[b] Welcome to Goodland was featured on my YouTube channel[/b]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2977738419
//intro//
Welcome back comrades, this is MF Kraven & you are watching less than 10 mins reviews. The Youtube series where I take a look at games i think seem cool & give my thoughts on them in less than 10 mins.
Today I take a look at Welcome to Goodland! Welcome to Goodland is a narrative driven choose your own adventure strategy business sim. You take the role of Eddie Taylor a seemingly good guy running a charity that gets caught in the crosshairs of a Cartel, learn to launder money with all the local business by keeping a balance of happiness and intimidation all while fighting to survive if not enough money is laundered all while local gangs and the police try to sabotage your efforts... But is the business aspect of societies underbelly worth a play? Lets find out.
//Graphics, Sound & Artstyle//
In my opinion Welcome to Goodland has a sort of This is the Police aesthetic that ive missed. Combining a type of graphic novel with the aspects of a choose your own adventure is nice, But for most of the game, you spend watching a map of a quaint little Minnesota town. if i could add just one thing to bring everything together- that would be some voice acting.
//Gameplay//
While on my first playthrough i didn't respect the choose your own adventure aspect of the game, it was only after replaying and seeing how my stats change based on what I say in the opening scene that determines my strategy going into the core gameplay. Saying the right or wrong things can open up more characters or cut the life short of one of your favorite characters.
The business sim aspect of the game is the meat and potatoes. Each playable character comes with 4 Stats, Intimidation, Social, Leadership and Strength. Intimidation works as a stat that can boost your efforts to intimidate business and coerce them into going into dirty business with you get high enough stats in intimidation and reap the benefits of being feared by getting a % more when collecting clean money. Social is a more diplomatic stat, you can make business feel more comfortable laundering and with enough points allocated even scout more business to launder at. Leadership is kind of, well just there, I didn't personally see any benefits but when it's high enough one of your workers can manage a business automatically but comes in handy when you combine more than 3 businesses. Finally Strength comes in handy when being attacked by rivals, each point adds a point to your dice roll (when attacked your rival and yourself roll two dice and the higher one wins).
Businesses need to either be Coerced or Persuaded into joining your ranks, based on your skill level, a bribe and a dice roll- it will be determined how much cash flow and how fast the money is laundered. In order to keep them in your pocket you need a balance of keeping them happy by either gifting them cash or curating their business with a character that has a higher social than intimidation stat and the other way is to keep them scared enough to feel they need to do it by intimidating a business or curating a business with a character that has a higher intimidation stat than social. Some random events will happen as well, such as a drug deal gone wrong, workers trying to get time off, fires, workers stealing, etc etc and however you deal with each situation will determine which way the scale of loyalty (or how much they like you) and fear tips. With tasks such as partnering up with a gym for example, you can get points that will be useful to expand your line of sight and get more businesses and higher levels of businesses.
All of this management going on while your main objective of laundering a set amount each week for the cartel is in play. If you don't produce enough laundered cash, well- they off you....
//Price//
16.99 USD
//How many hours estimated//
I'll be playing Welcome to Goodland for other than at least 10 more hours.
//Is it Playable on Steamdeck?//
Guys, I absolutely love it on SteamDeck. It's odd cause it doesn't have full control, essentially its just A button, mouse pad and right trigger. But it just works so well in my opinion. I need to reconfigure the SteamDeck controls to add fast forward and slow down options. Other than that, it has become my preferred way of playing Welcome to Goodland.
//Final Thoughts//
Welcome to Goodland falls very flat on delivering a good story, thankfully I am a huge fan of the gameplay mechanic and while it doesn't revolutionize the wheel, I can appreciate it for what it is because at the end of the day, I am having fun. Admittedly at first I kinda gave up on the game & it's been a rough couple of weeks for me but ultimately I powered through and looked up some videos only to find- that no one quite understood the gameplay mechanic or how to balance it. The only person that did- cut the gameplay footage. So I started thinking, and immediately said, well i'm just gonna specialize each character to play a specific role. I'll make Eddie Taylor a more feared man than death and Ralph a happy go lucky tough guy. Man did it change the way everything worked. When in my first try i couldn't make enough money to launder in my new strategy I made the money in three days. It was ridiculous how easy it got and through great choices, I was meeting the deadlines within 2 days.... which made my experience pretty boring after- again I felt like maybe the game is just meh, I powered through it and once week 3 and 4 began. It was a whole nother ballgame. I had to make SIGNIFICANTLY more money laundered and without spoiling too much, one of my workers was caught slipping by a rival and now they were asking for a ransom. I was left with a few choices, and ultimately decided not to pay the ransom but to go about it a different way. I put myself in that "tough guy" chair, and while I felt much more engaged with these side quests, I just didn't care other than to make my empire the biggest it can be.
With leads me to one of my biggest gripes, I'm constantly being attacked left and right- I get it, it's part of the gameplay loop, can't make anything too easy. But beating them should have some sort of reward, whether it be slight boost in loyalty and fear or jacking them of money or resources. It just doesn't sit right with me to let someone who was gonna potentially steal from you go off without a hitch. Hell id even settle for a boost in confidence that gives +1 to social or intimidation ANYTHING.
But It made me change my strategy, each stat point i put into someone i hire adds an extra 100$ fee for the day. So I stopped leveling those characters up and put enough points 3-5 into strength to help me defend. those that were at 1 point, i didn't even bother with.
Something else I'd like to see changed is- and this is in the early game, having the ability to hire a worker for only a day, so when the day resets you're not obligated to automatically pay the worker their fee. Or maybe putting em on the team for a week at a slight discounted rate.
All in all, if you like games like This is the Police and Cartel Tycoon, this game is for you. Some voice acting could've gone a long way, especially for a game thats almost 20$. It's fun, its frustrating at times and if you mess a day up you'll need to restart the week so it's punishing... I kinda like that. It doesn't hold your hand from the beginning and I am a HUGE fan of RNG- I know that mechanic doesn't sit right with people but I LOVE it and think its implemented fairly in Welcome to Goodland.
I like the game but I think it could be better. Still based on the sole merit that this is this developer's first title, I say you should support em and BUY IT NOW!
[h1]Buy it Now![/h1]
