Bite Sized Reviews: Into The Emberlands

I am doing something a little different for this piece! Into the Emberlands launched in Steam Early Access last month, a cosy exploration roguelike developed by Tiny Roar.

I wrote a full review on SteamDeckHQ, so here’s the link to my piece up on there for a full overview of the game, including extensive Steam Deck testing (which is the main reason for the site!) I decided instead of writing up a full review again for here, it is a better use of my time to make a short summary, and if you’re interested in a longer piece to just go to my review there. I write for a few outlets these days, and with so many projects going on I feel like a kitten running after a dozen balls of string in every direction!

Into the Emberlands is a pretty charming game even in its Early Access state, boasting colorful visuals, engaging gameplay, and enough meat on the bones to warrant its asking price. Seeing how you can buy Emberlands for $6.49, it is difficult to say no to that. Hell, I spent more than that yesterday getting a massive slice of cheesecake delivered to my door for the Wimbledon Final!

While the game’s loop rarely steps beyond fetch quests, I found it more engaging than I expected. You can unlock extra help for future runs in the form of more wood or a starting axe, which aids the replayability. In terms of flaws, I found Into the Emberlands a little janky around the edges, especially with input lag on the computer when clicking on an event or loading a menu. This is less noticable on the Steam Deck, but it is enough to mention. There should be more than enough to keep you engaged, and I still love booting it up for a quick dose of gaming when I need something comfortable to play. Into the Emberlands is a cosy cup of hot chocolate, and easily gets my recommendation.

It’s gonna be a busy few weeks ahead! Tacticon is on again this week, and I have a bunch of reviews I am working on. Expect some more interviews in the following weeks as well with the wonderful creators behind these games!

In this episode, Brad covers:

Dungeons of Hinterberg
Deathbound
Neo Harbor Rescue Squad
Overboss
Phantom Spark
Arco

…And more!

You can also hear the show on iTunes and Spotify!

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

In this episode, Brad covers:

Dungeons of Hinterberg
Grow Up
Mars 2120
Thank Goodness You’re Here!
Deathbound
FNAF: Into the Pit

…And more!

You can also hear the show on iTunes and Spotify!

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

Scar Tries: Shrot

Good things come in small packages, and the newly released Shrot meets that description beautifully. If you’re in the mood for an RTS that is simple to pick up, Shrot might just be the game for you. For transparency, this is not a long article. As part of my ‘Scar Tries’ experiment, this is for games I’m experimenting with to see if it is worth more time.

The Steam Summer sale is nearly upon us, and that means spending a chunk of cash on games that I’ll eventually get around to. We all suffer from the backlog trap! I’m trying to get better at that, but it’s always nice to pick up some video games.

Developed by Spytihněv, Shrot is a spiritual successor of sorts to his first game HROT, a fantastic FPS that everyone should try at least once. This is designed to be a small real-time strategy game influenced by the RTS titles of old, and it accomplishes that role pretty damn well. You can buy Shrot on Steam for 10$, although it currently has a 15 per cent discount until July 4th. After tinkering with it for a few hours, Shrot is worth the asking price. We don’t get many RTS games anymore, so it’s always nice to appreciate the ones that do launch. Shrot is one of the good ones!

Shrot calls itself a ‘bite-sized’ RTS, but it packs a decent amount of content in such a small package. Between the campaign, multiple tutorial missions, multiplayer and an unlockable sandbox mode upon completing the campaign, there’s more than enough for strategy fans to enjoy. The graphics might be archaic, but you’ll never get lost in the terrain trying to find your units, and the interface is easy to understand.

As gameplay goes, it is relatively simple as strategy games go. There are only two resources in the game: money and oil. There is a capitalism joke in there but I’m not going to bother pointing that out.

Plop down an oil pump against that delicious lake of brown gold to gather oil, which is needed for everything from generating electricity to building stuff. Money is gathered with combine harvesters that roam the map for hops. That’s a new one, but it suits the harsh setting of the game. You can train a wide range of units, from infantry and cavalry to tanks and engineers, and they all have their different uses and strengths. Engineers can build pontoon bridges and clear minefields, while aircraft have the advantage of the sky (Obviously). The dozen mini-tutorial scenarios help with understanding how they function. Shrot might not be as complex as other strategy games, but there is more than enough depth for you to enjoy.

With so many game releases, it is easy for some to slip between the cracks no matter how good they are, and Shrot deserves more eyes on it. It does not cost much, it runs on pretty much anything (It’s even playable on the Steam Deck with the WASD/Keyboard profile), and it’s a lot of fun to play.

Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to play more of the campaign.

Bite Sized Reviews: Trappist

One downside to seeing many games released every day is attention. Some games get a ton of it, while many others lack the coverage they otherwise deserve. As my mother likes to say, I ‘only got one pair of hands’, so it is a challenge working out what games to prioritize.

It’s exciting digging through the underlooked hidden gems! We’re officially in summer here in the UK, which means humid weather and small brick houses. Excuse my British complaints about the weather! I’ve got a lot of reviews upcoming here on SG. While my work over at SteamDeckHQ takes priority, I love what I’m doing here. The Steam Summer Sale starts in a couple of weeks, so I’ll happily delve through my massive wishlist and see what I can pick up.

That brings me to Trappist, a colony sim that needs more attention. Trappist is quite the endearing little game, the work of solo developer Sirrah. The colony sim market is pretty competitive. Most of my recent reviews feature them in some shape, and it seems I’m not tired of them yet. That’s a good thing because Trappist packs serious quality in a tidy 15$ package. I’m not far into the story campaign yet, but I’ve played enough to get a feel of the mechanics and the gameplay loop. So far, I’m impressed!

Following the traditional evacuation of Earth after it becomes a wasteland, your happy little Ark full of colonists arrives in the Trappist-1 system, 40.7 light years away from the Sol system. Naturally, these colonists from Earth want to get their feet wet on new planets, and that is where you come in. There’s a lot of dialogue alongside interactive tutorials to learn the mechanics, and the lore in-game is surprisingly meaty for the genre. As someone interested in narrative, I enjoy checking out stories in my games, and Trappist combines the threat of interstellar travel with comfortable gameplay well.

At its heart, Trappist is a space colony simulator, and it throws a lot at the player to manage despite its humble design. Managing the Ark, surveying planets to locate good landing sites for colonies, bringing citizens down onto the planets and building settlements are all part of the gameplay loop. The colony management has all the basics. Buildings need power to sustain their production, while colonists need food and water to avoid dying horribly. It also helps building houses to keep them safe.

The usual colony sim gubbins are all here, and I appreciate how Sirrah approached the management systems. Buildings are put down instantly while resource production requires little micromanagement. Making sure your colonists survive can be tricky at first, especially early on when you’re relying on ferrying resources from the Ark to each colony, but things get easier. Trade logistics are automated once you have a couple of colonies going. It reminds me of the excellent Slipways in how they both minimize fuss, although this has a more organic city management design.

Honestly? Trappist does a lot of things well. The graphics, while simple, still look nice, especially the planets. It runs on very modest hardware without trouble, and it is relaxing to play while still offering enough challenge. The colony management doesn’t waste time, either, so it doesn’t feel like you’re spending ages micromanaging a thousand colonists’ needs instead of focusing on the gameplay. A recent patch also added controller support, and I’ve had fun testing it on the Steam Deck. The only irritating thing I found was that it was occasionally problematic when clicking on a planet colony, but that might be a problem with my keybindings rather than an issue with the game.

While Trappist is technically complete, it is still in active development with more in the pipeline. It might not be the longest, deepest, or most engaging colony sim out there, but the full package on offer is solid. With so many games released and in development, time is a resource that can’t be ignored. I’m more cautious now about what games I decide ‘this is for me right now’ while putting others into a backlog library if I’m not willing to engage with it for the moment. I’m happy to say that Trappist joins my ‘To finish’ list.

You can buy Trappist on Steam for $14.99. If you’re in the mood for a comfortable colony sim that’s still challenging with a good story, Trappist might just be what you are looking for.

Scar Tries: Penkura

The weather has been odd here in the UK. It’s either blazing sunlight or torrential rain, and I’ve been caught out in the downpours more than once.

Things are going smoothly enough on my end, and you should expect more articles in the coming weeks. I’ve got a dev interview with the lovely mind behind Little Odyssey releasing next week, including a few impression reviews. Summer Game Fest was incredibly busy, featuring a delicious buffet of game reveals and release dates. Streets of Rogue 2 is probably my most anticipated title from the festival, and I can’t wait for August.

Today, I’m featuring Penkura, an Early Access survival game from 2018 that’s enjoyed a rebirth of sorts! Developed by Lionsart, they’ve managed to return full-time to the development of Penkura, and I’m incredibly happy to see that.

Game development is hard, even more so when it’s a small team behind the wheel. Given how turbulent the world has become in the past few years, it’s a small wonder we can make toast. I’ve been on both angles of game development, both as a guy who games and reviews them and working in the industry, so I try to be understanding. It’s why I’m so happy that these guys managed to return to Penkura after a long hiatus. They have an incredibly ambitious game, and it is a delight to play. These are very early impressions so far, but I know for certain this is a game I want to keep playing.

At its heart, Penkura is an open-world survival crafting RPG, but it is so much more than that. Part exploration FPS, part topdown base builder, I’m impressed how much Lionsart has crammed into this game. It carries a bunch of time travel science magic, featuring deep, underground complexes and powerful artefacts. The sci-fi/occult setting is pretty damn unique for the genre, and it’s one of the most in-depth survival worlds I’ve played in a long time. Just check out the narrative on the Store page:

“Deep beneath Antarctic ice, a Polish research team uncovers an ancient temple, a portal to a captivating new world.

As Earth faces overpopulation and devastation, Project “Gemini” initiates the migration of humanity to this promising planet. For 41 years, pioneers traverse the singularity, until contact is mysteriously severed.

Now, as a mercenary, you embark on a perilous journey through the unstable gateway,

tasked with survival and uncovering the secrets of the unknown world beyond.”

How cool is that?

With its Unreal Engine, Penkura not only has great visuals, but it runs darn well for an Early Access game. Even on my obsolete, slightly unfit laptop, I experienced no crashes or stutters, and the environments are beautiful to look at. With the aid of a sentient AI, your job is to uncover the truth behind the ghost city. This is a hardcore survival game, so you’ll need to manage important things such as sleep, food, water, and oxygen. Death punishes you by losing your items, although you can retrieve them afterwards. With the new world’s environments and fauna wanting your blood, this is a dangerous world. No pressure, then?

I acknowledge this is not a full review. Heck, it’s barely an impressions review. With my schedule so hectic right now, I wanted to get some initial thoughts on Penkura out of the way and play enough to decide if it warrants further exploration. My answer to that is yes. Oh god yes. Penkura is a fairly unique game with a lot on offer. Now that Lionsart is back full-time on development, the next few months will be interesting.

Scar Tries: Death of A Wish

I always appreciate games that challenge me. I appreciate them even more when they give players the option to tweak to their liking. It might be why I struggled to get into Elden Ring. I love the game but I am terrible at it. That’s not the game’s fault of course! It’s me, not you.

You may have noticed the new title. Before I go into today’s article, I have a few updates. Things are going reasonably well on the writing side. Steam Next Fest starts soon, and I’m looking forward to covering some games in that. Whether I’ll write an article about it will depend on my free time, but we will have to see! Between writing for Steam Deck HQ, TheStrategyInformer and here, that’s a lot to manage. I apologise to those waiting for me to send interview documents, post-up interviews, and reviews! Over the past months, I have built up quite a backlog and I’m disappointed in myself. Due to ongoing health and new work coming in, I feel like a puppy presented with a million different plushies to play with.

While it is my intent to cover as many games as possible, I’ve decided to try something new. “Scar Tries” will be for experimental games. They won’t be all that different from my Bite-Sized Reviews, but they might not go into as much depth. I have not been able to play as much Death of A Wish as I would like, but hopefully, this little piece will tempt a few people into picking it up.

It is rather pleasant weather here in old Blighty. A couple of thunderstorms last week that were a delight to watch (they are always more pleasant watching from indoors), but it’s slowly getting warmer. Hopefully, I can get out for some more walks!

Anyhow, that’s my introduction rambles done for the day, let’s talk about Death of A Wish! This game launched back in March, and it’s only recently I have found some spare time to play it. I only wish I played it sooner because Death of A Wish breathes class from every pore. While it is one of those difficult games I usually run away from, it offers a ton of ways to customize how you want to play it. To those who know my reviewing tastes, I prefer customisation and accessibility in my games. I’m happy to play tough games, and running into a boss fight over and over again is sometimes a delight. I’m experiencing that right now with No Rest For The Wicked. I’m still in the first bloody map, dying constantly against the big knight boss blocking my way to Sacrament.

Is it frustrating? Hell yes, but I’m loving my time in No Rest For The Wicked so far. 
Death of A Wish feels like that too. I spent about an hour on the first real boss fight, dying about twenty times until I figured out the best way to handle him. I’m no shakes with these fast, violent action RPGs, and it always takes me a while to get used to them. Death of a Wish is no exception, favouring frantic close-quarter combat where enemies hit hard. You have to be on your toes constantly to stand a chance, and DeathWish offers plenty of combat options. Yes, I’ll call it DeathWish from now on. I like giving nicknames.

While I enjoy the gameplay, what drew me to DeathWish is the visual design. I know that sounds strange given the abstract graphics on the show, but they blew me away. Set in a dark, occult world, your job as the player is to gain revenge upon the cult that fathered you. The worldbuilding is top-class as the player delves into this broken world of nightmares. The environments feel like a demon has ripped them from the fabric of reality itself, and the character sprites reflect this. DeathWish is a brutal world and pulls no punches: the Store page is full of content warnings. Combined with a chilling soundtrack, DeathWish punches above its weight class.

In combat, Deathwish offers plenty of customization both with its Aria system and the accessibility settings. There are tons of ways to tailor your character by equipping different ‘Virtues’ and it adds to the fluid movement and tutorials. It looks like a lot, but the early game was fantastic in teaching me how to play. If things are too difficult or easy, you can turn on modifiers with just a button click. In-game cheat codes without needing to unlock them? They are always fun to play with.

I will feature Death of A Wish in a more in-depth ‘Bite-Sized’ review later, but I’m pretty impressed with it so far. What do you think of the ‘Scar Tries’ format? Have you played Death of A Wish? Let me know!

Bite Sized Reviews: Taora Survival

Last year, I played a lot of State of Decay 2.

This zombie survival game has been through the wars. I remember its appalling technical state in 2020, but after years of content updates State of Decay 2 has become one of my favorite sandbox RPGs to play. There’s just something satisfying about building my little community in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Taora Survival launched at the end of May, and it feels like a State of Decay game. As soon as I discovered it, I knew I had to give it a shot. Big thanks to the developers Tulpar Games for granting me a review code to check the game out! It is out in Early Access for a base price of £11.79/$12.59, with a 10% discount until June 6th. By the time this goes live that discount might not be available, but that is still a very reasonable price tag. While it needs a lot of work with optimization and bug fixing, it is an enjoyable enough time to recommend.

The closest indie title I can compare Taora Survival to is Survivalist: Invisible Strain. That was another game I played a lot of in 2023. As for what to expect, we’ve got all the parts of a zombie survival game. We’ve seen this throughout the genre. You collect resources, construct buildings, craft items, and survive the zombie apocalypse. It’s not winning any prizes on the creativity front, but it’s decent enough. It’s difficult to think of how to describe Taora’s gameplay without feeling like I’ve rehashed it a thousand times. We know what zombie survival games are like. It’s an early-access game with a core gameplay loop already present. The developer plans to add more content and quests throughout its development.

The biggest roadblock preventing me from playing it more is the performance. I already experienced a lot of bugs, like my character’s equipment randomly vanishing, dying without any indication of what happened, and a couple of hard crashes. My laptop is not high-end by 2024 standards, but it meets the recommended requirements for the game. Even on the lowest settings, I experienced a ton of frame drops. That might be because of the old graphics card in this laptop, but I’ve played heavier games that had fewer performance issues than this. Optimization is something Taora Survival desperately needs. After one crash I found that my 8-hour save had been deleted, and Steam was unable to recover the file. A tad unfortunate.

With this in mind, Taora Survival needs a lot of work. However, that is what Early Access is for. While my technical experience with the game left a lot to be desired, I see the potential in this game. It carries a low price tag and there’s more than enough meat in this zombie sandwich to enjoy yourself. I would recommend having a more powerful rig than my old-man laptop. As long as Tulpar Games is committed to fixing the bugs and optimizing the game, we could be onto something special.

Bite Sized Reviews: Synergy

What a busy couple of weeks it has been! Before I delve into today’s bite-sized review, I have an announcement to make.

SteamDeckHQ is one of the definitive channels for everything regarding the hugely successful Steam Deck. The staff there are lovely people, and I’m happy to announce that I recently joined them as a feature writer there. It’s been a long time coming but it’s going to be a fun journey!

That does not change much for my articles here if anything. They will all continue, but they might be a little less frequent as I adjust to the new shenanigans! This is still my platform to cover all the fantastic indie games that exist. Interviews will proceed as normal. We’ll always be open! I just may need to prioritize things like affording stuff.

Internal Thoughts: Do you mean more Rimworld DLC so you can do more horrible things to characters in your video games?

We should move on to today’s review, huh?

Synergy is an interesting little game. Launching last week in Early Access, it has all the makings of a nice city-builder. The graphics are gorgeous, inspired by Moebius for sure. As soon as I booted into my first game, the art style breathed it into every colourful line. I’m the last person who’ll call myself an art expert. I’m not. I’m more like Baldrick’s art talents from Blackadder. Jean Giraud was one hell of an inspiration, and Synergy is the latest video game that drew from his incredible artwork.

I’m not used to beautiful city builders but Synergy’s visual design drew me right in. This is a saturated market, especially in the indie scene. While the competition is not quite as fierce as the roguelike scene, there are a ton of games out there. With 2024 hits such as Manor Lords, Farthest Frontier, Time to Morp, Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, and Roots of Yggdrasil, that is a lot of games Synergy is competing against. Now that I think about it, I’ve covered all but Farthest Frontier recently here! I’m addicted to city builders.

The key argument Synergy needs to address is: how does this differ from the competition? How does it stack up against other games like it? That’s always something to challenge ourselves when games release, but especially so in Early Access. Asking players to part with money upfront to test a game that’s constantly in development requires a ton of trust, after all. After several hours of playing with the tutorial and the sandbox mode, I’m still unsure what to think of Synergy. It looks fantastic and it plays fairly well, but right now I’m struggling to recommend it over the competition. Due to juggling a lot of pies, I haven’t played as much Synergy as I would like, so consider this an early impression.

That doesn’t mean I think the game is bad. Quite the opposite. The premise is simple enough. In a strange alien world, you must guide your tribe to prosperity. In this inhospitable environment, it is all about survival. In the Early Access version we have, you can play the tutorial level, the WIP campaign with two-story scenarios, or go full-on sandbox. The tutorial is pretty well done, and it solves one of my pet peeves. Learning organically while playing is my preferred way to play a tutorial, and Synergy offers that in spades. In sandbox mode, you can replay any map from the campaign, which is a nice feature.

What I liked about economy mechanics is how much it focuses on research. It’s a new alien biosphere and nobody knows how things work yet. Therefore, you have to study the flora and fauna scattered across the world to learn how they support human life. The number of ways different plants can be used to build the settlement is kind of awesome. The environment must be spared from your parasitic nature, so harvesting plants needs to be prioritized over tearing the resources out completely.

It’s also cool how much Synergy values water purification. It’s a rough world out there, and no access to clean water is a fast road to the ‘Up Shit Creek Without Paddle’ scene. Studying the biomes helps to work out what the best route to take. It’s a similar system to Stranded: Alien Dawn’s observing mechanic, although in Synergy you use a specific building instead of instructing an NPC.

As for the gameplay, the abstract 2.5D graphics are pretty to look at, although there’s no way to react with the colonists. That’s a shame, as I like zooming down into my settlements and watching them work. There are no traits or characteristics that set one colonist apart from another, which makes Synergy feel a little soulless at times.

For Early Access, I think Synergy is a solid enough city builder. The amount of content available is decent, given the price of 25$. The isometric graphics are beautiful and I enjoy the educational/scientific focus the game has. I just feel right now, the early access version currently available might not be the best fit in this stage of development. When going up against its fellow rivals, that 25$ does not stretch as well as other titles do.

There is a good game here, but players might want to wait for some more updates before picking it up.

Bite Sized Reviews: Little Odyssey

There’s something oddly relaxing about doing something so mundane.

Even taking something as simple as ‘Fantasy Delivery Boy’ into account, I’ve found a strange kinship with games that make boring concepts addictive to play. Death Stranding took that idea and dialled it all the way up to what I call ‘Batshit Insane’. It’s a game that I’m still trying to understand. I’ve had difficulty getting into Death Stranding, although that is because I chicken out of the anomalies that hunt me down. Having to deal with them when trying to make deliveries while carrying a baby in a glass tube isn’t my idea of a fun Saturday night. I prefer cosy nights in, making sure my death colony in Rimworld thrives.

Back to Death Stranding. Despite all my struggles getting into the game, the way it turns travel into a deep game mechanic is fascinating. Managing weight loads for balance and navigating mountainous terrain should not be as engrossing as it is, but I’ve been surprised before. When I just need something simple to relax, I do ‘dull’ things in games. Euro Truck Simulator 2 is a great example: driving across the world while listening to podcasts or random stuff on YouTube is a great way to unwind. It’s not the only one for the ‘truck sim’ vibes I love. I’ve played X4 Foundations a great deal over the past year, largely roleplaying as a wealthy explorer. I’ve racked up dozens of hours just sitting in my spaceship while my pilot ferries me across the galaxy like an unpaid taxi driver. I’m weird. I find things like that fun.

That was a long introduction, huh? Little Odyssey is a strange little game that scratches the ‘mundane but engrossing’ itch. And that’s the reason why I rambled about glorified delivery boy games earlier! The work of single developer Simon Fita, Little Odyssey launched on Steam last week. I hope it gets some attention because this is a meditative zen game if there was one. You also get to ride a giant pet turtle. And you can pet him. That wins awards on its own.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2434590/Little_Odyssey

The core of Little Odyssey is incredibly simple. Set in a small desert world, the player is tasked with exploring this strange landscape with their turtle companion. Besides that, this is the primary goal of the game. The graphics are cute and while they aren’t particularly amazing, the ambience of the world is fantastic. I really felt like I was part of the Tongs Delta. The graphics combine 2D character models with 3D environments, and it works better than you might think. Combined with the sounds of the world, playing Little Odyssey is rather absorbing!

As for game mechanics, it’s a little deeper than one might expect. The main gameplay revolves around small delivery jobs and upgrading the adorable Turtle mount, but you have some things to consider. Cargo space is limited, so you need to be careful what contracts to take when travelling from village to village. As the Tongs Delta is a desert world, water is scarce and valuable. The cute little Turtle needs his water sips as much as you do, so Little Oddysey does provide some additional challenges to consider. Despite these extra roadblocks, the game has no time constraints. The game plays to the pace of the player, which is just as well. Turtles aren’t well known for being racing cars! Simon has balanced the relaxing heart of his game with just enough mechanics to make the journey exciting. While the game is simple in design, it is surprisingly engaging.

Interaction with the turtle and other villages across the world continues. They’re all basic with a few lines of dialogue, but it is worth talking to them. Sure, some NPCs tell jokes my dad would be proud of, but they always bring a smile to my face. Riding the turtle around the world while listening to the howl of desert winds is immersive and satisfying. Little Odyssey has nailed these little moments. Of course, I keep him happy with little pets. He deserves them.

It is a little more intensive technically than I expected. While it’s perfectly playable on modest hardware, I found my old laptop struggling a little, especially heat-wise. That’s more down to my ancient machine’s internals than anything in Little Odyssey, but it is something to think about. There aren’t any real ways to tweak graphical options, and there’s no way to go into settings from the main menu as of yet. I would like the developer to add these in, as it is a basic QOL feature.

In terms of stability, I haven’t come across any bugs right now, but I did run into some weird crashes when testing it on my Steam Deck LCD. While playable, it ended up crashing a couple of times. One time it forced the Steam Deck to completely reboot, losing all the progress I had. One of the reviews on Steam recommended switching to Proton 9.0-1. After some last-minute tests, I can confirm that Little Odyssey works as intended while using the specific Proton version. While it lacks controller support, it plays great with the Keyboard and Mouse control settings in Steam OS, and there are already several community profiles to try out.

I need to play more Little Odyssey, but as early impressions go, I’m enjoying myself. It’s deeply relaxing to play, and the pet turtle is adorable. Games are improved with cute animals. While the gameplay is simple, that’s the whole point of the game. There’s just enough management to keep me engaged while I explore the world and deliver packages to people across the Tongs Delta. It needs more quality of life features in the settings, and perhaps a few more ways to interact with the world, but this is a solid little game.

Bite Sized Reviews: Time to Morp

It’s Morping Time!

And that wins the award for the least original phrase related to this game in the universe. Great job.

What a busy couple of weeks. Between some massive Early Access releases and LucaNarraCon, I’ve digested games like I happily digest cheesecake. Manor Lords, No Rest For the Wicked and Hades 2 are just a few games I’ve been playing over the past few weeks, and that review list continues to grow. Before I move on to today’s episode, a couple of things.

Thankyou to everyone who reads these. I’ve received some great feedback and lovely messages from people who like what I do, which I appreciate more than ever. 2024 continues to be challenging on every level, and it’s been difficult to make the content I love with my ongoing health issues. I try to be as transparent as possible, but there are days when I just have to put health before content. I’ve got a ton of projects I want to publish for you all, nearly all of which involve exciting video games and the like. One of them is a complete deconstruction of Cyberpunk 2077, now it is effectively finished on a development level. The longest article I’ve ever written was my review series covering Cyberpunk in 2021, and I’m looking forward to returning to it!

Time to Morp is a cute little game. Colony sims are one of my favourite genres to play. Even with my expanding tastes to try a whole range of genres, the colony sim is one genre I will always return to. When I grow tired of playing roguelikes, I sit down with some Rimworld war crimes. I picked up the Anomaly expansion last week and finally decided on the mods for my next playthrough. With over 600 hours in Rimworld, I’m likely to get addicted to it once again. It is just one of those games!

Where were we? Ah, yes. Colony Sims! Time to Morp launched in Early Access a couple of months ago and has been fairly well received so far. When the publisher Yogcast Games reached out to me to see if I was interested in covering it, I leapt at the opportunity. Since its release back in March, the developers at Team Halfbeard frequently updated the game, patching bugs, making balance tweaks and adding more content. They get top marks from me on communication. If this was a scoring contest, the name ‘Team Halfbeard’ alone wins my ‘Coolest Dev Name’ award. Alas, there are no competitions for that. Perhaps I should start one. Here’s the Steam link where you can buy it:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/977510/Time_to_Morp

Time to Morp focuses on the cosier side of colony building. Rather than deciding between feeding kids sawdust and using them as cheap labour, this game is more mellow. Set in a colourful sci-fi world, it reminds me a little of Slime Rancher and other creature collections like it. Starting small, your task as the token grunt is to explore the planet and learn everything you can about it. As the captain of the research ship barked out orders, I quickly got used to the game’s mechanics.

With its colourful palette and easy controls, Time to Morp is easy to fall in love with from a visual point. Being able to explore the world in the third person rather than as an omniscient god hand has its advantages. There’s even a photo mode if you’re like me and enjoy taking constant screenshots during gameplay. An expansive encyclopedia and scanning feature make it easy to find important locations and resources while keeping players up to date with every tutorial and detail. I like knowing things. The tutorial blends with the standard game fairly well through constant task lists and quests from the crew members. These quests are often very simple, but that is the point of the game. Character dialogue follows the same mould, with Sims-like speech as voice acting. This is fine, and it honestly adds to the charm.

I would like it if the Captain did more around the house. He enjoys standing by with his thumb up his arse while giving me orders! Sadly there’s no way to feed him to my growing army of critters, so I’ll stick to insulting him in this review. The core of Time to Morp is Morps, which are fairly cute, cuddly critters in many different colours and forms. They roam the planet and it’s up to you to look after them. Slime Rancher is the best game to compare this to, although Time to Morp takes a more sandbox approach. By building zones for Morps and resources, they make an excellent automation machine, and the research tree expands upon that. Huh. Perhaps there is a little slave labour in this game. Oh, well.

While this is an initial impressions review, I prefer this format when exploring Early Access releases. With development so fluid, anything is liable to change, and Team Halfbeard have many plans for their game. Full controller support is on the way, and while it is playable with a controller already, I’m looking forward to that. By and large, I found it enjoyable on the Steam Deck but most of my time has been on my aging laptop.

This won’t win any prizes for deep character development or anything too complex, as it is built from the ground up for a relaxing experience. Everything about Time to Morp sells that. While I find the zone management systems a little clunky (The requirements for a viable zone can be annoying to fulfil while building the zones around annoying trees, for example), I’m surprised how well Time to Morp grabs me. For those who want a relaxing, relatively stress-free colony sim, Time to Morp has plenty to offer in its current state.

Hey all, Brad here.

Way back in 2008, the original GameCritics.com Podcast was an audio project started by some of the earliest members of GC.

Hosted by the incomparable Tim Spaeth, the first episode starred owner and founder Chi Kong Lui, the “Horror Geek” Mike Bracken, and yours truly. Together we launched into the world of podcasting and turned out a good number of shows over the years. It eventually ended for various reasons and So Videogames took its place, but every so often I’ll get a request from a past listener asking where they can catch the original GC pod again.

Not the easiest question to answer!

Several years ago GameCritics changed hosting services, and at the time there was no easy way to bring all of the content over. It got done in a rough sort of way, but there was a ton of manual cleanup to do on the files and many of the pieces we thought were successfully transferred ended up corrupted and unusable.

One of the casualties was the GC pod.

None of the pages listing the shows were functional, but all was not lost — almost all of the files were still there, so I went through and saved as many as I could, and then they sat on a hard drive in my desk for quite some time.

I had always intended to go back and restore functionality to all of the shows, but it was a herculean task to take on by myself in addition to maintaining the day-to-day running of GC and all of the real-life stuff I have going on… Little things like earning a living and being a parent to my child.

But, today’s the day. After getting another request for access to the show, I think the time may be right to finally get it done.

The plan is to post at least a couple every week — no frills, but they’ll be able to be heard again, and all of the fans who want to go back and revisit those golden days will finally be able to do so.

You’ll find them in one central location here at GC, but one potential thing to be aware of is that the audio files themselves will be hosted in the same places where SVG is held. I don’t want to pay for or manage a second channel and this needs to be as easy as possible, so folks who subscribe to SVG via podcast apps and such will see the old GC episodes popping up as well.

I apologize in advance for any inconvenience, but I think it’s a small price to pay to make these shows available to all of the folks who’ve been asking over the years. If you’re not keen on hearing the old stuff, just delete it and a new SVG will be at the top of your list before you know it.

…Or hey, maybe give them a listen and see what we were up to all those years ago! ; )

In this anniversary episode – the big 4-0-0! – Brad covers the usual smattering of new games, but closes the show with a series of questions from the listeners spanning everything from games to parenting to music… and more!

Games covered in episode 400:

Dungeons of Hinterberg
Mists of Noyah
Aero the Acro-Bat
The Lullaby of Life
Punch Club 2: Fast Forward

…And more!

You can also hear the show on iTunes and Spotify!

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

In this episode, Brad covers:

Grizzly Man
Dungeons of Hinterberg
Bomber Crew: USAF
Deathbound (demo)
Arranger
TimeMelters
Mudrunner: Expeditions
Flintlock

…And more!

You can also hear the show on iTunes and Spotify!

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!