I've been game-hopping like crazy recently. There's been a spate of good discounts on games I've been keeping an eye on for a while, plus a release or two I've been keen to pick up, as well as an old favourite or two I keep returning to.
So, in no particular order:
Megaquarium
I picked this up chiefly as a game I could play with my 7yo, and she's been hugely enjoying our playthrough. In fact, I've been enjoying it a lot as well and for those of you who like management sim type games it's definitely one I would recommend.
It's an odd mix of simple and surprisingly complex. On the finance side there's virtually zero challenge - while money is never abundant because I tend to spend whatever surplus I have on new stuff, I think you would have to really work at it to go broke... if in fact that's even possible. I very briefly saw a minus sign in front of my balance yesterday, chiefly because I went on a massive staff recruitment drive because I can't be bothered to set work zones for people. You want to have a good number of food and beverage machines, and a functioning gift shop, but that's about as far as it goes.
But then, on the creatures side, the simulation is more complex and, although I'm no marine biologist by any stretch, I think much effort has been made to make it realistic. Every fish, big and small has a variety of characteristics - size, diet, water temp, how much tank decoration/flora/shelter they need, whether they need to live with a particular number of the same species, or if they shun other types of fish, if they're a danger to particular types of creature and more besides. This means you have to put in a decent amount of planning for every tank in order to make full use of the capacity, but avoiding little fishy deaths (which negatively affect your reputation, and rep is linked to unlocking higher levels that bring new stuff and animals).
It means that your attention is on designing and building habitats for your livestock rather than financial spreadsheets, and that's fine by me. The graphics are quite cartoony but the fish are adorable. I'm on the last mission of a 10-mission campaign now and working towards unlocking a whale shark for the first time, which daughter is very excited by. I'll probably build one in sandbox mode after as well. It's a nice relaxing experience at the end of a working day.
Dying Light
Have eyed this up for a while after putting it off mainly for reasons of a) price and b) I'm a chicken when it comes to horror games. I've put a few hours in and it seems ok, I was shitting myself a bit when I dithered on one of the early missions that had me scooting back to a safe zone in pitch-blackness, which was interesting. I think it's a pretty long game so not sure if I'll ever complete it (see point b), but may keep putting in the odd hour here and there and eking my way through.
Rebel Galaxy
Only played a couple of hours of this so far. I think I'm still essentially in the tutorial (I've been directed from that first space station towards a nearby planet to find someone else), but I got distracted by a profitable trade run between three planets in quite close proximity... I turned my starting 1k into about 100k and was finding it hard to break away from that cycle
. Is that a lot? I have no idea. It feels like a lot, but I doubt it is really. It seems ok as well... I will say I haven't really gelled yet with the combat, but maybe that grows on you a bit more after a while. I prefer nimbler fighter-style space combat, whereas this is more about turning slow circles to try and fire broadsides at other ships. I will play more though.
Life is Strange: Before the Storm
I loved the first LiS, which I played for the first time a couple of months back. But I'm finding it a bit harder to get into this one... I think it's because although Chloe was my bff in the first game, she's a lot less sympathetic, at least initially, to actually play as. It's a shame also that for obvious reasons she doesn't have a cool superpower like Max had. I will keep playing though.
Battle Brothers
250 hours played and counting. I love this game, keep returning to it over and over just to roam around and take on contracts while building a close-knit team of mercs. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys tactical-style games.
Tower of Time
This was very highly rated on Steam and sounded interesting, and when it hit £11 on Gog recently decided to finally give it a go. It's... ok? So far, anyway, which again is only a few hours in. I think my main problem is the combat. It's sold as tactical battle arenas, the idea being that when you stumble into an enemy or group of enemies you're transported into a separate instance for the ensuing battle. It sounded like a neat idea, but the ones I've fought so far just see waves of enemies beam in from a portal on the right side of the screen, the abilities so far are not interesting and you just click on things until they fall over, at which point another wave beams in until you're done. Maybe it becomes more complex and interesting the further in you get, will find out.
Diablo 3
I'd never played this before, and after it leapt back into my consciousness after the whole BlizzCon furore I looked it up and see I could get the base game for under a tenner. Have only really just started and it seems all right so far. I'm not a big fan of the move and attack with the left mouse button, though, I might check the settings to see if I can move with WASD instead.