This year’s summer sale on Steam was not bad, actually. It just turned out that for me, there wasn’t anything I wanted despite my long wishlist! But I have the bad habit of adding games to follow them, watch their progress etc. So it’s really more a watchlist. I know that the Summer Sale has been over for quite a bit already, but I first wanted to play the games I bought more before writing about them here.
I had bought City of Gangsters from Fanatical before the Steam sale had started, but I had gotten it for a bigger discount than Steam had offered, thankfully. Some of its DLC was still cheaper on Fanatical, some was cheaper on Steam during their sale, so I bought these off both of the platforms depending on where I could save the most.
But even though I had not had anything that I had wanted to buy during the Steam sale, I still got out of it with two new games. Both were very cheap (and they are very cheap even when not on sale), so it was too hard to resist! And both have been a lot of fun so far to play: Tile Cities and Stacklands.
I had not been too sure about Stacklands, but after I saw Krikket recommend the game on Twitter and knowing that we’ve had a similar taste with other games before, I decided to buy it. I got Tile Cities as somebody in the reviews had compared its simplicity to Mini Motorways. I agree, but would also add Islanders to the list of similar games. Both Islanders and Tile Cities are more like puzzle games, but all these games have in common that they are relaxing entertainment for me. None of them require fast decision-making. Tile Cities has the simple graphics that Mini Motorways has, though. Altogether, I have only played Tile Cities for about 9 hours, but it’s exactly the kind of game that I start up when I have a bit of time to play something but am rather tired already. Or that I can play while watching a film or a series that requires more of my attention.
Stacklands calls itself a village builder – and that part is certainly true! It does so via cards, though. I guess that puts it in the same category as Tile Cities and Mini Motorways: It achieves good and compelling gameplay without having any great visual representation. The screen can get cluttered with cards really fast, though. There is a way to sort them but it doesn’t always work too well. So, I don’t start up Stacklands when I’m in the mood to build something. It is still a fun little game and I am glad I bought it!
So, as you can probably imagine: Both get a recommendation from me!
City of Gangsters is different. I liked it a lot more in the beginning. I am still in the tutorial game and feel stuck now as I can’t seem to find the weapons that I need to bring somebody in order for them to give me what I want. Ironically, I can’t use my weapon on them to get what I want… It could be time to start over with a new game and a character I create on my own – as opposed to the tutorial one – but I don’t want to miss any important information about the game! Overall, I think I still need to learn the ropes here, so I think that it would probably be a lot more fun with my own character (a German, of course, with her own brand of beer!).
Nerdy Bookahs 