A game where you can make your friends eat shi. Literally. That alone is worth a thumbs up, bruh.

But seriously, though, the game is funky, weird, awkward and yet quite cool.

Gameplay-wise think of your classic half-life 1 crossover with some survival game w. deep craft mechanics, where you need to craft armor, consume the food and build a base.

Story and the world takes a lot of inspiration from multiple universes, like (once again) half-life, SCP, maybe a bit of stargate sprinkle even?

(minor spoilers below)
The premise itself claims that
you work as a newcomers in a non-governmental secret science facility, which learned how to open portals to different dimensions. That allows us to make scientific wonders and advances humanity's technology level at light speed. The most unusual objects are taken from such worlds and are kept inside the facility under a huge reliable lock. Think of your SCP objects held in cameras, w. description, safety precautions, measures to sustain & control them.

However once the portal to another dimension opened, that connection cannot be fully closed and, what's worse, it impacts our planet too. E.g. Destruction of a distant universe might collapse our world as well. Or an (un)friendly visitor might want to check what's happening on our side of the portal, for example.

Needless to say that we're playing with fire, so when 'The Order', (a secret society of humanity protectors. Or at least that's what they call themselves) finds out about our discoveries, they immediately send the execution crew to purge everything with fire, killing all the witnesses, stopping the experiments and destroying the facility.

But something goes seriously wrong and instead of making a swift n easy win, The Order causes actual resonance cascade, a bit similar to half-life. The facility locks down, so nobody can come in, or out.

Now our task is to survive and escape the facility. For that we'll have to restore facility's functionality by gathering the necessary materials via travelling to the other dimensions.

Each of such worlds takes inspirations from different games by the way. Resident evil, silent hill / the mist, dark souls, black mesa's xen, to name a few.
(end of the premise part)

Then again, it's not like majority of players are going to follow the storyline when they are messing with friends. And trust me, the game gives you lots of ways to troll the folks.

Anyways, yes. Me like. Me recommend. Buy it! Good gaem!

hmm, alright, let's see what do we have here:
First of all, big part of negative reviews comes from the fact that game is a bit rough on the edges (I mean it's Early Access after all) and a bit too high price for such a content.
Secondly, Eugen Systems trapped themselves years ago when they released Wargame: Red Dragon back in 2014 which had around 1000 units on start. Many people simply want everything at once and quick, without understanding how it works from the perspective of the developer. Are they right with that? Well, hard to say, but despite a rough start with WARNO, I personally want to express my gratitude to devs, since they've heard us and tried to deliver us what we wanted. If they succeeded or not is a bit different question which I'll try to discuss below, but the fact itself that they heard us worth mentioning, imo. So I totally disliked all the toxic reviewers that throw dirt at the devs and the game.

Now, these are all my personal thoughts and they may not be the same with majority of people, so whether it's worth believing me or not is up to you, the reader.

First, about good things in game:
For a large scale realistic war RTS the visuals are stunning. I absolutely loved these small touches like randomized models in infantry squads, following 80s trends (for instance some Soviet soldiers wear aviator glasses which were quite popular during Afghanistan era). Also, some US planes have these drawings on the side, similar to what real pilots actually drawn on their jets. Explosions and graphics overall are cool too!

Secondly, music... Now we're slowly going to what I have mixed feelings about. While I totally loved the vibe in main menu, I do believe that having such songs during actual firefight where people die is a bit... Wrong? I certainly don't want to have these songs removed, but I think adding more alarming songs, similar to classic wargame battle themes would be a benefit. I mean current music would totally suit to some menu, or after battle screen, but not actual firefight, where it hurts the immersion. The sounds of units are just a placeholder from what I understand, but I loved the IDEA of trying to make it sound like an old radio. It's just that it needs better implementation, imo.

Third, the UI. While I personally can live with general UI ideas, the after-battle screen that looks like a board with a pencil-written text looks out of place.

Fourth, the gameplay. While I liked the idea that we can arm helicopters with whatever missiles we prefer, general game balance is far off and way less enjoying than it was in Wargame, imo. I understand that devs wanted to have differences from Red Dragon and wanted to make game more "mobile/active" so that people would be able to counterattack from several directions and thus, turn tables upside down, instead of turtling, however this way the game turns more into a race rather than RTS. Most questions comes to infantry. I tried holding a town on "two ways" map and it turns out that squads are dying way too quick, especially because they can't resupply people from supply trucks.
Speaking of supply trucks, did I get it right, that they don't even fix your mechanical units anymore? Imo, it's not such a good idea.
Also, I really miss ol' good FOBs from Wargames :'(
Anyway, jokes aside, I do believe that the game needs to be a little bit slower than what it is at the moment. With tougher units that don't die within a matter of several seconds. I will change the review to something more understandable for people who never played eugen's games before, but for now I just wanted to highlight some moments which I believe worth telling to devs. I still have my trust in devs and I do think they will fix many things with time, it's just toxic people that made me want to write something that would support devs on the first place (even though I also brought in some criticism. But I still love ya guys <3).

Best game about pushing the buttons! 10/10 would push one more!

On a serious note though, if you enjoy games like "The Stanley Parable" or "Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald", then you should definitely try this one as well. Especially for the given price. Sadly, nothing more I can tell you about this game as I don't want to spoiler anything.

A game from the creators of The Stanley Parable. Basically this phrase says it all, as our heist game is in the same genre even. If you liked 'The Stanley Parable' then you are probably going to like this one as well. Lots of humor, great voice acting, some secrets collectibles, e.t.c.

For those of you unaware of Stanley Parable is, however, here's brief explanation of our game: It all starts when protagonist spawns behind the scenes. Then, when you knock the door some game manager opens up and explains us that the game itself is made "live". And when a player plays it, they are assisted with the help of the game crew. But game devs went on strike, company went understaffed and something bad happened, so instead of placing you in the line, game spawned two players at the same time. So you are offered to help to the game manager and work as behind-the-scenes man, manually enabling various scripts, weather effects e.t.c. Speaking in advance - yes, you can act like a total idiot and ruin everything. In fact, it's one of the main gameplay features. So yeah, instead of actual heist game, what you have here is narrative driven linear comedy, which is easy to learn and fun to play.

On the downside however, is game lenght (I've managed to complete the game twice within an hour) and the fact that game is rather linear. You won't be able to open a "wrong" door and turn the storyline upside down, like it was with The Stanley Parable. Then again, should you really complain on the free game of such quality? I personally wouldn't.

Interesting puzzle concept. Gives you quite a challenge. Challenge for both, your brain and your skill, as it's kind of a game where you need to plan a theft and complete it as quickly as possible, before timer runs out and security arrives on scene. Game can still be a bit sharp on some edges, however, but it's still in Early Access, so most of those issues can be easily forgiven. Only real issue here is lack of workshop, if you ask me.
Giving that review only for the sake of autumn sale badge, though.

Rather interesting visual novel, where you'll keep replaying everything again and again 'till you manage dig to the very core of the situation.

UBOAT is a sandbox WWII submarine simulator, where you’ll take a role of the commanding officer, accepting the orders from the HQ, hiring the crew, upgrading your boat and, of course, controlling actual german uboat. At this point game is in early access, so storyline is nonexistent just yet, however you’ll be able to pick multiple missions and do standard patrols in an open world deep sea.

As it was mentioned before, storyline is nonexistent at this point, so each mission you take has a really brief explanation, be it vanilla patrol, or some diversion at the enemy port. Sometimes your mission objectives may change during actual game. For example my first assignment was vanilla patrol deep in the ocean, however on my way to the patrol area, our boat radio engineer caught SOS signal from a friendly uboat, which had been severely damaged and needed some spare parts for the repairs. It’s also worth mentioning that the ocean is alive: sometimes your crew may encounter vessels, irrelevant to the current mission. So yeah, all in all, each mission of yours is a different adventure, not necessary fulfilled with combat.

However, dynamic missions are not the most unusual part about UBOAT. Perhaps the most interesting feature there is the fact that you control a crew member in an FPS, or an RTS mode. To put it in a more clear way – you don’t control actual boat, but rather you are in charge of the people who operate it. For example, one of your crew members spots an enemy aircraft. In FPS mode you need to quickly reach for the upper deck and personally mount the machinegun, in order to actually try to bring the enemy down. The machine gun is not the only thing you can operate in this game, though. Almost every aspect of the boat is controlled with actual human. Only thing you need is switching to a person with right knowledge degree every now and then. At this point some of the boat subsystems are still operated by the AI and don’t have own ‘minigame’, but I assume that devs will fix that in newer versions of the game.

Although, for people who don’t enjoy first person view experience, there’s always an alternative – by scrolling the mouse wheel, you’ll change the view to an RTS mode, where you’ll have to issue orders to other people via few clicks. Sometimes, however, you’ll need to act really quickly. For example your sub was hit at multiple places, so there are breaches all over the hull. Hence why there’s a feature that allows you to stop, or increase the time speed and issue right orders for the repairing all those hull breaches, or leaving the boat section instead.

Speaking of the repairs, I can’t forget but to mention supplies: Before actual mission, you’ll have to check whether you have enough supplies for a long trip. That includes almost everything, be it some food, fuel, ammo, spare parts, additional crew members with the required education degree - you name it. And yes, managing all those resources is vital sometimes. For example you can switch engine from consuming the fuel to consuming electricity and vice versa. Such twin engine approach doesn’t only help with getting away from radars, but also allows you to save up some fuel. On the other hand there’s food, which affects your troop morale. Troops with low morale act less efficiently and in a tight situation, when every second matters, they may panic and mess things up.

Last, but not least is your boat upgrades: For each successfully completed mission you gain some experience, which stacks in levels. Each level gives you one point which you can spend at the port by talking to a high ranked officer and requesting a ‘favor’ from them. Such requests may include more available units under your control, or the ability to leave friendly ports without HQ permission, e.t.c. The warehouse where you purchase supplies also serves as UBOAT upgrading station, where you can tweak certain parts of your vessel, be it improved engine, or advanced radio and such.

The overall graphics of the game looks quite well. Not much I can comment on, really: Be it calm weather, or storm in the sea, be it day, or night, or even dawn, all of those times of the day are unique and may thrill you when seeing it for the first time. Actually, exception can be nighttime, because it gets really dark around. I’d say a bit too dark, because sometimes I couldn’t even see my own boat.

The sound is done on a pretty decent level. Upon starting the game, you can choose the language of the NPC’s speech, which is really comfy. The music is top quality too. I totally loved devs’ choice of the radio songs. There are 2 slight problems however: All of the current songs are English ones (which is quite strange, considering the fact we operate German uboat), plus there’s just few of them. I wish there was more radio waves with different content.

The PRO’s:

• Different ways of operating your boat
  You can choose to play as an actual officer, or play an RTS game instead.
  
• Fully operational submarine in your hands
  Seriously now, not only you control actual boat, but also manage the supplies, change relations with crew, or actually change crew members. Almost every boat subsystem can be operated manually.
  
• Boat upgrades and crew veterancy
  You can’t do much with green rookies and usual boat, but as time passes you slowly turn your vessel into a true beast with top notch equipment and experienced veterans under your command.

The CON’s:

• Game is quite complicated
  Don’t get me wrong, it is simulator, and those are supposed to be complicated in terms of difficulty. However, it’s one of few games where I had to complete tutorial for 2 times before gaining more or less common understanding with the game. Speaking of tutorial, it’s not even finished yet. In other words it stops half way through the mission, so nobody is going to babysit you through whole adventure and explain how to get new upgrades and crew members, or how to get to a port even.
  
• The nights are way too dark
  Seriously, maybe it’s just a nitpicking, but I can’t even see my own boat during night time!
  
• The ladders can be quite inconvenient at times
  Most of the time this isn’t a big deal really, but when problems hit the fan and every second matters, you start panicking and can’t climb up or down without any problems.
  
• A bit strange logic behind boat upgrades
  Maybe it’s just a nitpicking again, but I don’t think that spending actual money on food and uboat upgrades in a military port is a correct thing. Weren’t there some standards as for issuing certain amount of food and fuel per mission?

The Conclusion:
UBOAT is still an early access game. There is way more decent content yet to come, however even at current state, the game looks and feels really impressive, to say the least. Normally I’m rather skeptical on early access games, however UBOAT is one of those exceptions which everyone should try!

Follow our curator page, Alexander's Club Curations if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

Deck of Ashes is a turn-based roguelike card game with quite interesting lore, which encourages different varieties of deck building and exploration. The game offers multiple heroes, each featuring unique playstyle and storyline.

The story presents typical antiheroic concept, showing us a medieval fantasy world, which has been corrupted by a dangerous ash plague, cursing everything on its way. Your Alter ego is one of those people who are responsible for whole mess. Each playable character (yes, there are several of them) has unique personality and own reasons as for stopping the plague. The story itself, while not rich on description, has some interesting minor plot twists, although on a global scale it’s unlikely that many players would find the concept too unique.

Overall, you can divide the game on 3 stages: exploration, camp and actual battles:
Exploration can be considered a separate turn-based game, where your hero decides what to do and how to spend their time most efficiently. You’ll fight local enemies, gather resources and encounter random events, some of which may have a positive or negative impact on a set of battles. It’s worth mentioning that you are travelling on a region, belonging to some boss. Bosses may vary from some undead creature to a demon. Each has personal story and character, which you’d learn through a dialogue with your master. Throughout whole chapter time, that boss will be seeking for you and destroying some of the pathways on the map, thus, making the level somewhat dynamic.

Your character never travels alone - there is a party, which is always ready to help you by upgrading your hero and selling some new card blueprints. Each person in your camp is responsible for different upgrades and crafts. For example the herbalist can heal you, remove the illnesses and increase some of your character’s stats, be it maximum health, or critical strike, etc. Sometimes your allies may temporary leave the camp though, so don’t rely on their help too much.

During the battle stage, Deck of Ashes resembles majority of other similar games:
Player has 3 stacks of cards. First one is card blueprints. These cards don’t participate during actual fight. You can craft them for ashes – a special resource, obtainable after the battle. Second stack consists of actual cards you can play during the battle. As soon as you play a card, it immediately goes to third stack, which is called ‘Deck of Ashes’. After the fight is finished, your character has several hours to either heal wounds, or restore the cards from deck of ashes, back into playable stack. Sometimes during a fight, players can remain empty handed. That’s why there’s a special card which allows restoring several cards, in exchange for your character’s health. Also, there are phoenix cards, which are never sent to the deck of ashes. Keep in mind that despite the fact that your character can quite often win even the hardest battle, you still won’t be able to fully recover after it, so game presents the dilemma whether it’s worth having only few difficult battles, or many easier fights.

Whole game slightly resembles some dark universe cartoon comic strip. It’s worth mentioning that drawing quality looks pretty neat: Enemies seem to be different from one another even visually. They vary from some huge insect or ghosts, up to spores or mushrooms of some sort. Backgrounds during battles, while not that big in numbers, still look on a decent level. However what really seems lacking in this game is chapter biomes – following the storyline, your party is visiting cities, forests, swamps, e.t.c. However, all of these chapter locations on the global map are done with the help of the same set of background pictures.

Perhaps, whole sound chapter can be separated on actual sounds part, which includes music as well, and the part featuring voice acting. While overall sound quality is good, I’d like to mention that actual voice could’ve been performed in a slightly better way. Somehow I didn’t feel like I was playing a dangerous criminal, who robbed and killed rich and poor alike, because the voice of the main character was somewhat trembling and sounded a bit unsure, which is uncommon for such type of people. Then again, maybe I’m just nitpicking. Besides, many other card games don’t feature any voice acting at all.

The PRO’s:

• Game has quite interesting concept:
  Let’s put it straight – there are not that many card games where you need to think as for how to spend your time in the most profitable way. Simply fighting the enemies would drag you exhausted, without any chance to recover your best cards and thus, failing sooner or later. That’s why you’ll also need to travel around the map, decide if it’s worth gathering resources, or encountering an event instead.
  
  
• Dynamic maps:
  That’s another thing that I don’t see often. Sometimes the boss would just destroy the path you wanted to use and that really can mix up your plans. Besides, the initial idea looks really interesting.
  
  
• Interesting lore:
  It’d be a big lie to say that the game is rich on lore, or that the game universe is too unique. Instead, it’s one of those games where player collects the info about game lore by small pieces. But the way you find out more about this world, or those philosophic talks between main character and their mentor – all of these things are done with care and thus, it’s really interesting to track the story of the game.

The CON’s:

• Inability to rest properly:
  The problem that seems like a big plot hole is the fact that your character can heal wounds and restore the cards only after the battle. However you may spend about half of the day travelling on many tiles. Sometimes you’d even read the story about your character slaying great monsters, or having some rest here and there, but you won’t be able to restore health, or cards. Nope, only after the card battle. Sure enough, you can do so in camp, but this ability is still quite limited.
  
  
• Lore could’ve been a bit richer:
  Not a huge problem, but rather a wish for an improvement. There are a lot of moments where game just copy pastes same phrases. For example when boss is looking for you and destroys the road. All of them literally say same set of words. This could’ve been performed on a different scale, by showing us how exactly bosses look for us, by hanging innocents and burning towns in desperate attempts to find the character.
  
  
• Inability to escape fight:
  Let’s put it straight: it’s a roguelike game, featuring permanent death. Sure, escaping each fight would be ridiculous, but sometimes players may just find themselves exhausted and ambushed literally few steps away from the camp. If game featured some sort of retreat option after main character kills one of the enemies, or at least after set amount of turns, it’d be really neat improvement in my eyes.
  
  
• Global map in each chapter is located on the same biome with same house and tree images:
  It hits the immersion. Especially in a game which requires imagination. Just try to pretend that you are reading an interesting book with dull and similar pictures. It’s not a big deal, but still could be done better.

Overall, Deck of Ashes leaves really good impression. Sure enough, some moments seem a bit unpolished, however they barely affect overall product quality. The game offers quite different cards with various effects, the art looks good and the plot is interesting to follow. Perhaps, I can recommend it to everybody who enjoys roguelike games, or card based games.