Islantiles

Just finished the game on max difficulty with the starting civ, gonna play the next ones soon. It's a pretty nice game, and it has plenty of replay value (at least so far, ~30ish hours in). I do see the slight Balatro influences the creator talked about, but they are really really slight. This is a "building placement" game through and through. One criticism I have is: whenever I'd go to a new island, I always click 'risky island' from the three choices it gives you because it usually has the best rewards (kind of like choosing the path with more elites in Slay the Spire). Problem is, there are fewer "island configurations" than it appears at first sight. The game clearly doesn't randomly generate the islands, which is good, but that does mean that the number of island "shapes" you will get is limited. I think there need to be more island "shapes". And it doesn't feel like it'd be crazily difficult to implement. Anyway cool game.

game feels very much like playing a point salad type of board game. but solo. would be kind of interested in this getting larger islands where multiple people can join. barring that idea, the game is very fun and the numbers go brrrr part of my brain is super satisfied.

I really like the unlock progression being spread across different civilizations and difficulty levels. I find this game to be emergently complex and teaches you along the way.