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GrissalliaDecember 16, 2023 - Day 350 - NewPlay Review Total NewPlays: 370Game: Land Above Sea BelowPlatform: Steam Release Date: Sep 14, 2023 Installation Date: Nov 11, 2023 Unplayed: 35d (1m5d) Playtime: 30mLand Above Sea Below (LASB) is a hex-tile isometric strategy game. It answers the question "What if you added pressure to Dorfromantik (2022)?"I haven't reviewed Dorfromantik (DR) this year because this was mainly games that had sat in my pile of shame, not a game that I bought the day it was released. It's a very chill little hex-tile strategy city-builder.LASB was released almost 18 months after DR, and the influence is obvious, right down to the identical gameplay controls.However, where LASB veers away from DR is in going upwards. In DR, you have several different types of items that can appear on a tile; houses, forests, fields, grasslands, rivers, and railways.Each hex tile in your pile can have any combination of these items on any edge. Match an edge, score points, match more edges, score more points.In LASB, while it has rivers, the cards instead have themes. And instead of just spreading out into nothingness like DR, in LASB, you're building islands surrounded by water, which is part of the "pressure" that LASB adds.LASB has game rounds called "seasons". Each season lasts seven "days", with icons at the top of the screen showing you what the tiles you're going to get are.At the end of the season, the water level rises. Your island is centred around "the fall tree" and if the fall tree gets flooded, it's game over.However, when you're placing your tiles, if you connect them on three sides to three other tiles with the same theme, all of the tiles connected (of the same theme) are raised higher, with many potentially above the water level rise.If you connect a tile on four or more sides, you get extra days (and extra tiles) in that season.River tiles behave differently; they neither get flooded, or raised.It becomes a balancing act of trying to decide whether you can lift enough tiles, above the water level rise, or if you want to try and extend the season; being that there's no guarantee that the tiles you'll get for the extra day(s) will match the theme - which may result in more land being flooded.It's an interesting alternative to DR, but it doesn't have quite the same chilled-out feeling.With that said, LASB feels slightly rougher around the edges. Dorfromantik feels polished, cleanly adapting to my ultrawide monitor, where I had to fiddle with LASB's settings just to get it to run letterboxed at 2560x1440.LASB also adds a slight blur at the edge of the screen which I find more annoying than "cute tilt-shift".Although clearly derivative, Land Above Sea Below presents an interesting twist on Dorfromantik's gameplay, which is quite:4: Good<a href="https://aus.social/tags/LandAboveSeaBelow" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#LandAboveSeaBelow</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/HexTile" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HexTile</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Isometric" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Isometric</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Strategy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Strategy</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Puzzle" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Puzzle</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/CityBuilder" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CityBuilder</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Gaming" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Gaming</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Project365ONG" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Project365ONG</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Project365" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Project365</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/NewPlay" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#NewPlay</a>

GrissalliaJuly 31, 2023 - Day 212 - NewPlay Review Total NewPlays: 231Game: Möbius Front '83Platform: Steam Release Date: Nov 6, 2020 Library Date: July 31, 2022 Unplayed: 0d Playtime: 30mAs I mentioned in my Opus Magnum review, I own most of the Zachtronics games. I went through the list, and there were four I don't own, and I recognised Möbius Front '83 as a key I had in my spreadsheet, so I installed it.I read an interview with Zach Barth (not to be confused with Zach Braff) about ending Scrubs.Oops... I mean ending Zachtronics. In it he mentioned that Zachtronics was known for a particular kind of game (correct), and that if he were to go back to development again, he'd want to explore a different genre of game.Ah, there's the rub. I wish him all the best in his future endeavours, but everything about Opus Magnum that endeared the game to me is missing from Möbius Front '83.It took me half an hour to complete the tutorial. I probably could have completed it faster had I not been exhausted, but it just felt like a grind.Möbius Front '83 is a hextile turn-based strategy wargame. You've got infantry squads that can move only move one tile at a time, or shoot, but can move through forests and hide in them to ambush others, and can also load into a troop carrier to go further. In addition, when hiding, they can only be shot at by units in the next tile. Also, they have rocket launchers as well as rifles.The troop carriers can go further, but appear to carry the a single rifle's worth of damage, and you lose a turn when it deploys the troops.Tanks have guns and missiles (?), can move multiple tiles in a single turn, and then shoot in the same turn.That about seems to kind of be it. I was just bored by the end of the tutorial.After finishing a NewPlay, but before writing a review, I'll read one or two other reviews about the game. Not to crib from them, but to see if there's something I missed, some aspect to the game that I would have seen if I'd played longer.It's disappointing how often a game turns out to be more of the same.As such, with Möbius Front '83, it's interesting to note that apparently the game introduces some more interesting sci-fi stuff later in the game; the title isn't just something that sounds vaguely cool, but is actually relevant.Unfortunately, it turns out that my initial feelings aren't that far off the mark. There is quite a bit of a grinding involved to get to that point.Grinding in service of a storyline isn't a bad thing, per se. I played WoW for a very long time, and that's just par for the course. The key is to hook the player with the storyline first. Not just force them to grind.In any case, Möbius Front '83 was a bit of a disappointment as a Zachtronics game. As a turn-based strategy game, it's just:2: Meh<a href="https://aus.social/tags/M%C3%B6biusFront83" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#MöbiusFront83</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/TurnBased" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TurnBased</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/HexTile" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HexTile</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Strategy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Strategy</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/MastodonGaming" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#MastodonGaming</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Gaming" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Gaming</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Project365ONG" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Project365ONG</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Project365" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Project365</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/NewPlay" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#NewPlay</a>

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