It is a deck builder where the played cards become buildings in a growing city. Each building synergizes with multiple other ones, especially surrounding population count. You lose when you let 3 things get out of hand, symbolized by red alert symbols in the top corner. It is an interesting idea, but I have seen it implemented better, for example with Roots of Yggorasil, which is doing some similar stuff, but with much more varied (in a good way) objectives and interactions. I got this in a humble bundle. I am glad I tried it, but I played it for a couple of hours and moved on.

I did not have many expectations for this game, and the ones I did have were not very high. Specifically, I thought it would be a slog of a grind-fest. While there are some elements that are a little bit of a slog, they were minor relatively to what ended up being some interesting gameplay. As you get into the game, each round you have to choose which buildings and features will appear that you can use to populate a destroyed world. These buildings will determine the enemies you fight, how many you fight at once, and which rewards you get. You never have to place a given card, but you need to place at least some cards to 1) fight more enemies to get better loot and increase player level and 2) place enough tiles to summon the boss of the round. The game becomes a balancing act of placing enough tiles to increase your power in preparation for the boss, but not too many tiles that you become overwhelmed by enemies. There is also some meta-progression where you reclaim a town from the void that has swallowed up the world at the beginning of the game.

There is more to get out of this game, and I will likely pick it up and put it down with some regularity. It is a game that is good for filling in the gaps of the day should you so desire. Such a use is fitting since it is about filling the gaps of a desolated world.

I have probably criminally underrated this game. I see the potential that the game has. It is a significant improvement over the first game. I was unsure how the game would transition to 3D, but it is an excellent move. The game is still very difficult, but it now feels accessibly difficult compared to the first game, which was just brutal. The movement feels more intuitive and having more control over aim feels good. As with the first one, this game has a lot of depth to both secrets in the world and item synergies. Despite all of my praise, I underrate the game because shooters are just not really my genre. For not liking shooters, I really enjoyed this game. I theoretically want to play it more, but given my relationship to shooters, I decided to move on.

I played Forager previously and I heard this game described as the 3D Forager. While that is superficially true, I think the comparison does the game a disservice. The level of automation and progression in this game is both way more engaging, interactive, and enjoyable. Not that Forager is bad, it just got to grindy for me. Outpath made grinding enjoyable because the automation options are available early on and their upgrades just increase their range. Also, the way that you pace at which you unlock more land is excellent. Even when you get later on, if you have done your due diligence on the previous islands then the amount of time it takes to unlock more is appropriately long, where if you are working at it, you can keeping going at a good clip.

The building options in the game are interesting as well. While the resource gathering is excellent, the resource refinement buildings will glitch sometimes and you have to restart the game to get them to work. Nevertheless, the game offers a lot of freedom to build platforms. It does not have much in the way of cosmetic options, but I was never bothered by that.

Lastly, there are perks you can get that can revolutionize the gameplay. They can be upgraded, which made for an extra layer of progression that I enjoyed

I think the average person would not rate this game as high as I have, but it is because my specific history of video games that I give it the rating I do. I grew up playing Runescape since I was 10 years old. That game had so much wonder for me as a kid. Somehow even when I take a break from Runescape, I get sucked back in periodically. I have an almost maxxed account, but I finally decided that I need to step away because of the time the game requires and the poor direction that Jagex is headed for RS3 specifically. At this point, enter Melvor Idle. It is obviously inspired by Runescape, but all of the grinding is done passively. Each day, you set your character to grind something, and they will do so for up to 24 hours or something in the game stops them (such as full bank or character death to name the two options I've seen most). It scratches the "numbers go up" kind of joy that Runescape gives while also respecting your time because you do not have to click for every single action. It is nice to check in on it once a day while I wake up in the morning.

I use quality of life mods, such as ones that do math for you or eliminate unnecessary clicks. I suggest if you want to play this game, use the mods, but don't download ones that significantly change the gameplay. The game is meant to be a marathon, not a sprint.

As one last mention, you can make multiple characters on your account. It is fun to have a regular character, then make some challenge characters with either self-imposed rules or the included alternate game modes available.

This game is excellent. My very first video game was Pokemon Yellow Version, and I taught myself how to read so that I could play it as a little kid. I stuck with pokemon all the way through the 5th gen, but I got tired of the formula after that. This game did a great job of capitalizing on the elements of Pokemon that are good while breathing some much needed life into the monster collection genre. Firstly, while individual monsters have a sublevel that determines what moves the monsters learn, the overall level of the character determines the strength of every monster. In practice, you can switch between any monster and its stats will be on generally par with any other monster you might use, accounting for different stat scaling across monsters. Additionally, the moves you learn on one monster can be taken off and applied to other compatible monsters. The way the game handles levels made it feel worthwhile to actually get and transform ("evolve") every monster in the game. Additionally, the monsters have a chemistry mechanic where it is possible to make monsters change their types with some frequency. The dynamism made for really interesting battles. The shinies of the game also interplayed with the type switching, where shinies were not just a recolor, but were monsters with different types than their default types.
The last interesting battle mechanic is the ability to fuse. All battles are double battles, and you can fuse with your partner, which combines the stats of both monsters at the cost of only selecting one action per turn instead of two.

Next, you are free to explore the world at your own pace and in any order. It was nice to be let loose and go where was interesting. Additionally, the world was small enough that it never felt like an overwhelming task. There was always something to discover in every section of the world. It was a delight, especially when you add in the games excellent soundtrack. Shout outs to the forest track. It was my favorite. To compliment the exploration, I enjoyed the world's characters. They were not exceptionally deep, but they were appropriately developed given the scope of the game.

The game has a robust post-game, though by that point you will likely have explored the whole world. It becomes oriented around fetch-quest/battle a quota of monsters style tasks, though with some story development thrown in. Even if the post-game did not hold my attention as much as the main game, there was some thought and intrigue there that I can appreciate. Besides, after you beat the main game, you unlock Nuzlocke options and randomizer options that allow for another worthwhile playthrough.

On the whole, I strongly recommend this game to any monster collection fan. It was a delight start to finish with some interesting monster designs that sparked so much joy. It is still receives updates, and I expect to pick the game up again when the devs release another DLC.

This game is a fun little roguelite that I found great for when I had just a little bit of time between tasks. From what I can tell on Reddit, there is a meta and some deeper strategy than what I got into. The choices are relatively interesting and balancing your purchases creates for some thoughtful gameplay. If you like organizing things, the backpacks are all about organization for efficiency. I gave it a 2.5 stars because the game did not blow me away, but it also was by no means bad. I think of it as a little treat or a palate cleanser, rather than a game I would sit down and devote hours to.
As a bonus, with the game still in early access, the devs are clearly responsive to the community.