Agreed. Same holds true for SpaceChem. Both games were enjoyable enough and have nice attention to detail, but their main play dynamics just weren't compelling enough to make me play them all the way through.

Prison Architect is off 66% on Steam, looks to be the deepest discount on it so far. Any opinions on the game from someone who has it? I like the concept, and previous Introversion games, but vacillate between ambivalence and antipathy toward the concept of protracted "Early Access".

So far (I am playing an Alph / Beta version) it is really good. It is a mix between a personnel micro-manager and theme hospital.
You build from scratch and attempt to run the prison with as few escapees as possible while also trying to balance the books, staff levels, criminal capacity and incarsoration. All the while you are never much more then a suggestion centre for what people do as you plan their routines and activities, for both the guards, inmates and their families who visit.

It all looks easy until you really get into it.
I personally recommend it if you enjoy management games such as theme park / hospital, or the rollercoaster tycoons as you get the same type of control and feel of the facilities.
The only advice is be prepared for mass escapes, injuries and even deaths on your first ~20 tries.
So far I get about 2 hours in and then they all go bananas, it is fun, but watching as your prison is over-run by the inmates little by little just because you forgot to lock a door, or cannot afford that one more guard can be a little disappointing.

Thanks for the post. I've been itching to play this one!

Spacechem is a fun puzzle game. I haven't played it all the way through, but what I played was very good. It'll get complicated at points and you'll have to think on some of them over multiple sessions.

I have shinyloot acct and have purchased there. I'm in US. I like the site.

Thanks for the PA impressions! It definitely sounds good; I think I just need to decide whether to go for it now, or to wait till later on in the development process. Seems like it would be a "natural" for GOG once it's out of Early Access, what with all (I think) previous Introversion titles already here.

Happy to help! :)

Yeah thanks for the insight, now I can strike this game from my wishlist forever, as a former Introversion fan.

Re shinyloot q & a's....

Thank you all - much appreciated.

they are a Humble clone. why do people support them at all?

Many people love Bundles. I have many gaming friends who truly enjoy their bundles and search for them. Even tho the bundles may have something they don't care for, they figure (so they tell me) that the price is worth it.
I, myself, have never bought a Bundle cause I prefer to buy an individual game on sale. But that's just my preference. To each his own... :-)
And ShinyLoot is fairly new. So they are doing what they need to do to grow and compete.

I think the first games I got there were the Creeper World games they had on a special. I've since bought a couple more (Flatspace and Tesla: The Weatherman). They sometimes have good deals on games I wouldn't see otherwise.

Steam Keys for Slip from Groupees Clash of the World: Scandinavian Bundle are now available.

For the next 12 hours [url=http://www.gamersgate.com/games?prio=relevance&q=sword%20of%20the%20stars:%20the%20pit]90% for Sword of the Stars: The Pit.[/url]
Yup, I'd buy that for 1$/€.
Oh, and soundtrack for 0.5$/€.

The Pilgrim DLC (which requires the Gold DLC to activate/play) is 91% off here:

http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DLC-SOTSTPP/sword-of-the-stars-the-pit-the-pilgrim-dlc

It's probably a price mistake though, I don't think it'll last long.