Recent reviews by The Grand Strategy Nerd

WOW. 10/10

Vampire Survivoresque with tons of replayability. I just want to beat the first dreadnought, but first, some beers.

I'm just trying my best to strike the earth, for Urist's sake! Stop sending mobs to my fortress for FUN!

The epitome of a chill game that has infinite replay ability. 10/10 would crush cute slimes again

Fantastic building game that is already looking good just for being in Alpha. Must buy if you like this genre.

Innovative, challenging, frustrating, fun. These four words encompass each run that you undertake when seeking to Slay the Spire. Mega Crit has given us a real treasure with this game. The game is brutally balanced. I'm not saying there is only ONE WAY to construct your hand, but your hand needs to be constructed with one way in mind. Try to construct a hand with every possible card leads to poor draws and inevitable death.

I need more time in the day to play this game.
10/10

I just want to feel like I'm actually making a difference. This game is hard. Like, hard, hard. Really hard.

10/10 Would lose to spiders again.

Vanilla version is fantastic. Challenging at times but for the most part it is a great game to sit and chill and then look at your clock and realize you spent the whole night building your wonderful town.

For added fun, download one or several of the large mods for this game. The modding community is amazing and has produced mods that accentuate and build upon the base game.

https://youtu.be/rSl_lNXfdw4

Rolling in the Reef is another solid installment by BrainGoodGames and continues the developers niche of casual, dice-based, light strategy games. The game is easy to understand and offers a bit of replayability. However, the game feels a tad rushed due to a lack of overall narrative.

BGG has proven to have compelling and fun games with engaging storylines underlying the core gameplay. Their last game, Solar Settlers, is a prime example of good story telling in a casual game. However, Rolling in the Reef lacks a story to keep me engaged to play more. The procedurally generated levels offer endless replayability but, as I said, I lack a REASON to play the game after more than a level or two.

You are tasked with, I believe, building and maintaining a coral reef by using different schools of fish. You can discover artifacts along the way and must protect the reef from predators. That's as deep as the story gets.

Despite this drawback, Rolling in the Reef is a great game to waste time or for elementary-age kids who want to work on pattern recognition and basic counting. That's a big plus for a gamer parent like myself. I'm excited to see how my kids take to the easy-to-understand mechanics.

Pros:
Gameplay is easy to learn
Overall UI design is solid
Kid-friendly game

Cons:
Lack of storytelling

For a bit more of an in-depth look, please watch my Initial Review video on YouTube.

Solar Settlers is a refreshing new direction from BrainGoodGames earlier games like Militia and Minos Strategos. They retain the same "cards on a grid" play structure but, with the addition of settlers and resource management, strike the balance between casual fun and strategic gameplay. Solar Settlers is all about bringing your crew of colonists to a new system in space and making the system viable for human habitation within 12 turns or less. There is no timer except the impending 12th Round.

Solar Settlers has a terrific and encompassing tutorial which does what all tutorials should do: give you the basics of gameplay without overwhelming you or boring you to death. Each turn is made up of movement on the grid, limited by the amount of fuel you expend moving between spaces on the grid, using abilities stated on the cards in play, and settling colonists. You have to manage oxygen usage every turn as well. If you have more colonists on the grid than oxygen reserves, the extra will suffocate. Not very helpful when you are trying to colonize space.

This game is casual fun. While I found that BrainGoodGames previous installments lacked anything to keep me playing long-term, the variations within each system and the unpredictability of the game mean that this has very high replayability.

Pick up Solar Settlers, you won't be disappointed. Just make sure you have enough oxygen to continue your gameplay sessions.

Pros:
Easy to Learn
Educational
Great, minimalist UI
High Replayability

Cons:
-NONE!

https://youtu.be/PXdykAmmOJM

Pirates sunk my ship two months in. Barely had enough money to buy a slower, damaged ship. Two months later I am now richer and have two ships.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oDOU4bBhz8&t=25s