fog of war and will become visible to you once you travel through an area. When you find an area of interest it may appear on your map, however not everything will be stated on the map, but you can create your own markers with the choice of four icons and colours for anything of interest that you find on your journey, such as resources, high places to hurl yourself from and glide to points of interest or anything else that you wish to mark the map for, it’s totally up to you.

When you start you can only build and craft some basics, however, hidden throughout Embervale are other Flameborns waiting to be released from their slumber. Currently there are five Flameborns that you will have to awaken, you have the Blacksmith, Carpenter, Alchemist, Hunter and the Farmer. Each of these once you have awoken them can be placed at your base or any other Flame Altar you may have throughout the lands. However, I think it is best to just have a main base and have everyone one close by as it will make crafting a bit easier, at least until you can start producing magical storage chests.

These NPC’s will send you out on quests to recover items or find information which can then unlock new technology for them to use allowing them to create new and better items, potions or equipment. Finding new resources can also unlock new things for them to craft. You will unlock new quests as well as you explore and find information through scrolls or letters found throughout the lands.

Resources can be found everywhere, dirt, rubble, even pathways can be dug up and used as a resource and then you have resources such as metals which can be found throughout Embervale and used to create a whole variety of items, equipment and things for your base. Digging will require a pickaxe and it will take a toll on your stamina and it can be quite time-consuming to get enough of the resources you want. You also have to deal with wear and tear on all your weapons and tools.

Smashing things up is a good way to gain some resources, especially early in the game when they may be a little bit scarcer. Although, even later in the game smashing things up can produce some much-needed items and it is quite satisfying to smash the hell out of everything in a room or two while no one is looking.

You’re going to have to enter the Shroud, which can be a dangerous place with various creatures wandering through it. Once you enter the Shroud a time limit will appear in the centre top of the screen to tell you how long you can survive in the Shroud before you succumb to it. Some parts of the Shroud cannot be entered, and this is called, Deadly Shroud, entering this will kill you very quickly. The Deadly Shroud will dissipate and become normal Shroud though as you progress through the game and is more there to stop you from progressing too far ahead in the game before you have completed certain quests.

You can increase the length of time in the Shroud through upgrading your Flame Altar at your base, through items and gear or potions but once the timer runs out you will die and be returned to the last Flame Alter you visited. You will drop some items when you die but can go back and collect the items you lost. An icon will show you where on the map and there will be an object you must interact with to retrieve your items.

THE FULL REVIEW CAN BE VIEWED IN IT'S ENTIRETY HERE[www.zeepond.com] AS IT WAS TOO BIG TO POST HERE.

Positives
+ Good graphics
+ Enjoyable to play
+ Huge open world
+ Base building and crafting
+ Gliding from the highest peaks
+ Co-op game play
+ Has achievements

Negatives
- Game crashed on me several times
- Annoying flickering
- No cards currently

Awoken from a long slumber, it is your job as a Flameborn to push back the Shroud which has devastated the lands of Embervale after it was released through the people’s greed for the magical Elixir.

8/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB!

Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


For more reviews, great game giveaways and much more.

Come join us @ www.Zeepond.Com and The Cpt Froggy Club Steam Group
Posted 8 February.
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6 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
23.5 hrs on record
With 1,300+ reviews, make sure to follow The Cpt Froggy Club Curator Page for plenty more!

On your first time playing the game, you only have the option to play the default planet. There are three other planet options for you to choose from once you unlock the other planets, you have a small, large and huge planet. To unlock the three planets' options, you must reach the modern era in the game, this will then allow you to choose from all four options the next time you start a game from scratch.

Next you have a few options to choose from, although some of the options will not be available to you until you unlock the options through playing the game. The options on offer to you are Nugget Traits, Natural Disasters, Wild Animal Attacks, Exile Aggression and Creator Point Regeneration (locked for now).

You only have one trait option for now for your first-generation Nuggets, but others will unlock which may or may not aid your Nuggets survival. Natural disasters, wild animal attacks you have three options of Never, Occasional and Often. Exile aggression options are Friendly, Neutral and Aggressive. Using these options can help you customise your game from a more casual game to a more demanding game. You can choose the colour of your Nuggets skin and there is an option to play with tutorial.

Once done and you start a new game then you will be woken by the narrator who welcomes you to the beginning of your story. Your story begins in the darkness of the void but then the universe bursts into life. You travel through the universe until you reach what will become the Mother Planet for your creation, the Nuggets. The planet has its grasslands, forests, deserts and mountains regions and there are lakes and seas. Everything you need for your Nuggets to hopefully survive and thrive in this new world.

Your Nuggets will require your help if they are to survive and grow into a civilisation which will eventually take to the stars. You go over a couple of basics of the gamer but then you’ll be basically on your own. The first thing as Creator will be to place an Epicenter somewhere on your new planet. You’ll want to place your epicenter somewhere within easy access to the basic survival needs, food, water, wood and stone. So, whip around the planet a few times and find a good spot to lay your hat. This is where your first Nuggets will burst into life, Adahy and Elu the parents of your new civilisation.

To take your Nuggets forward you will have to unlock new technology through the Research Tree. Here there are technologies to help your Nuggets grow and expand, for now you only have research in the Stone Age. There are three other ages where research will unlock: the Medieval, Modern and Space ages.

To begin with you will have to unlock a few things on the research tree to get you up and running, Primitive Tools, Water Wheel and Waterflow Study. Once you have these unlocked you will be able to start building. Each research item will take an amount of time which is detailed on the research along with some information about the research and its benefits.

The Nuggets research tree progresses differently to what you might think, some technology will unlock before or later than where you would think they do when compared to how humans have unlocked new technologies. However, the Nuggets aren’t humans so they have their own progression as they strive to become a civilisation which can take to the stars and beyond.

Adahy and Elu will start to build a place to live once you have unlocked the Primitive Tools and later generations of the pair will also build homes for themselves to live in without your help but for everything else, they will need your help. They will go and fetch the required resources they currently require, later they may have to collect them from where they are produced or stored. So, you’ll have to think about where’s the best place to place your buildings, especially buildings that produce and store resources. You can help them move some resources to the required locations of the current building. This can help them especially if there is some distance between the resource and the building under construction.

Once you have a new building unlocked you can select the building from the construction screen. You can then place the building down where you want it to be, and your Nuggets will start to collect the resources and build the building. However, the more buildings you place to be built the longer it may take for them to be built, especially if you don’t have enough labourers to build everything.

It doesn’t matter if you have all the research in the world and can build anything you want if you don’t have the Nuggets to do the work. You will gain new Nuggets through the natural course of biology, if you see the Do Not Disturb sign on a place that is rocking, don’t come knocking. Shortly afterwards a new little Nugget will have joined your civiliastion.

Nuggets will pair off on their own, but you can give them a helping hand by matching them up with another Nugget. However, just be careful, I didn’t check that someone wasn’t already taken, and the husband wasn’t happy with his missus running off with someone else. So, he called upon me to avenge his honour and wanted me to strike her down. As the benevolent god that I am I agreed to punish the cheating bint, so I tracked her down to smite her with my lightning bolt, but I missed as she whipped right. Because I am a Counter Strike Legend and all-round FPS God, I quickly flicked my aim to take another shot at her, but she darted away, and I missed again. I couldn’t believe it but then I realised that I hadn’t missed, I had hit a building instead, which was now just a pile of rubble. I had struck down a school with my lightning bolt, the horror of what I done hit me hard until I realised that no Nugget kids or their teachers had been killed, luckily, they were all working down in the mines digging for resources... phew, lucky me!!

Lightning is only one of your godly powers, you have some which can be used for helping like Telekinesis which can move Nuggets, dead bodies and resources about. Rejuvenate, which can heal your Nuggets and repair damaged buildings. Jolt of Joy which will bring a smile to everyone’s boat race. Protective Dome to protect your settlement from meteor strikes and other destructive forces. Le Cupidon gives the gift of love and helps with the baby making when you need to increase your population. Holy Ground will bless the ground your Nuggets walk upon and thus they’ll love you for it and believe in you more.

THE FULL REVIEW CAN BE VIEWED IN IT'S ENTIRETY HERE[www.zeepond.com] AS IT WAS TOO BIG TO POST HERE.

Positives
+ Enjoyable game
+ Good graphics
+ Funny at times
+ Has achievements
+ Has cards

Negatives
- Annoying reminder messages at times
- Not always clear what to do early on

As God, steer your new creation the Nuggets, from a solitary pair to a thriving technological civilisation as they spread across the planet and eventually take to the stars and new planets in The Universim.

8/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB!

Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


For more reviews, great game giveaways and much more.

Come join us @ www.Zeepond.Com and The Cpt Froggy Club Steam Group
Posted 31 January.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
9 people found this review helpful
70.7 hrs on record (66.4 hrs at review time)
With 1,300+ reviews, make sure to follow The Cpt Froggy Club Curator Page for plenty more!

After the previous Rogue Trader Lady Theodora von Valancius is betrayed, you take over as next von Valancius Rogue Trader. Unprepared for what is to come, how will you restore the dynasty and bring those to justice as the new Rogue Trader.

Choosing a new game will give you some information on the scenario of the main story after which you can choose the game's difficulty. There are six options of difficulty that you can choose from, you have Story, Normal, Daring, Hard, Unfair and Custom. Each difficulty comes with some information on the enemy stats, damage received and inflicted, wounds and other modifiers. There are a bunch of modifiers that you can customise to your own personal preference or possibly tweak one of the difficulties slightly should you wish.

After deciding which difficulty level to play you can choose your character. There are three on offer with different backgrounds, abilities and archetypes. However, any of the three choices don’t take your fancy you can then create your own character from scratch. You’ll then be able to customise your characters’ look, portrait, appearance, hair, tattoo, augmentations and voice. Once you have done creating your look, you can name your Void Ship after which you can give your character a name as you check over your characters statistics.

You arrive on the Void Ship [Insert Name Here] and are greeted by Kunrad Voigtvir, the Master of Whispers who works in the service of the Rogue Trader Lady Theodora von Valancius. He’ll greet you and you will be able to have some dialogue with him about himself, Lady Theodora, the ship, other information and why you have been brought to the void ship. They’ll be plenty of dialogue with characters throughout the game where you can find information about current events, places, rumours or details about characters and planets.

When a dialogue starts between characters there will be several options for you to talk about. Depending on what you ask will determine on the answers you get, they could end up opening new dialogue options or they could end them right there and then. There is even a possibility that you could end up saying the wrong thing which could activate combat.

As the story progresses you will get some helpful tutorial information about when things you come across. This information will appear as a popup window where it will give you the information. There is a check box which you can tick if you don’t fancy having the tutorial popups show themselves, but they don’t show that often and may come in handy especially if you haven’t played the game before.

As you interact with characters you come across you will uncover quests to complete. You will unlock the game's story through the main quests and there will be side quests as well which can help with your game's progress. There are also rumours which can unlock new quests if you uncover the rumours through speaking with the folks at the location you visit.

You move around by clicking somewhere on the screen and then your character (or party) will move to that location. You can also click on the map and your party will move to the location you pointed to on the map. This can be helpful and a bit quicker than scrolling up or down to a position on the main game screen. Points of interest are indicated by a magnifying glass; however, you can select the TAB button and that will reveal items or other points of interest which were not visible before. Hidden around are goods which may have something of usefulness, or it may just have items which you can stow away as cargo and use in trades later.

It won’t be long before someone picks a fight with you and when this happens, you’ll enter combat mode. Combat is taken is turn-based with the members of your retinue and enemy taking it in turns to try and finish the other off. When combat is initiated most of the time you will be able place the current party members within a certain area of the battlefield. However, you will lose this option if you are ambushed by the enemy.

The battle area is divided into grid squares, the enemy and your retinue members will use these squares to move and perform area attacks or abilities. Movement Points are reset each turn and determine how far a character can move. However, sometimes if you perform an ability or attack it will cancel out any movement for that turn.

You can attack your enemy if they are in range of your weapon and abilities and are within line of sight. To perform an attack or use an ability it will cost Action Points, how many is determined by the type of attack and ability use, some actions don’t cost any action points.

Your characters have two main weapon slots which you can use for attacking your enemy. These two slots are each split into two more slots (left and right hand) so you can have a single-handed weapon in each hand, giving you a total of four possible weapons at your disposal. Or you could just go with two big hitting two-handed weapons or even have a two-handed weapon along with two single-handed weapons giving you three weapons of choice. This has been my favourite choice for most of my characters so far, if I have a rifle as my main weapon, I will then go with probably a pistol and a melee weapon or if my main weapon is a melee weapon then I could go with a couple different types of pistols. I think having a variety of different weapon types is a must, you never know who you’ll be up against.

As your characters grow through leveling up, they will be able to unlock new abilities and talents. There are three tiers of abilities and talents which can be used to customise your characters. Each character starts with a set archetype, and you can add to this once you unlock tier two (unlocks at level 16) and tier three (unlocks at level 36) archetypes with each increasing your character's range of abilities and talents. There are quite a few abilities and talents and you’ll be able to customise how your character’s development proceeds. You can also unlock new weapons and armour types for your characters to use.

As you progress through the story you will interact with new characters, some of the characters you come across will be able to join your retinue. You will be able to have five other characters join your main character in your retinue as you visit locations and for combat. So, you’ll be able to mix and match the characters to find the best ones for the current situation. The characters come from various races and have different backgrounds.

THE FULL REVIEW CAN BE VIEWED IN IT'S ENTIRETY HERE[www.zeepond.com] AS IT WAS TOO BIG TO POST HERE.

Positives
+ Good graphics
+ Great story
+ Two types of combat mode
+ Plenty of characters
+ Lots of choices to make
+ Enjoyable to play
+ Has achievements and cards

Negatives
- A couple graphical errors
- Crashing on exiting the game

As the new Rogue Trader, build your retinue, travel the Koronus Expanse and stand against the multiple threats which threaten the von Valancius bloodline.

8/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB!

Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


For more reviews, great game giveaways and much more.

Come join us @ www.Zeepond.Com and The Cpt Froggy Club Steam Group
Posted 13 January.
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5 people found this review helpful
5.9 hrs on record
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Once you start a new game you will then have to create a hero for your adventure in the Dungeons of Sundaria. There are five different class types of you to choose from, you have Champion, Cleric, Ranger, Rogue and Wizard. The Champions are up close and personal combatants, Clerics are both melee ranged and long ranged combatants. Rangers are range combatants; Rogues are stealth melee power combatants. Wizards are long ranged spell power combatants.

Next you choose your Race, and you have seven options, Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Orc, Goblin and Drog’al. You then have the choice of being either Male or Female and then there are some further customisation you can do to your hero. You can change the height, skin colour, face, eye colour, hair, hair colour and traits (tattoos). If you want to be lazy and don’t fancy customising your hero, then there is a randomise appearance button.

Your last step is to name your hero then hit the create hero button which will then take you into the game where you find yourself at the village of Galdrin’s Crossing.

The village consists of seven buildings, you have the Guard House, Blacksmith, Ivory Tower, Silver Dove Inn, Bank, Hovel and Guild House. You can buy, sell, craft and salvage items and upgrade equipment and skills by visiting the various buildings and the owners of the buildings. You can also store any items, weapons etcetera in the bank. The Hovel allows you to change your heroes' look and race although this does require a coin before allowing you to change your hero.

Talking with the members of the buildings you may find they have a quest for you to complete. So, it is best to have a chat with everyone before you head off into the dungeons just in case there are multiple quests within a dungeon. Once you’ve accepted a quest you can then head to the required dungeon. You leave the village by one of the two bridges on the edge of the village. This will then take you to the world map where you will find eight dungeons along with the village.

Each of the dungeons has a bit of information about the dungeon and you will have to choose the dungeons difficulty before entering. There are three options Normal, Hard and Nightmare with each difficulty coming with a recommended hero level for entering. The level required for normal depends on the dungeon and if you follow the quests given by the villagers you will make your way through each dungeon in order of level required, The Crypt of Horrors is Level 1 recommended, and the next level dungeon is The Dark Hollow (Level 2) and so on. The recommended level to play on Hard is level 10 and Nightmare is recommended that your hero be is level 15.

You are not limited to just playing the dungeons as they come about through the quests of the villagers. You can visit any of the dungeons at any time you fancy, just be prepared for a fight that you may not be ready for.

You don’t even have to play on your own, the game allows you to play co-op in either through a shared/split screen or online co-op. To play using a shared/split screen you only must add a gamepad controller and then select the option to add as a second users with the other user using the keyboard and mouse. I’m not sure if you can share a screen and play the game with two controllers rather than using a keyboard as I am unable to test this. You can cancel the option to add a second user and still use the gamepad to play the game as a single user which is how I played the game instead of using a keyboard.

The other option to play co-op allows you to either join a game currently in the server list although you may not be at a higher enough of a level to compete in those games. You can set your own game server up and have three users join you in your dungeon of choice.

Once inside of a dungeon you will make your way through looking to ultimately make it to the end. Along the way you may complete a quest set by the villagers. You will also come across various enemies and creatures within the dungeons which you will attack you. At various points in the dungeons, you will also come across enemies which are much stronger, mini bosses before you reach the final boss at the end of the dungeon.

Defeating enemies will give you some experience points allowing your hero to level up. They may also earn some equipment or weapons (loot); these can also be found throughout the dungeons hidden in barrels or other objects, weapon racks and other places. Destroying the barrels etcetera will reveal a sack which when collected will reveal what you have found.

Your hero can deck themselves out with various weapons and equipment, they also come with varying different rarities. You can protect your hero with armour for their head, shoulders, chest, legs, boots, gloves, rings necklaces and trinkets. These all come with abilities and different bonuses and status increasing your heroes' power, stats and resistances.

There are plenty of weapons you will collect as you progress through the dungeons. You can set up three different weapon setups which you can then swap between on the fly at any time you fancy. Your weapons have the basic abilities, but you will gain new ones as your hero grows in stature. You will have to setup which abilities you use for each of the three weapon setups, which is great for customising your setups as some abilities you may have unlocked will not work with certain weapons.

The dungeons are quite big and take a while to make your way through to the end. I haven’t played the co-op mode; I’ve only played the game in single player mode.

The graphics are good, and the game for the most part has run well. I did have one time in the second dungeon where I fell off into some water and tried to reach a ladder which took me back up to where I had fallen off. However, I tried to swim towards the ladder but as I got near, I couldn’t swim any further. I was stuck in the one spot treading water until I had to hit ALT+F4 to close the game. Luckily when going back to the game it resumed at the last check point which was just a few steps back from the ladder, so I never lost any progress etcetera.

I found the camera angles a bit annoying at times, especially when fighting a big enemy like a boss. It seemed like the camera was too close and made it hard to move or escape from the reach of the enemy. One other thing was there seemed to be some input lag while in combat at times.

It is a bit repetitive but it other than that it isn’t too bad, I found it challenging but not too hard on Normal, my hero is not good enough yet to take on the other difficulties.

Positives
+ Good graphics
+ Big sized dungeons
+ Multiple weapon setups
+ Has achievements
+ Has cards

Negatives
- Froze on me once
- Camera angles annoying at times
- Bit of input lag

Choose your heroes race and class then lead them into the combat and vanquish all manner of creatures and ultimate bosses as you become a legend in the Dungeons of Sundaria.

6/10

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Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


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Posted 23 December, 2023.
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9 people found this review helpful
52.0 hrs on record (46.4 hrs at review time)
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Starting a new game, you will have the choice of starting Scenario, the choices on offer are Crash Landing, Trading Outpost and Military Outpost, you also have Random if you cannot decide on which to choose. Each of the scenarios has their own goals for completion, Crash Landing allows you to start with up to four characters who have escaped the passenger ship, the Alien Dawn in an escape pod after it had a critical hyperdrive malfunction.

The Trading Outpost scenario has up to three characters who brought a one-way ticket to unchartered territories, in the hopes of becoming traders, earning enough Galacticions and buying the planet. The Military Outpost scenario has up to six characters of adventures, scientists and soldiers who have been sent to an infested planet. There you must construct and defend a communications relay that will allow for interstellar communications throughout the sector.

Next you have the choice of Location from two regions, you have Desertum and Sobrius and again there is a Random option of you cannot make your mind up. The two regions are very different, Desertum is a dry hot desert region with dry riverbeds, dunes and oases. While Sobrius is a region with large meadows and temperate mountains. Following your choice of location, you then have the choice of choosing one of four moons. You have Concordia, Jason, Nyx and Chaos, with each adding varying challenges to your game.

You also have Modifiers to further customise your game, you have Game Difficulty, Easy, Medium and Hard, Very Hard and Insane. Not only will each difficulty prove to be a bigger challenge, but it will also dictate your starting resources. You also have Game Rules to help tweak your gaming experience, there are six categories in which you can tweak your game and give you some bonus or restriction such as having no aggressive animals.

Finally, you will have to choose your characters, how many will depend on your earlier choices. I went with the Crash-Landing scenario, so I had to choose four survivors from the thirty-five characters on offer to you. All the characters have some information about them, their background, age traits and relationships with other characters. The characters all have skills of varying levels, there are eight different types of skills. You have Combat, Construction, Cooking, Crafting, Farming, Healing, Intellect and Physical.

Some characters are interested in some of the categories so doing jobs linked to those skills will help keep your characters happier and more content with their current situation. Characters don’t always have skills within each of these characters, some characters are indifferent towards some skills and others just will not do jobs associated with certain skills. Such as there are characters which will not engage in combat, so you are unable to even give them a weapon and help protect themselves, others or your settlement. Whereas someone given a weapon and has a low skill level in combat can increase the combat level through fighting, which will help greatly when you come under attack, especially towards the beginning of the game. So, make sure you choose a good range of character skills when choosing your survivors.

You’re not going to get far on your starting resources but there are plenty of resources in your surrounding area to help you survive. You will find trees for wood and bushes for sticks, rocks, ores and found can be found. You can use these basic resources to get yourself started, building a camp with be high on your list of things to do so that you can survive in this strange new world.

Your camp will need a campfire which can give you some light and warmth at night and you can also use it to cook some simple recipes on. You are also going to need some shelter and straw beds on which you can sleep upon. To begin with you will only have basic shelters and beds on offer to you but they’re better than nothing at all. The shelters can also be used to protect your stockpile of resources as you collect them. Resources such as foods like grain and berries will eventually rot away, you can create recipes with certain foods cook or pickle them to make them last longer.





Once you have the required resources you can build a workbench which will allow you to craft new and better items to help you and your group survive. You will also be able to build new desks such as the research, tailoring and soldering desks which will all give you new technology, weapons, clothes and be able to create new and better things to help you expand your base and maybe help to keep you alive that little bit longer.

Creating a research desk will allow you to unlock new technologies. There is plenty of technology to research and unlock anything from furniture, weapons and equipment to automatic defences, power distribution and even animal training.

It will take one of your characters to work at the various desks to produce items, craft equipment, weapons and unlock new technologies. For a character to craft anything or for them to unlock some new technology it will take anything from a few hours to a few days of working at the required desk.

The game is divided into days and seasons, your characters will have to work, craft, rest throughout each day while not only trying to build and protect themselves for now but for the upcoming seasons. It is no good trying to plant crops in winter when there’s snow on the ground and you will have to make sure that you have the right clothing for each season. Running around in your boxers might make you feel alive in the cold breeze of winter, but it can have a serious effect on your health eventually. You can customise your characters to which work they will or won’t do each day. You can also tell them when to sleep, work and when they can have quality time for themselves.

You are not the only things which live on the planets, there are creatures. Most of which are harmless but some of them will attack you or your camp at some point in time. They will usually attack in larger swarms as time goes by, but you are not helpless from these attacks. You can craft weapons to help defend yourselves and your camp, you can also unlock defences such as traps, flamethrowers and even automatic weapons once you have unlocked the technology and have the energy to power such weapons.

You are going to have to make sure your characters are happy and healthy. If they become injured through combat they can bleed out if they don’t get any treatment or if they become sick, they can then die. If a character's mental health takes a hit, they can go on a rampage and start smashing the hell out of things or have a complete breakdown.

THE FULL REVIEW CAN BE VIEWED IN IT'S ENTIRETY HERE[www.zeepond.com] AS IT WAS TOO BIG TO POST HERE.

Positives
+ Nice graphics
+ Multiple challenging scenario’s
+ Plenty of different characters
+ Steam workshop
+ Has achievements
+ Has cards

Negatives
- Sometimes takes a while for the characters to do anything
- UI is a bit clunky

Crashed on a strange planet, create a base, collect resources, craft items, research technologies, farm and prepare defences all while you try to survive the planets unpredictable weather and creatures in Stranded: Alien Dawn

8/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB!

Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


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Posted 5 December, 2023.
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5 people found this review helpful
11.9 hrs on record (11.4 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
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When starting a new game, you will have to choose your character. To begin with you only have one option, however, there are two other characters you can play once you have unlocked them. One of the other characters is called Black Panther Bob, he’s an undercover detective, the other character is currently unknown. So, for now you will have to play as Fox Thomas, a journalist for Woodpecker TV. Next you must choose your background and you have three options, Broadcast Journalist, Undercover Journalist and War Correspondent. Each of the backgrounds will give you Positive Ability, Negative Effect and two Initial Specialty skills.

You’re reporting on a state of the Lameleg River, it has turned purple and stinks to high heaven. This started about two years ago when a nearby chemical plant opened. It has since devastated the surrounding area; the fish are dying off and the residents are coughing and have rashes spreading all over their bodies due to the raw sewage being pumped into the river.

However, protests about the state of the river have fallen upon deaf ears. There are rumours that the mayor’s nephew has a financial interest in the chemical plant and so things are pushed under the rug. So, with your report on the situation, you call out the mayor's lack of response because of his nephew's interest in the chemical plant. The mayor is not happy with this as elections are around the corner and he wants to spend another term in office, something that won’t happen if you keep reporting about the river pollution. It is then that you get a visit from Angelo, the mayor's *cough* campaign manager *cough* to persuade you to drop your report. To help you decide he has a briefcase stuffed full of money if you don’t follow up on your report. It is now up to you whether you take the money or not...

If you don’t take the money, you get stitched up and sent to prison on some bogus charge. The object of the game is to get out of prison before the mayor can win the next election which is in twenty-one days' time. So, you’re not going to have much time to get through learning how the prison system works and find a way out.

You will be shown to your new digs by Captain Bruce who expects you to obey him as he is the law around these parts, but you can get on his good side. In your cell you will find your bed, toilet-sink combo, cupboard for storage and a desk where you can craft items and a table and chair. You will be able to store items in your cupboard but there is also a hidden compartment in which you can hide those items which you shouldn’t have in your possession.

Your day in prison starts with you waking up at 7am and while you can go back to sleep for a while, I mainly crawled out my pit then as I had recovered all my energy. This also gives you time to brush your teeth and take a dump before you must report for the morning head count. After the head count Captain Bruce will give the day's announcement, which may be of use to you but will probably come at some cost like everything else inside the prison.

After head count you will then have a few hours until Lunch. You can use this time to talk and befriend other inmates although some inmates will not entertain you until you have increased your reputation. However, this time of the day is best for working, you can gain permission from Captain Bruce to work in various areas of the prison.

To begin with you only have the chance to work in Laundry but other areas such as the roof or kitchen will become available to you if you earn enough Good Conduct Credits. The credits are earned mainly through doing quests for Captain Bruce, you will also earn them through working hard. Working in the laundry will not cost you any credits but it will allow you to earn some much-needed money.

Not having any money is a real pain in the botty as everything within the prison requires payment. Your food for lunch if you want anything decent will cost you, using the weights to build your strength costs money, hell if you want to go for a tom tit while on recreation it’s going to cost you. So, getting a job is very important, without money you’re going to struggle.

At lunch you will have a choice of food offered to you but the better food which will help replace your heath etcetera will cost money. You will take your food and sit down at a table, if someone is already at the table you can share your food with them. This will improve your reputation with that inmate; however, you will only gain half of the benefits of the food you purchased. This might not be a problem if you have plenty of health etcetera but when you’re struggling then you may want to keep your food for yourself. If you do require more food, then you can try and demand food from other inmates, just make sure they are lower ranked than you otherwise you could be in for a good spanking.

Recreation follows lunch and you’ll have until 5.30pm for recreation. Here you can pump some iron at the outside gym, visit the church and read books or paint. Although, as with most things inside they are run by gangs who demand payment for you to use these services.

Once recreation is over you will find yourself back in the main building, you will be able to run around until lockdown at 10pm. Here you’ll be able to collect your dinner, you can also go for a shower now that the bathroom is open. This had me worried about what was going to happen upon going for a shower. I had chosen Broadcast Journalist when choosing my past and had read the negative effect wrong. I thought that it said the negative effect was that you drop the soap in the showers, so I was hesitant about entering for one, but you must shower and brush your teeth if you are to maintain your health. I found out later that I had got it totally wrong, and it says you cannot shower without soap. It just goes to show you shouldn’t play games while under the effects of a lack of sleep...

You can also go watch the TV at 9pm each night, as always, you’ll have to pay to watch anything. There are three types of programs you can watch, you have Movies, Sitcoms and Basketball games. Watching movies can help you learn new skills; sitcoms can help to recover your mind and basketball games will allow you to gain experience and place the odd bet if you have the cash to splash.

If you have a cash flow problem, then it is at this time of the day that you can visit one of the gangs and get a loan. However, getting a loan will need repaying within a few days of accepting. If you don’t repay then expect to get a good kicking when the guards aren’t looking. You can also use the gang to hold on to your money and earn some interest. This can be helpful as there are some inmates who could end up taking all your money leaving you with nothing.

THE FULL REVIEW CAN BE VIEWED IN IT'S ENTIRETY HERE[www.zeepond.com] AS IT WAS TOO BIG TO POST HERE.

Positives
+ Fantastic graphics
+ Good story
+ Nice characters
+ Crafting and learning skills
+ Has achievements

Negatives
- Crashes on exiting the game
- Game froze up on me once
- No cards currently

Sent to prison on a bogus charge, you have to learn to survive, earn reputation with the inmates, craft items and find a way to escape the prison all before the mayor gets re-elected in only 21 days' time so you can prove your innocence.

7/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB!

Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


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Posted 22 November, 2023. Last edited 22 November, 2023.
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8 people found this review helpful
53.0 hrs on record (50.6 hrs at review time)
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Starting a new game, you will have the option to choose the game's main character from two options on offer. You have the option to play as either, Claude C. Kenny, the son of Admiral Ronyx J. Kenny, hero of the Terran Alliance. He’s nineteen and studying at officer’s school, unsure about what he really wants in life so he’s just plodding along in life. The other is Rena Lanford, a seventeen-year-old girl with a big imagination. She lives in the small village of Arlia on the planet Expel and possesses a mysterious healing power. You can play through with Rena in your next playthrough of the game and she will be your sidekick throughout your game play as Claude.

After deciding who you wish to play as you can then tweak some game options, change your name, voice language, difficulty, background music version and display event art. There are three game difficulties to choose from, you have Earth, which is the easy mode, for those wanting a relaxing game. Galaxy is the normal mode and Universe is hard mode. I chose to play as Claude and with the Galaxy difficulty.

Your journey begins with you following your father and other crew members down to a nearby planet to investigate an unusual energy scan. After finding your way into a building you come across and mysterious device. Even the Science Officers haven’t seen anything like that before, wondering how it works and what does it does. You decide to take a closer look as your curiosity gets the better of you, with your father telling you to hold back until you know more about the device and what it does.

Unfazed by any danger you might be in you proceed to move closer and investigate the device. However, suddenly the device starts up, stating coordinates and that a gate is opening. Then suddenly there’s a flash of light and you and the device disappears. You awake in some forest, unsure as where you are, your father and other crew members are nowhere to be found. So, you head off to try and figure out where you are, it is here that you will first interact with Rena as you save her from being attacked by a monster. From here is where you will gain control of Claude and you will have your first battle and you will go over the basic controls.

In combat you have a Normal Attack, and you can perform Special Arts and Symbology. Normal Attack will use your current weapon, Special Arts and Symbology attacks will require the use of Magical Points. You can control your main character around the battle area and as you gain new characters in your party you can give those characters options on how they will act on the battlefield. There are four options, first is I’ll let you handle it, second is Spread out your attacks, third is Focus your attacks and the fourth is Prevent enemy spells. You can even swap between the different characters and take control of them, which is helpful if your current character gets dropped like a sack of spuds by some monster and you need to jump in quickly to continue or if you don’t have any resurrection pills on hand.

This will allow you to tailor your battlefield experience to your gameplay. So, you could have two main attackers while one using magical attacks and one healing your party. Or you could leave it to the characters to handle what they do or have them go full out attack on who you are currently attacking etcetera. I found using the I’ll let you handle it option for me worked well for the most part.

You can also determine the formation on the battlefield with your characters. To begin with you only have one or two formations that you can select but you will unlock more as you progress through the game. Each formation will give you some bonus towards your overall stats while fighting in that formation. The bonuses become available after collecting a number of spheres dropped from your defeated enemy, gaining a critical hit or breaking your enemy.

In your battle party you can have four main characters although you can have another four characters in your Assault Formation. You can call upon these characters to help you out in battle although you will have to fill up your assault battle gauge before being able to call upon them. After defeating the enemy, you will gain some experience points, special points and battle points and will any luck some items such as weapons, equipment, potions or materials.

With Rena you’ll head off into the world to investigate the source of the Sorcery Globe, the mysterious meteorite which crashed upon Expel and ever since monsters have started appearing. While you’re on your journey you will come across others who will request your help and send you out on missions. Some of the characters you come across will be able to join your party.

You will travel from location to location on foot to begin with, fast travel will be available to you once you have visited a location. You don’t just travel fast to a location, but you can also fast travel to certain places within a location such as a store or inn. There will be other forms of travelling that you can unlock as you progress through the game.

On the world map or in the dungeons you will find enemies appear, what type of enemy is hidden until either you or they activate contact at which point combat will commence. You can get an idea of how powerful an enemy is by the colour of the enemy symbol roaming around. They come in three colours, Green, Purple and Red, green is your weakest enemy, purple is your average enemy while red enemies are the strongest. On the world map you may come across some red enemies which are huge in size compared to the regular enemies you find wandering around. These are extremely strong enemies and as such must be only taken on if you are up to the task at hand, otherwise you’re going to get your botty spanked good and proper (which isn’t a bad thing now and then *wink wink*).

When contacting an enemy, it is best to approach it from behind, this will give you advantage over the enemy allowing you to attack first after catching them unaware. However, this can also work the same for the enemy, you will be unable to perform any action for a couple seconds giving the enemy time to cause some havoc on your group.

Some enemies can be linked together, these are indicated by a red line between several enemies, up to five enemies in total. If you enable combat with these enemies, then you will fight each of the enemies which are currently linked. So, if there are four enemies all linked together then you will have four rounds of combat before combat is completed.

THE FULL REVIEW CAN BE VIEWED IN IT'S ENTIRETY HERE[www.zeepond.com] AS IT WAS TOO BIG TO POST HERE.

Positives
+ Very enjoyable to play
+ Fantastic graphics
+ Good story
+ Japanese and English voice overs
+ Has achievements
+ Has cards

Negatives
- Can’t think of anything

Claude finds himself on an unknown planet, where he is mistaken for the Hero of Light. While trying to find a way home he helps to investigate the Sorcery Globe and chaos it is spreading across the planet Expel.

9/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB!

Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


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Posted 14 November, 2023. Last edited 21 November, 2023.
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9 people found this review helpful
17.2 hrs on record
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You have travelled the galaxy to a far-off planet where you will oversee the administration of the extraction of the planet's resources for the company Nakatani Chemicals. Your job is to take over the colony and improve the current infrastructure of the planet, fueling the planet’s growth through the collection and transportation of the planet’s resources and becoming the envy of all the galaxy. You will do this through the creation of railways, once the railways were the frontier back on Earth and now again, they are to be used out in the final frontier as mankind spreads out across the galaxy in search of resources.

Railgrade is a resource management game where you will play through campaigns in which you will have to complete objectives in order to complete the campaign mission. With each campaign mission you must figure out the best way to complete the mission through the creation of a rail network and distribution of resources to Industries, the Zeppelin Dock and City.

Starting a new game will have you play a tutorial which will take you over the basics of the game. You will learn different aspects of the game over a few missions after which you will have to put everything you have learned into practise as you complete each level within the campaign stages.

Each campaign mission will have you complete a set of objectives. Usually, you will have to collect and transport resources to industries so that you can then create new resources such as using copper to create copper wire or coal and iron to create steel. These new resources will then need transporting to their destination, this could be the Zeppelin Dock where you can offload your freight and earn money towards the upkeep and growth of your rail network allowing you to build and allow you to complete your mission objectives. It will depend on the mission parameters on where the resources are required to be delivered.

Not only will you have to deliver resources to industries, but you will also have to transport the required resources to the city. Producing energy and resources such as water, oil and other products will allow the city to grow. A growing city will allow you to gain extra workers which you can then use in certain buildings such as the Oil Powerplant, allowing you to produce more resources for the city.

On the game area you can find reserves of resources scattered around. To make use of these reserves you must build on the reserve so that you can collect those resources. So, you’ll need an Oil Plant placing on an oil reserve, or a Water Plant on a reservoir. Once this is done then they will start to collect those resources. However, they can only store so many resources at one time, upgrading the industry building if you have the spare pennies will increase this level.

Now that you have some resources flowing you must transport them to where they are needed. You do this by laying down a rail line between the resource building and the required building destination. As the land is not always flat you can raise and lower the tracks across difficult terrain, keeping your trains from having to climb as little as possible will keep them running much quicker. You can combat this by adding more than one train engine for some extra power when required, this also helps when you are pulling multiple carriages as well. You must also place loading and drop-off points at the industries or city where you want your trains to load and unload their freight.

You must select at least one engine for your train and then select which freight carriages you wish your train to pull. You can have multiple types of freight carriages and it can be a good thing to use your trains this way depending on your track layout between industries.

One thing I do like is the fact that you place your industries and lay your tracks down before the time limit (for rank) starts. The time will not start until you place your first train on the track. So, you can place everything down where you would like without being rushed. You can still build once the time has started and you will have to most of the time because you won’t have enough money to do everything first. You can borrow from the bank to help you if you find your incomings a bit slow.

Each campaign is divided into a time zone and depending on how long it takes you to complete each campaign you will gain a Rank (S, A, B or C) and you will also gain Vouchers. You will gain one to five vouchers depending on how slow or fast you complete each campaign mission. You will use these vouchers to unlock new industries, or you could also unlock new music cassettes with the vouchers.

However, to receive an S Rank, I need to complete the campaign within twenty minutes, I still got a rank albeit the lowest C Rank, but I did learn somethings for the future campaigns. I don’t mind getting a good rank (wink wink) but if I fail then it is fine for me, completing a mission is more important.

You can Edit Modifiers prior to starting a new campaign, however, this can affect the possible rank you can achieve depending on the modifier you choose. There are three modifiers, No Ghosting, this disables train ghosting, trains will be blocked when they come face to face with each other causing congestion within your rail network. The highest possible rank using this modifier is the S Rank.

The next modifier is No Timer, there is no pressure when playing with this modifier as each campaign has no time limit. Using the No Limit modifier will not allow you to gain the S Rank however, no matter how long it takes you to complete the campaign you will always gain an A Rank upon completion.

The final modifier is the Millionaire Mode, the rank limit in this mode is a B Rank however, you will always have plenty of cash to build your rail networks and any cash you spend will be replenished so you’ll never run out of cash.

I played the game without any of the modifiers and if you think about things then you could get the top rank for each campaign, but it might take you a few tries.

The campaigns when played right won’t take too long to complete and they are less complex than I first thought they were. One mission took me over 3 hours 30 minutes to complete because I was being too complex in my thinking and execution of my building.

The graphics are good, and the campaigns will provide you with enough challenges to keep you on your toes. I’ve enjoyed playing the Railgrade and while I’m not the fastest at completing the missions I found that my time playing just disappeared. I would spend quite a bit of time creating my rail network only to make some mistakes and then rethink my strategy but that’s the nature of the game.

THE FULL REVIEW CAN BE VIEWED IN IT'S ENTIRETY HERE[www.zeepond.com] AS IT WAS TOO BIG TO POST HERE.

Positives
+ Challenging but enjoyable game
+ Fifty plus campaigns
+ Game modifiers
+ Steam Deck verified
+ Has cards
+ Has achievements

Negatives
- Laying of tracks at times was a bit awkward

Take control of an off-world colony, mine, manage, create and transport resources as you complete campaigns and help grow the colony and become the envy of the galaxy using the old frontier technology of Earth... Railways.

7/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB!

Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!


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Come join us @ www.Zeepond.Com and The Cpt Froggy Club Steam Group
Posted 8 November, 2023. Last edited 8 November, 2023.
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