Recent reviews by DanHumfeld

Looking for one or two evenings of entertaining challenge? Install Frostrain now. You won't regret a single minute of it!

This is far better than I thought it'd be. An idle/incremental game with new pieces opening up at just the right time, what seems like very good balance. I'm looking forward to playing more and more.
Another high quality title from Oni Gaming.

This is a great game for any fan of Merge-5 type games!

[bullet] Take your ordinary Merge-5 and [bullet] Add tools required to harvest goods, and [bullet] make all of the upgrade chains small enough to actually complete (no Level 18 anythings). [bullet] There's a general mechanic of Small -> Medium -> Large -> Harvestable -> multiple Small Goods -> Medium Goods -> Usable Goods. [bullet] The upgrades you need to do to open the next Tier of tool / dungeon aren't onerous.[bullet] The pop-ups to sell you things are rare and easy to close. No "watch 30 seconds to..." anything, as it's not a mobile game.[bullet] There are resource-generators that you get for free. Multiple types.[bullet] It is possible to run out of things to do. Sleep. Take a shower. MergeCrafter will be ready for you when you're ready for it.

A few recommendations:

[bullet] Upgrade all of your resource-generators to level 5, then upgrade one to level 11. It feels like it costs a lot, but your income goes up a lot as you do this.[bullet] Keep track of what you have in your Furnace. Seriously. Write it down. Pop it only when it's useful.[bullet] Identify that which does not matter and sell it all. Space is limited and some things are more replaceable than precious.[bullet] Sometimes put your axes to work on your resource-generators, and sell everything ("c") (or x to trash the leaves) as they drop. It's like free coins as fast as you can sell. You weren't going to have time to think and combine all of those things anyways.[bullet] Do NOT tell your epic seed to make a sand pile until / unless you have a big shovel.[bullet] Do NOT combine desert rocks to make a desert rock that turns into a sand pile until you have a shovel.[bullet] Enjoy MergeCraft!!

This game is short - you'll finish it in 2 days - and you'll be glad you played it! The graphics are professional and lively but not distracting. The game play is easy to understand and you'll develop your own goals as you learn the pieces. I played the Early Access version (free) but would definitely recommend paying money for the game if it doesn't remain free.

Two simple mechanics woven together masterfully; developer Gniller hit it out of the park with this game!

This game is superb! For some people. I'm one of those people. Besides that:
Every aspiring game developer should play this game. The core "level" concept could be dropped into any modern game to make it much, much better.

Here's the concept: you have character skill, a companion (with their own skill level), a tool (with a skill bonus/level), and a location (that may offer a bonus). To calculate your effective skill, rank these from best to worst. The best one contributes 40% of its value to your effective skill, the second-best adds 30%, third 20%, worst 10%. Add those products, add any magical bonuses, and that's your effective skill that determines which things you can do. I might be a novice at woodcutting, but with a skilled companion, the best Woodcutting Ax I can use (my level 15), and a good building, I can cut a mid-level tree and my chances of gaining a skill after each action is very good.

A second, related concept: Fields. The Science Field has three skills: Engineering, Alchemy and Metascience. So I have 4 skills: Science, Engineering, Alchemy and Metascience. My "character skill" for Engineering is the average of my Science skill and my Engineering skill. Any time I use E, A or M, I'm also using S. So by doing lots of Engineering, I can raise my Engineering skill *and* my Science skill. That means my character skill for Alchemy is getting better because I'm better at Science. This opens up multiple paths to raise your effective skill, to be able to do the next action you want to do. Sometimes you have to improve your Woodworking skill to become able to chop or plank the next tree for Woodcutting. It's complicated but makes for great puzzles, for the intellectuals who like that sort of thing.

Another very positive thing about this game, and no one has mentioned it in the reviews I read: the story is unique! Kudos to the game designers and writers.

Another positive: many quests give you 3 options of how to accomplish it, and usually they're local actions. You might have to train a squirrel to climb a tree, or chop the tree down, or throw something to dislodge the item up in the tree, but there are three different skill options at different difficulties. On the down side that means you'll need a lot of the skills (and will never know which you'll need ahead of time). On the up side it means that you won't be stuck for one particular skill. Also, if you have to brew a special potion, you usually brew it there on site, instead of having to trek to an alchemy stove somewhere.

Another positive: exploration. It's fun. You don't have to look everything up online - in order to maximize my enjoyment I refused to look online until I was in Lanfar. Everything was exploring, taking notes, accepting inefficiencies but enjoying the game.

The downside is that combat isn't really interesting, and is very poorly explained.

One mixed feature is that "once you can do it, it's easy to do." It takes a lot of effort to make a place where you can chop Solone, but once you can, it just takes time to get it. So when someone asks for Solone, you can get it easily. Of course if someone is asking you for something, they probably don't have anything that you want, i.e. you can already easily get all the things they can easily get. Sometimes you can "trade labor" - I'll give you this Solone if you'll block 300 lumps of Marl for me - but usually the way the economy works now is just gifts.

Please ignore the "hours on record." I tend to leave the launcher open, which is what it counts. I'm 20 months into the game and it's still getting better. Come try Therian Saga; this is Pig from the Filgar server and I'd be glad to welcome you to the game!

The game is fun and stays fun, because: it has the pacing just right! You run into challenges, but it never takes too long to get past them, and you never have to actively grind as "the only solution" to them. And then... things change again and you can try something new. Very well done!

It's an RTS like Warcraft or Dune was, not a 4x like Civilization. (This was a surprise, but I like it for what it is.)

Pros:
Novel
Best strategy does depend on what other players do
Just the right number of resources and colony types

Cons:
Coporate takeovers are sudden. I look at their money and the value of their resources, not nearly sufficient, and Boom! they take the company over. Even mine.
Debt is a meaningless red number. Maybe it figures into your stock price? Perhaps this shouldn't be listed as a Con, I just don't understand it yet.
Campaign mode has a very different method of acheiving victory, and there is a complete lack of instructions. Even after reading the forums I can't find the buttons to push to do the (new and different) things you need to do to win.