Wastelander

Neat little game that straddles the border between puzzle and strategy, offering a bit of both. Fits well with the sort of player who enjoys adapting or strategising on the fly. Pros: - Interesting choices - Varied strategies - Informative UI Cons: - Sometimes clear you're going to fail/lose long before the game actually ends - Lacks audio-visual polish Hopefully the game has some of the rough edges smoothed off during early access, and the devs continue to build on what is a solid gameplay foundation.

Wastelander is a fun little strategic colony/city/factory builder with roguelike and puzzle elements. I first heard about this game when the devs reached out to me and asked if I was interested in helping them beta test it and stream it. They are a small 2-man team making their debut into creating steam games. They've been extremely responsive and willing to hear feedback, and it's clear that they have a lot of love for their project. They are active on discord and communicative with their community. As someone with a combined few thousand hours in games like Rimworld, Factorio, Kenshi, Cities Skylines, Against the Storm, and other titles in these genres; this game was right up my alley. I played it for a few hours, and there was definitely a steep learning curve; however, after mentioning this to the devs, they implemented a number of new difficulty levels. The tutorial is quite easy and explains the basic mechanics of the game, but there is still definitely a difficulty jump when you are let loose to tackle the game on your own. After a few rounds, everything really started to click as I got more familiar with the various mechanics, buildings, and passives. As for gameplay itself, it's very slow paced because there is no element of time pressure at all. Although it's turn-based, you are only playing against yourself, so you can take as much time in between turns as you need. The challenge comes in resource production and allocation, as well as rebuilding and reconnecting your base after a "storm." There are no enemies in the form of NPC's, aliens, rival factions, or anything like that; your biggest enemy is the "storm," which will destroy the buildings on a few tiles at random every X amount of turns. The storm ramps up as the game goes on, destroying more and more buildings, which adds a layer of difficulty that gradually increases as you take more and more turns. In order to complete a round successfully, you have to be efficient with your placements and building choice. Resources come in a variety of forms, such as: metal, energy, and water/ice. The resource management aspect of the game is relatively simplistic and easy to wrap your head around, but adds a vital layer of difficulty and strategy to the game. You won't be moving resources down conveyor belts or sending them off in trains; as long as you have a resource production building connected to your network, it will generate income each turn. Although I received this game for free, I would have definitely spent the reasonable price tag attached to the game to buy it; it's well worth it, and I would definitely recommend this game for anyone who likes strategic games, colony builders, puzzle games, or roguelikes.

Tutorial Mode: Cake Walk Easy Difficulty: No problem Medium Difficulty: Easy Money Hard Difficulty: Took me about 3 hours of game-play to finally beat the Hard difficulty. I'm not sure I can handle an even higher difficulty. :) The game has a steep learning curve of balancing your resource production, storage and storm management. Those mountains are also super difficult to traverse, so do you take dynamite to blow them up; or a new blueprint; or deployment...? Decision, decisions and once you hit Hard Difficulty most of the decisions you make are wrong. Lolz! Fun, quick games where you can pop in and test your wit which is always nice to have in the Steam library. <3

Fun little game! Similar to Dorfromantik in my eyes. So if you're into those types of puzzle games, I think you'll enjoy this one.

Survive on a hostile planet and plan your escape by strategically building critical infrastructure, before the storms overwhelm you. Great concept held by back by multiple major bugs.

The best part of this game is that there's lots of replay value. There's a randomly generated daily mission with a leaderboard, and even discussions in the discord server. I've played hundreds of hours (most of it was logged in earlier playtests) and it's still fun to play the daily mission and try to find efficient combos. I highly recommend checking out this game if you enjoy problem solving and strategy.

I wanted to play at least 10 hours before writing a review for this game. I mostly play RPG games and this is my first experience with this type of colony building strategy game. After 12 hours of playing, I can absolutely recommend this game! The game does warn the player that the learning curve is steep... multiple times! While the learning curve is be steep, i felt like i got the hang of the game rather quickly and it was very satisfying to see things come together. It was extremely rewarding to learn nuances of the game, sometimes through trial and error! As other reviews have stated, there is fantastic replay value here. Each game will offer multiple, varying paths to success. The community/discord has been very helpful in discussing different strategies to fully utilising all the resources at your disposal, mainly the hidden "relic" powers that spawn on each map. The devs are very active on the discord and are very welcome to feedback. I am very much looking forward to what the future looks like for Wastelander. I would absolutely recommend this game! And for the very modest price it is definitely worth the try!

Super fun strategy game! I love the post-apocalyptic theme, and the replayability of it. Every game you start is challenging in a different way, making it very addictive. The first few games can be a bit challenging as you figure out all the different resources and buildings (so many decisions to make!!) and what you need to balance your economy, but you quickly get the hang of it. Big fan of slow-paced turn-based games that let you think through your next play without the added stress of time pressures.

Roguish experience, because strategy depends on what alien artifact rewards you unlock. I do wish there was a way if power consumption goes over the limit, then it would be nice to manually selectively disable certain power consuming buildings (and same for water, etc.). A little more advanced strategy than Farlanders.

The game plays exactly the way I had hoped. Great optimization puzzle and engine-building vibes with good amount of randomness and push-your-luck elements. The tile visuals and looping music tracks are a bit lacking but the game is a great value and I have not encountered any bugs or UI issues.