The Wandering Village

First off I would like to thank Stray Fawn studio for the code to review this awesome game lets get started.

The Wandering Village is a city-building simulation game on the back of a giant, wandering creature. Build your settlement and form a symbiotic relationship with the colossus. Will you survive together in this hostile, yet beautiful post-apocalyptic world, contaminated by poisonous plants? This is the synopsis the steam page has for this game but it is so much more.

My first play through I did on easy mainly because I wanted to grasp as much of the game as I could and thankfully the tutorial also helps you learn the basics of the game to get you started but then the game stops holding your hand and releases you like a momma bird pushing you out the nest except this nest is a world ready to ruin you every step of the way. The survival aspect is very well done and if you’re not paying attention and staying ahead of the curve it can and will cost you.

As soon as the game starts you see your people traversing the land in hopes of finding a new home until they come across a majestic marvel of a creature called an Onbu, this wonderful creature is the last of his kind, a dinosaur that travels the land in search of… well honestly I dont know what our friend is searching for but he is one awesome take to add to the city building games. So your people climb aboard him and make him their new home as his flat back is the perfect place to start a village. Now I must say my people survived 105 days before disaster took them all.

The next thing you will notice is the map consist of different biomes from grassy plains to harsh deserts to toxic lands. Those are the only ones I saw in my game I’m sure there’s many more biomes that I didn’t find or are yet to be added but I can’t wait since the biomes make up a huge portion of the challenge to the game. The the deserts harsh sunlight dries up your water and makes it harder for any crops to grow, toxic lands add a poison effect that will hurt Onbu if he lays down on them grassy lands are prefered as they offer the most balance to the village so you can grow crops and gain water to help plant more things.

The village also has a vast variety of jobs to keep it functioning and you would think you could do with out one but the devs have made sure one job helps out another job and so forth. A great example is the decomtaminators. They are special workers whose only job is to cure the ground of any and all toxic plants and keep them from spreading but the workers will fall into a poison state from working which is where the herbalist and doctors come into play as you use the herbs to cure poison so making sure you have herbs is definitely a must. Then you have worker huts which you use to assign the workers to be general workers or to specifically be gatherers, builders, havesters, or carriers so paying attention to each job will help maximize the environment around them.

The map is another place where you will spend some time on as you unlock scavengers to send off to find knowledge or materials to help your people as well as paying attention to the path to see what is ahead to help you prepare as best as you can. The map is also where you will find wandering nomads to add more people to your village but they will also come with their own problems such as hunger or poisoning so be mindful of the people you save they may need more saving than just a new home.

The game has a lot of amazing things going on for it and it’s truly a breath of fresh air to the city building genre but I did find a few things that I felt could use improvment or be added into the game which I’ll discuss below.

The first is adding a trust indicator for the Onbu. You see you’re able to direct the Onbu or give him orders but in order for that to happen you must gain his trust but the game offers no visual indication of trust so that you can tell how well things are going. For me my Onbu didn’t start listening till day 101 which was a bummer as all the biomes around me were harsh so I didn’t have many options direction wise. Thankfully I got him to run through some of the poison clouds to not get too affected.

Another one I would like to see added is maybe an end goal, some sacred place where the Onbu can rest forever and we can live in peace. I didn’t find any clues or paths during my travels just aimless wandering which I’m sure the devs have an endgame goal in site but for now there’s nothing that points that way.

One that I would love to see is maybe different Onbus during the start of every new game, a random Onbu is shown and that’s your new home. I’m sure this could be a possibility but for now Ima say it’s just a wish I have to see added later on.

I would like a mini map in my opinion. It would help so you’re not in the huge map so much. I would also like to see a bigger map option that shows all the paths you have traveled to get a better idea of where you have been.

I would like to know what type of land expansion they plan on adding or if they are gonna ask players what they would like to see added cause I personally would like to see a water biome in the game, seeing the Onbu walking through water would be cool.

The game also uses a research tree that helps you unlock the buildings as well as new orders for the Onbu to hopefully listen to. I i hope they add a lot more buildings considering there’s so much to do and unlock. I can’t wait to see what they add next.

As for endgame I feel this set up offers a massive amount of possibilities so I’m hopeful that the end game will be talked about in the weeks to come.

All in all the wandering village is an amazing city building sim that adds new flavors to the recipe of a basic genre and I for one can’t wait to see what becomes of this game and I highly recommend everyone give it a shot, you just might fall in love like I did. Thank you again to Stray Fawn studios for the review code. Thank you all for stopping by, take care and game on.

InfraSpace

Hey everyone. How’s it going today? I wanna talk to you about a fun little city builder that I first came across on YouTube which made me wanna try it out for myself. That game is called Infraspace.

The Game

So infraspace is a city builder similar to games like city skylines but a bit more freedom as you place the buildings instead of just making zones and letting the game do the rest. You see infraspace adds more to the table as every building in the game inter connects with others in a massive production chain and I wish massive was an exaggeration but it’s not. You need houses to bring in people who will work in each building you make and as your city gets bigger well so do the troubles but that will be a bit later on. This game also has a research tree thats nicely incorporated into the game as well.

Tech Tree

I haven’t played many city builders that have a tech tree that I can remember but I love how the developer incorporated it into the game. The tree and your city work as one, the more your city grows and meets the requirements the more the tree opens up and the more goodies you get to experience for your city. Which honestly I can’t wait to see what else they add into the tree and game.

Resources

Like other games the main income of the game are the random resources laying around the planet ranging from sand to copper to iron and aluminum and there’s plenty of it thankfully its all unlimited. But I would love to see a mode added where the resources run out and it keeps you on your toes that would be cool.

Uniqueness

Now the part that makes this game unique is what many would consider the most trivial. What makes the game hard comes down to your roads, yes you read that right, the roads you see the main aspect of the game is transport. How fast you can get from point A to B and so forth but the roads don’t become an issue until your city has grown by a big amount. I’ve failed already about 4 times but I don’t give up. I keep trying thinking of how to make things work. I admit I’m not the greatest at designing but I do what I can with what I know which isn’t much. So be careful when you’re working on your cities or before you know it you could end up in big trouble and your city at a stand still.

Conclusion

This game is fun and challenging in its own ways. The developers are still working on it and have a massive road map of things they wanna add to the game so if you want a fun city builder please give this game a shot you won’t be disappointed.

Photos from press kit.

Flycorp

Hello everyone how are you doing, tonight I wanna talk to you about a fun little time killer I’ve been playing called flycorp I recently got this during the steam sale after seeing a few YouTube videos on it and I gotta say this game is fun and definitely brings you back for more so let’s dive in.

Unlock all countries

In this game mode which I consider it the story mode of some sorts your only goal is to unlock a new country to progress but it’s not that simple cause if it was I wouldn’t be writing about it. So you start off in Europe yes I’ve played multiple instances and it’s always Europe but anyways you start with 4 cities and a small amount of money you connect them all and let the game start working, now it’s not that simple you see each new route cost money upgrading both planes and airports cost money which you must do in order to keep the flow of people under control but the biggest part of this is the timer your fighting against at the top right corner you see if that hits 0 and you haven’t unlocked the specified country it’s game over basically and you either restart or reload, but that’s not all back to the money see you earn money for every completed flight and can use it for upgrades but that’s also how you unlock new countries but that’s not all to give a challenge to the game with each new unlock the money needed goes up which isn’t a problem later on as the timer extends but during the first few minutes its all about making each move count. The dev team really took there time with this mode and you can tell there’s a lot of action going on at once but it doesn’t become overwhelming until the map is covered a good amount the unlocks is only one worry as time goes on new cities pop up on areas you have unlocked then more management comes into place for better routes and trying to make things more efficient, all in all this is a very fun and enjoyable mode and I can’t wait to see what the devs have in store for it one thing I would love to see is maybe a random start location with each new playthrough so that it doesn’t get boring trying to conquer the same area until you get it right but that’s just my opinion.

Scenarios

This mode is like a chapter select mode with different maps and events taking place but you unlock them as you pass each given scene which doesn’t seem so bad but you are playing against a timer and with each start being slow it might be a bit of hard work at first but then it gets faster as you move on it offers 9 episodes across 3 difficulties but only the first of each is unlocked so this mode I feel is to give players some fun short missions and maybe a break from the main goal of the game which is unlock the world. I definitely hope more scenarios are added in the future to keep this section going if not it might die off quickly.

Free Play

Just how it sounds free play is what I consider the training grounds after the tutorial for you to just go in and play at your pace without any timers or any game overs it’s a fun spot just going at your own pace and seeing how good you can get before going on to challenge the other parts of the game and I’m glad it’s included cause this is definitely a more relaxed mode incase you just wanna blow steam and not stress over the micro management you must do.

Custom Scenarios

So this one it didn’t give me access to cause it’s still locked by the devs but I imagine it will be for players to make there own chapters and then upload them for others to complete which if it is will be awesome as the only game out that I know of that does something similar is Mario maker if you know of others let me know please. I’m sorry I don’t have more info on this section but only time will tell what the developer has in store for this section and I for one can’t wait to find out.

Final Thoughts

All in all this is a great game and a fun time killer and also not expensive coming in at 7.99 on steam your not breaking the bank by buying it I’ve had a great time playing it the few hours I’ve played and plan on playing more hours as the game adds more content and well I really wanna beat my score for unlock the world I hope you give this game a chance it’s not demanding so doesn’t need a high end pc to play but it’s definitely a fun indie game to try out thank you all for coming by have a great night and game on