Thank you for the recommendation, I think I will finally buy these games. What do you think of Dracula 4&5?

They are much worse than Dracula 3 and very short - it took me 2.5h to finish them both without any walkthrough. Basically Dracula 4+5 are typical, average p&c games. Nothing really special and definitely not a must-play. Dracula 3 on the other hand is a masterpiece. So if you are a completionist you can get 4+5 just to see the whole story but don't expect anything great nor terrible.


I will try to find some of my old reviews of great games that are on sale and paste them here for your convenience :)

A few I noticed:
Rise of the Triad (2013 remake) - simple and fun shooter. Entertaining without being a rail-shooter.
Harvester - adventure game. Gory and extremely weird 1950s Americana.
AI War: Fleet Command - still on my gotta-play-this list.
Uplink: Hackers Elite - hacker sim. Very simplistic, but really gets you into the role. I tend to quit it a lot when I screw up, though. Shipped with a lot of behind-the-scene text.

<span class="bold">AI War Collection</span>

At the beginning I planned this little review differently, with a lot of details and examples but then I've realized that important part of this game is discovering new things yourself, learning from each game and exploring vast universe of AI War. Therefore I decided to give a more general impressions with just a few examples so that I won't spoil any fun you should have from this game. It also means that some examples are not 100% accurate so please do not correct me if you see something and know that it's not really like this. I'm well aware but let us not spoil the game for people who haven't played it yet. And definitely they should :)

I'll start with the obvious thing: the game is difficult to get into. Right from the beginning you are overwhelmed by the number of units, types of ships, turrets, buildings, planets, units' stats, buttons, type of orders and so on. Yeah, the game is really complex but don't worry, you don't have to know everything right from the beginning. Start with tutorials, they will give you a rough idea how to play and then you will start discovering new features. After some time you will realize that despite the first feeling they are very well implemented and make the game incredibly deep and fun to play so I beg you here: don't let the first hours discourage you! Keep playing!

The second thing I would like to discuss is AIs themselves. As you can imagine the whole story of the game is that humanity is facing an extinction and has to fight against powerful AIs to survive. Right from the beginning you are informed that you shouldn't really discuss if AIs are cheating or not, is the game fair or not. The point of the game is to offer a challenge so AI controlled enemies are different then you and have different set of rules. I can guarantee that this concept works amazingly well and makes the game special. Even though AIs in most cases use similar units as you do their attack and defense mechanism are different then yours. At the beginning of the game they mostly neglect you but your actions can increase their suspicion that perhaps those humans are not as weak as they seemed to be. So you have to be really careful. Obviously you have to progress, conquer new planets, find artifacts and research new ships/weapons. But if you do it to fast they will send a huge army that will crush you immediately.

You can expect your fleet to be huge as units cap is rather non trivial. Not only there are many types of ships but you can research their upgrades as well. The thing is you are only limited per unit type per its level so when you research an upgrade you don't have to get rid of older ships to build better ones - both caps are completely independent so it's beneficial to get them all, even the lowest level ships (at the very least they can serve you as cannon fodder). As I've mentioned earlier this can be a bit overwhelming, especially because besides standard ships you can produce larger starships which can boost certain stats of your fleet and sometimes you will get even bigger units that will have special abilities. After some time you will learn how to command your whole fleet efficiently.

I've just mentioned that you can research upgraded versions of your ships so it's nice moment to mention how research works because it's rather nontrivial. In many RTS games you have to spend some resources to research things but you usually aim to research everything and it's not THAT important in which order you will get new inventions. Here however, knowledge is a separate resource on its own. Each planet you conquer can give you a limited amount of knowledge so have to plan carefully which inventions you should get first. Getting a new type/level of ship makes your fleet bigger and better but you should keep in mind that turrets are much better in defense because cap limit is not only per turret type per level (as it's for ships) but also per planet! So each of your planets can have the same defenses without limiting other planets. You can't do that with your ships! So at the beginning it's good to invest in ships so that you can conquer a few planets but then you should probably get some turrets because you won't be able to defend every planet you have with your fleet as you may need it elsewhere. Once again this concept works perfectly and you can use any strategy that suits you best.

In the end I would like to briefly mention one thing (without spoiling anything). The universe is very rich. It's not that you just conquer a few planets so that eventually you may destroy AIs. Many planets have some secrets, artifacts or other inhabitants that may help you. During the game you will get a lot of secondary objectives that fulfilling may be beneficial. The very good thing is that you can solve them as you like. Or even abandon them as soon as get something nice - for example you get a great super-ship that you are supposed to use in a secret mission but you may still decide to take the ship and use it against AIs and forget about the mission. It's really mind blowing how many things may happen while you explore the universe. I've played this game many times and I'm still finding completely new things.

I can wholeheartedly recommend the game. As I mentioned earlier, it's not that easy to get into it but then it's pure awesomeness. Just give it a try, struggle through the initial WTF-is-happening phase and you'll love it!

I filter by at least 4.5 stars user rating, a discount of at least 70%, in the genres I like and being on the wishlist is a big plus.

And the result is something like:

- Blackguards
- Challenge of the Five Realms
- Gemini Rue
- Gray Matter
- Psychonauts
- Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood
- Shadowgate: SE

A few games that I always recommend :) At these prices it's a steal!

Psychonauts - Great platformer, good humour, and well-designed levels.
Hotline Miami 1 & 2 - Excellent story, simple, but very fun gameplay, and the soundtrack is excellent.
D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die - A interesting story, quirky characters, good humour. There's no game quite like it. It's the first season of a episodic game though. Takes a few hours to complete, and it might never be finished or even continued, so keep that in mind.
The Witcher 3 - WIld Hunt - It's Witcher 3 at 50 % discount. Do I even need to say more? :P

I'm currently considering grabbing Technobabylon. Can anyone here recommend it?

Well, you can extract the OST from Hotline Miami 2 using a tool. There's a post on the subforum about it,

Absolutely YES! :)

Oh, interesting.
I'll check it out.

<span class="bold">The Lords of Midnight</span>
<span class="bold">Doomdark's Revenge</span>

I will give you a general description of the Lords of Midnight series, without detail about specific game. But at the beginning let me remind you that the game was designed for (among the others) C64 which has 64 kB RAM + 20 kB ROM so don't expect anything too complicated. Nevertheless the game is absolutely epic!

OK, so how is the gameplay: you start with a few heroes and you can move them around the map (first person view). Each hero has some movement points, some terrains are easier to cross than the others. You may encounter monsters, special locations, strongholds... In special locations you may find artifacts, in strongolds you can recruit armies or station some troops there to increase its defenses. You find and recruit other heroes, sometimes you have to free them first...

When you are ready you can end your turn and then the opponent will move and send vast armies to conquer you. The path he chooses is random so each gameplay may be a bit different.

When two armies meet the battle begins. You don't have any direct control over the battle, the only things that matter are:
- how many troops did you bring
- their morale and tiredness
- WHEN did they join the battle. Example: at the very beginning of your round you move regiment A to attack the opponent who is directly next to you. A battle begins. Then you switch to your other hero with regiment B and move him to join the battle. But he was a bit further and it took 1/2 of your movement points to reach the battle. You do the same with regiment C but you had to use almost every movement point. When you end your turn the outcome of the battle will be calculated as follow: regiment A fought the whole day, regiment B half a day and regiment C almost not at all. So it may turn out that regiment A was destroyed before regiment B joined the battle. In many cases it's better to wait a bit, join your forces and attack simultaneously to decrease your losses. Sometimes it will be even better to give your troops some rest and wait for your opponent to start the battle. Some battles will not be resolved after you end your turn so in the next day you can send additional regiments to join the battle (if you have any available nearby)

How does it look like in practice. At your first playthrough you will send your heroes here and there, find a nice artifact and... get horribly slaughtered by the enemy.On your second playthrough you will send you heroes in different direction but you will get eradicated just the same as before. After some time you will start winning some battles and you will get an idea how to win them. So finally you will combine your experience (map exploration and battles) and you will win the game. Believe me, it's very rewarding! If you continue to play you will master your strategy and will be able to win 9/10 games.

I'm aware that this type of gameplay is not very popular nowadays. Back in 80s figuring out what you were supposed to do was an integral part of most games. My final advise is: don't ever use a walkthrough. I believe there are some and they will present you the perfect strategy how to win 9 out of 10 times. But if you read it... you will beat the game within 10-15 minutes (it's entirely possible!) but I doubt you'll have any fun at all. Because, frankly, beside figuring out how to play this game, there is not much left there! So if you know this perfect strategy at the very beginning... what's the point in playing? If you, however, decide to play it as intended you will have several hours of fun. I know it may seem that the game is terribly frustrating but in my opinion it's the other way around: it's very rewarding when you finally accomplish something (winning a big battle, pushing the enemy back, hiring an admirable army and so one)

A short conclusion: if you like figuring out how to play the game and losing many times is not discouraging you then I can wholeheartedly recommend it. If you, however, think that it'll be a very frustrating experience and you will read a walkthrough anyway... well in that case I recommend you to not even try it. Play other games. I do love LoM series but it's definitely not the game that every gamer will like.

Has someone mentioned Deadly Premonition?
It's 90% off (2,19€, it's dirt cheap ) right now, the game has many flaws like the atrocious controls, but the story makes up for it!

Plus some up of these flaws add to the charm of the game, like the game's map that won't help you at all. :D

Forgot another great.

Banished.
Great & tough sim-a-like, better than Skylines (which tbh is just eye candy).

What do you think about these 3 games?
- Revenant 1.49 --> any improving mod?
- Shantae: Risky's Revenge DC 2.49 --> just take shantae 3?
- Archimedean Dynasty 2.99

Banished really is great. I'll send this.

of top interest to me during the sale (contemplating what to get with this shiny $20):

Age of Decadence
Vampire: Redemption and Vampire: Bloodlines

Technobabylon DE
Transistor
Bastion
System Shock
Neo Scavenger

It's mostly a decision between either getting AoD or the 2 Vampire games, and then once I get either of those, what to get with the few remaning dollars.

if anyone cares to share their thoughts...

That's no question. The Vampire games (IMO Bloodlines is one of the best RPGs ever made.) and System Shock of course! Oh, and don't forget to also pick up System Shock 2 while it's free.