When I first saw this game in the steam store, I didn't really know what I was supposed to make of it. I never heard of the game before that moment, never saw a video of it, never saw anybody talk about it, or even heard the name before. Just by looking at the title alone, there's no real way for you to get a feel for what the game is about, I had no idea how blending the two genres would work out in the end. However, the game took two of my favorite genres and blended them into one so even though I was skeptical about how that would work, I became curious in the game and I went on to give it a shot and I was really pleased with what the game turned out to be.

There's really only one word that I can use to describe this game and that word happens to be fun because that's exactly what the game is. It's not the standard RPG where you go around fighting monsters while taking on all sorts of quests, but it takes the core aspects of a good RPG and then blends it with city building and simulation games. This game also happens to be very addicting because it takes the best aspects from both genres to make a really good game that can keep you entertained for hours at a time without getting bored.

GRAPHICS 5/10

When it comes to graphics, I wouldn't say that they are good, though I wouldn't say that they are bad either because neither would be true. I would say that the graphics are right in the middle of the two. You don't really have much to look at in the game because all you get to see throughout the game is a small town map as well as some various buildings, decorations, and characters. What are some other games that these graphics remind me of? Well it just so happens that similar games graphics wise kind of fit well with the genres of this game. That's because the graphics of this remind me of those old RPG's mixed with pieces of Sim City 2000.

The map itself does look pretty good as do some of the buildings and decorations and such, though I believe that the characters could have been just a bit better. For me, the characters just seem a bit small and sometimes hard to make out. Aside for that, the graphics are pretty simple, they aren't great nor are they bland and my grade for this category is going to be an even 5 out of 10.

SOUND 8/10

I consider this aspect of the game to be really good at times and can be very catchy in my opinions. However, im only really basing this on the music of the game because I didn't really care for the regular sounds of the game. Aside for a few pieces here and there, I dont think I paid any attention to the regular in game sounds at all, though the music is s different story and is really quite amazing. I can still perfectly remember the very first time I had played the game, I hadn't even started the actual game yet, all I did was reach the title screen and then I was right away greeted by the music.

When I start a game, I usually get right into it, but this game had totally different plans for me. After listening to the title screen music for maybe two seconds I found myself hooked to it and in some sort of trance. I found myself stuck on the title screen for at least five minutes listening to the music because I found it to be really catchy. Overall, my grade for sound is going to be an 8 out of 10.

ADDICTIVENESS 8/10

I think this game really does have a lot of potential and could become an amazing indie game because of how addicting it can be and how much fun it is to play. From my own experience, if you try to blend two genres into one game, it won't be perfect because you're going to have to take out pieces from each genre to make sure that the other genre would fit, and the same goes for this game. Because of this, you don't really know what you're getting yourself into or what the game will be like from just looking at it, but once you begin to play it, you are going to realize how much fun it can be. In terms of the RPG, you don't actually get to do any of the stuff, all you can do is manage and guide who does what but it can still be very entertaining.

There's quite a bit for you to do, such as collecting and then putting weapons and potions into stores, placing wonderful buildings and decorations to attract visitors into your kingdom, and of course sending heroes on all sorts of quests. There's really so much to be done and its all a lot of fun, enough fun to result in you playing for an hour or more each time. I personally had a blast playing the game aside for a few bugs which will be explained later and I found the game to be very addicting. Because of this, my grade for this category is going to be another 8 out of 10.

STORY 7/10

In the terms of a story, I'm just going to say that there isn't a big one that's true, because there isn't, though what it does have are different aspects of a story that work together with each other to give you something that you can work with. One aspect of the story would be the tycoon and city building side of things where your goal is to build a beautiful kingdom and to make it the best that you can so that you attract more visitors into it and so you get more money. You do this by placing all sorts of buildings and decorations, by restocking and selling items, upgrading your buildings, and of course keeping everybody happy at all times.

Then you have the other side of the game which is RPG based and had a completely different set if goals for you to accomplish. Its still a bit tycoon based in the sense that you get to hire and fire heroes but there's so much more to this side such as sending them on all sorts of quests. Some of the quests you can send your heroes on include Epic Quests, exploring quests, searching for villains to battle, bounties, and so much more. I dont think that there's truly too much of an end because there's always so many extra things to do to make your kingdom and heroes better. My grade for story is going to be a 7 out of 10.

DEPTH 7/10

At the moment, the game has a good amount of depth to deal with on both sides of the game, whether its the kingdom side or the RPG side. On the kingdom side, there's a large map for you to alter in any way you want with a variety of buildings and decorations, and heroes for you to hire and fire as you please. Then on the RPG side of the game, there's even more to choose from. Aside from the epic quests, there's dozens of smaller quests for you to take on in different kingdoms, other sorts of quests, a good amount of bounties and villains, and so much more on top of that. There's really a lot to do in the game and my grade for depth is going to be another 7 out of 10.

DIFFICULTY 3

The game is actually really easy, to both understand, and play. once you start sending your hero out to do the epic quests over and over, there won't really be any problems with the game play. You will get money and exp pretty easily from all the various little tasks and other than that there's no real reason to find the game too challenging. The only real thing that could be challenging is the amount of time it takes to level up because once you get to a certain level, you pretty much will need to go on dozens of epic quests just to raise one heroes level by one. Overall I would say that the difficulty gets a 3, its really an easy game. However, to some, the game could actually seem to be a lot more challenging because of a few problems that you might encounter, though these problems really aren't part of the game play and are just a few random bugs that dont really have an effect on the difficulty since its not the game itself and I am going to go over a few of them next.

THE NEGATIVES

The game does happen to have a few negative aspects that seem to take away from the overall greatness of the game, but the game is still very new and always being updated so should not really be taken too seriously and can mostly be avoided. The first negative aspect is what I call Quest Breaking, and this kind of ruins the game so you have to make sure that you are very careful when you are playing this game. To avoid this, I would suggest that you pay attention to what's going on in your kingdom when you save your game. I dont know if this is the only way to encounter this problem, but I have experienced this problem multiple times from saving the game while one of my heroes was on an epic quest and once this happens, its game over.

From what I have experienced, if you save your game while a hero is on an epic quest and then close the game, once you open the game again, the game will act as if your hero is still on the quest, even if nobody is doing a quest. You can still build your kingdom and do other quests and such, but from this point on you will never be able to do an epic quest again because every time you try, it will say that somebody is already doing that quest. Starting a new game will not help at all, if you do start a new game then from the moment you start, epic quests will be unavailable. The only way that I know of how to fix this is to uninstall the game, reinstall it, and then start a new game, so you really want to be careful.

There are two other small problems with the game, the next one is that some characters began spazzing out. A few seconds would pass and then some characters would start glitching out and rapidly going from place to place and then it would reset to a few seconds before. This has happened two or three times to me and it usually fixed itself after a few resets and then the game would start working smoothly again. The next problem is kind of the one that gamers fear the worst, when the game simply stops working. The game won't crash or shut down, but it will freeze. All game play and button functionality just stops working. You don't have to uninstall the game for this, just close the game and then start it up again. This has happened multiple times to me before and I don't know if its possible that the game unfreezes after a certain amount of time like the previous problem because I usually go straight to turning off the game after a couple of minutes of waiting.

The quest breaking bug could happen at any time while in my own play through of the game, the other two bugs usually wouldn't happen until after the game has already been played for a few hours im total. These are still pretty minor bugs and the game is always being updated as its still quite new so these bugs dont really play against the games as long as you pay attention and know what to do when something does happen.

OVERALL 8/10

Overall the game has a lot of potential and can be really fun. Its not as fun as some of the bigger PC games but it can still get a good amount of hours out of your life and keep you entertained for an extended amount of time. If you are a fan of either city building or RPG games then I would say that this would be the game for you. If you haven't played it or dont really like games that fall under these genres, then I suggest that you do anyway because I think it has a lot of potential and my overall grade for RPG Tycoon is going to be an 8 out of 10.


INTERVIEW WITH SKATANIC STUDIOS

I was recently able to get in touch with the developer of the game and as a few questions about the game, studio, and process. Here they are.

1. What gave you the inspiration for the game?

I’m not really sure. I was in University at the time and working on my final year dissertation. Naturally being a student and a gamer, I was procrastinating as much as possible so I was trying to find games to play to take my mind off of things and I had an itch for a tycoon or simulation game of some sort.

I think I’d also really missed coding. I used to fiddle around a bit back in high school and it had been years since I’d done any developing.

I was kind of searching for a new game to play and I think I realised that there wasn’t really much in the market of something that I really wanted to play. Everything was pretty stale at the time and there hadn’t been a new, good sim-strategy game out in a while that I could really get into.

So I started making one.

2. What was the hardest part to develop?

I’m not sure. I’m a solo developer, so I think it’s tricky having to manage everything myself sometimes.

It’s all been difficult in different ways. I think one of the hardest things to get right is the algorithms that go into the questing mechanics and making sure all the numbers and statistics go together properly. I’m still not quite there with that and constantly re-working how quests are calculated. I keep getting closer with each increment though.

I struggled a bit the other day, I was attempting to optimise the game only to realise that I’d have to completely re-work an entire load of the systems in the game to get it to run smoother and more efficiently. It took me about 4 days to fix it and I had a list of other features I needed to implement before a convention that was the following day. So it got pretty stressful there. The game is much more efficient and optimised for doing it though and has received plenty of praise, so it was entirely worth it. I can’t imagine what the feedback during convention would have been like, hadn’t I done that.

3. How much have you played your own game so far?

According to Steam I’ve racked up 63 hours of playtime and that’s only from the times I’ve actually been LOGGED IN during development.

I tend to play it frequently to try and get ideas of where to go next or what to focus on in my list of things to do.

4. What education did you take to learn how to make the game?

I’m pretty much all self taught. I’m a very inefficient programmer and it shows sometimes, but I very much have a learn by doing mentality.

5. How much of your off-time do you spend thinking about the games you're developing?

If I’m not sleeping, eating or playing other games to relax. I’m developing. Often I’ll stop playing other games because I feel guilty that I’m not developing. I really want to get this game finished and make it a success.

Wow, that a long review. Just out of curiosity: is the interview authentic?

Otherwise this review it better than your previous one about the "addictive but low replayability" game.  You've adopted a style I've never seen before: clump the positive first and then tell the negative. Interesting.

This is a really good review. I can tell you put lots of work into it. Before I read the review, I'd never even heard of this game. After reading it though, I think I've decided I won't get it since it's a combination of RPG and city building. Great job with the review and keep up the good work.