Recent reviews by not.rich.man

I have fond memories of playing Grand Prix Manager back in the 90's and this game does a pretty good job of hitting that spot.

On the plus side:
1. I have played several seasons (a mix of instant and watched races) and have not run into any bugs.
2. Everything is negotiable in the game (staff, drivers, engines) and its possible to extend to multiple seasons.

On the negative side:
1. There will be occasional messages that popup, but it would be nice to see those listed in a log
2. It would have been nice to have team drivers stats listed side by side to make comparison easier
3. A bit more graphics for drivers, cars and sponsors would be nice (fell a bit flat when compared to Grand Prix Manager graphics)

the engines stats seem to wildly vary from year to year. It would be nice if you could set the range of randomness (or have different tiers of engines that had different rates of change).

Overall its a fun game. I am curious to see how OWM 2 will turn out.

If you are looking for a more complicated game with more graphics, I would recommend Motorsport Manager when its offered on sale.

Will be trying one of the mods soon, I am curious how much will be changeable.

the best civ game since civ2

I viewed a playthrough video a long time ago, so I was not expecting a modern game. But at this point I can't recommend as there appears to be no way to start where you last stopped playing the game. I was also shocked to find the spelling errors in dialog in just the first few minutes of the game

Finally picked this up at the end of 2019 sale... killed a few hours playing through the main scenario and enjoyed it. Will play again.

The only knock on the game that i have is that there are parts of the game that don't work and say they are beta only. Coming in this late to the game, I would have thought they could get that stuff out of beta.

a quick time killer... literally play for 10 minutes or less and still have fun!

i only have around 4 hours in the game at this point... and i bought it onsale for under $3. very straight forward dog racing game. very simple and pleasant to play so far. as of level 3 and 4 in the game still not alot of management needed since you will be wanting to build your cash to be above your burn rate (this could be a good intro to money management for kids).

One of the greatest games of all time... arrange political alliances with money and useless daughters! Go to war with money and expendable sons!

here are the stats as of this updated review
83.5 hrs last two weeks / 149.8 hrs on record (63.6 hrs at review time)

During my first review I think i spent enough time with the game to give it a fair shot.

never would have thought i would have waited this long to try to play the game again

As a kickstarter supporter i was disappointed with what we got on release (and at the time it didn't look like it was going to be fixed soon).

playing this game again using the game i started on release day - and the game has been pretty good. everything i had hoped for on release.

the only remaining negative i have at this point is that Hand of the Technic League quest location is still on my map despite it not being playable due to a time limit reached (with apparently no notice).

Some people say - that's kingbuilder its meant to be harsh!

I say - poor game design. if you insist on putting in a time limit of this sort in a genre that doesn't normally let quests expire without warning - there should be either one warning that makes it clear this game is different and the failure to complete this quest shouldn't hide multiple companions behind the choice.

IF a designer was going to do this type of thing anyways, there should have been a replacement location that takes over the spot. In other words, the failed quest should not be there making the spot unreachable for the rest of the game.

It was also an opportunity missed - they could have had a separate quest kick off to either show the end result of the companions you lost (or potentially give you access to a set of different companions). Or it could have had the potential companions that you could have had become enemies to end the quest line and open the location (with a modified post quest map).

after a couple of weekends back in the game - going to continue on and give it a shot



=======================old review - not recommended ===========
(I will check back and update the review in 3 months or so... had a lot of hopes for this game - but the devs clearly were not ready for primetime)
This is my 200th game on steam... but did not purchase it on stream - i fell for the kickstarter - much to my regret.

I am guessing this game will be on sale far below the kickstarter price i spent on the game in the coming months.

At this time I would not recommend the game for the following reasons:
1 - bugs - literally too many to mention
2 - unbalanced - the devs apparently have never played a pnp game before and do not know how to balance encounters
3 - missing text - games will often give you hints in the text on how the game is working - the devs are in the process of adding text after feedback from players that we could not read their minds.
4 - loading screens - it is clear the devs did not play their own game. if they had beta testers, they must not have listened to them. the amount of time you will spend looking at load screens is excessive. There are also no short cuts out of the main rest areas... you will have 2 or 4 loading screens to deal with to walk out of your rest area; each move in and out of the different maps you need to deal with to control the game is crazy. ANY DEV that played this game in the state it was released through several chapters and did not say, "OMG we can't release this yet" - should consider a new career. Why is there no quick escape from resting areas?
5 - councilors - I have not had my homebrew characters offered a councilor spot, which seems strange. I also have not recieved a monetary counciler, despite the game telling me there are 3 or more candidates for each counciler position and having several money quests fail due to having no councilor.

Recommendations for the game:
The basic story has been pleasant and fun to follow
Kingdom building - I have been enjoying it so far except that my advisor with 7 or 8 has not solved the troll problem because he fails everytime it is assigned to him (and there is no other option for councilors despite being told we would have multiple options)
The devs are actively working on patches (though i wish they would learn how to release beta patches instead of an endless amount of hotfixes)

Wait until this is on sale to purchase it

Wait until they have slowed down on the hotpatches and have come to a relatively stable release with the occasional normal patch.

Play other games with less loading screens!

I don't recall playing an "idle" game before... this one gives you some things to do. Set it up, walk away and level up the toons... walk away and level up the toons again.

played for a couple of hours and was able to get everyone except Boo.