Started playing this. I quite enjoy the idle-ness of it so I can watch something while playing. There are also hidden mechanics that the game doesn't reveal in tooltips, that we have to discover and maybe unlock something new.

I am really enjoying it myself and I do love the hidden mechanics...but I'm having a hard time acquiring enough materials to upgrade buildings and I don't know how to progress, haha.

I'm very into it. I played a lot of it this past weekend while listening to podcasts.

There is a bit of an initial hump as you get a feel for the mechanics. Early on, it's definitely better to be disciplined and jump out early at the camp rather than dying, but once you start getting some upgrades, you can start reaching and taking some bigger risks. It took me quite a while to get through the first chapter, but then I got through Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 much more easily.

Right now I'm at Chapter 4 (which seems to be the last chapter), and there is a bit of another difficulty hump to get over. (Minor spoiler) They basically do a classic Wily's Castle boss rush sort of thing where you have to beat every boss in a single run, and it feels like I need to be quite a bit stronger to survive it.

At this point, I'm having to refer to the Encyclopedia to figure out the specific requirements to get certain materials because many aren't obvious. Early on you can kinda get by just making sure there's a variety of tiles/enemies, but there are some mats that only drop in specific situations like when there's 4+ enemies in a battle.

A few other random tips:

• Always build the Meadow next to a non-meadow tile like the rocks/hills/forest. It will become a Blooming Meadow with better stats.
• If you build a Vampire Mansion next to a Village, it becomes a Ransacked Village. Four ghouls will spawn there every loop (use Blood Grove and Road Lanterns to help handle them). After a few loops, the Ransacked Village becomes a Count's Land that has better healing and better quest rewards.
• Go back and beat the early easier bosses multiple times so that you can unlock more skill perks and/or get a bundle of extra resources.
• After you get the Treasury reward, Gargoyles will spawn from the Empty Treasury. The Gargoyles are push overs and not really a big deal imo, but you can use an Oblivion card to get rid of the Empty Treasury if you don't want to deal with the extra enemies.

@chaser324: Oh wait the materials are in the encyclopedia!? Well I know what I am going to take a look at next time I boot it up!

I've played this game 15 ish hours and didn't know about the encyclopedia. Dolt.

I have played a bunch of this now and I have no idea how I really feel about it. I just beat the second boss after getting my first really broken build (a necromancer with +1 max skeleton gear in every slot and the perk that heals you upon skeleton death, making him pretty much unkillable.

I sort of wish this was an early access game because I think that it could be really great with some rebalancing. I'm not even talking difficulty. My major issue with it is that on the one hand it is kind of an idle game but on the other hand you really do need to pay a lot of attention to it if you want to have successful runs because you're constantly getting equipment and land cards, and certain equipment traits are much more desirable for certain characters, so you need to check most of the equipment, and of course be careful with your layouts. It's actually pretty complicated with a lot of busywork, but the beginning of each run is kind of braindead and the actual combat itself is idle, so it has a really strange rhythm of needing to constantly pay attention but not having much to do most of the time. I guess it's a good game for when you're hungover or whatever and want something to occupy you but not all the way, but I sort of wish it was either more or less idle.

I also think the base building and material components go a little too slow, with upgrades that feel like they don't matter because the numbers are so small, even though, of course, they add up over time and if you go back to the first loop after making progress you will beat the boss almost every time because you are so much stronger. But certain uses of resources also feel really unbalanced. For example upgrading structures is really strong because it's usually a pure buff. Like the 4% extra strength you get from upgrading the armor. But crafting seems kind of pointless because you get lots of random items during the course of the loops and you can keep them if you retreat or beat the boss, so you end up with way more stuff than you can ever equip pretty early on, and crafting is very resource intensive. Maybe it gets you better stuff than you find, but I don't really want to risk the resources to find out.

I've played a lot of the game and I mostly enjoyed it so I can't complain too much, but it does feel to me that with a few tweaks just to make it either a little less time intensive and fiddly or a little bit more active (and maybe a little less grindy) it could be something truly special instead of 'just' a decent time.

I guess you can argue that the Rogue class address at least some of this because you really only look at equipment once per loop, but the class also feels underpowered to me compared to the warrior and especially the necromancer.

It was mentioned on the Bombcast a week ago, but this game REALLY is difficult to wrap your head around when you're just hearing about it, but INCREDIBLE to actually play once you get your hands on it. I shot up to 10 hours and it's become my go-to game when I don't have TV access.

My only issue so far is a real lack of feedback, especially in the new classes. I unlocked Necromancer, and it seems like an incredible class, but some tooltip on what things like "Skeleton Level," "Summon Quality percentage," and "Magic HP" would be nice (I'm pretty sure I've figured it out from context clues, but I don't know if I'm actually correct on my assumptions).

That said: the art design and simple plot are exactly what I need in a game like this.

@undeadpool: I think it's intentionally opaque and I kind of dig that. I mean the plot is about the world being wiped out and your character having forgotten something, so it's thematically appropriate that you are confused much of the time until you slowly build up some understanding of what's going on. And mouse hover will give you stats on pretty much everything, which helps a lot.

I will say that I think the story is kind of boring and clearly wasn't written in English and even though there's not a ton of it I wish there was even less dialog. It's a minor complaint, but I also dig the vibe of the game and its aesthetics, and the dialog snaps me out of it every time.

@bigsocrates: Fair point, and that HAD occurred to me, that it was on purpose, but sometimes it feels a bit like that mistranslated accessory in Dark Souls, where I can't tell if something is intentionally opaque or just badly explained. It gives you stats, but doesn't really explain what those stats DO (as I say: Summon Quality is a strange stat as I ASSUME it means you summon better skeletons, but then we get into things like: what is "better" are you more likely to summon better per cast? What's the hierarchy? Is a Guardian better than a Warrior? Just things like that).

The story's not a great one, and I could tell it wasn't originally written in English by the myriad of flags for language options, but for a game like this, it doesn't NEED to be.

I'm also enjoying the hell out of Monster Train and bounced RIGHT off of "Slay the Spire," so maybe I'm just fortunate that I know the EXACT amount of narrative and art I need to keep me interested in a game like this.

@undeadpool: I do think it's hard to tell what's just awkward and what's intentional because there's some of both. Clearly some of the mechanics are meant to be hidden (for example the interaction between Vampire Mansions and villages) but it's not clear what's intentionally opaque and what just wasn't thought through.

I'm pretty sure the Summon Quality does relate to the type of skeleton but exactly how is a mystery. I'm sure it's somewhere.

I definitely don't need the story to be good, as I said I just wish there was less of it. It punctures the air of mystery and the game's atmosphere when people are like "do you want to try swimming in the river?" "Definitely!" There's just no consistent characterization or tone. It's a minor annoyance.

I liked Slay the Spire but I LOVE Monster Train. Absolutely love it. I play the Daily Challenge basically every day on my treadmill. I have almost certainly put over 100 hours into that game and I bought the DLC that came out today sight unseen, and then bought the game itself even though it's on Game Pass just as kind of a tip to the developer (and to have a copy I can play for years to come.)

I wouldn't call it my favorite game that came out last year, but other than Animal Crossing it's the one I played the most, and easily in my top 5 most played games of the last 5 years.

But it has basically no narrative. It has a set up, a little bit of lore, and then a fantastic art style and super addictive play mechanics. I did a run with the expansion today and I'm super excited to see how all the new cards and the brand new mechanic interact with the older stuff. Plus you can turn off the expansion to play vanilla if you want to, which is something that every game with expansions should offer!

It was Persona 5 Strikers and I am still playing it regularly. I was looking for an alternate after cyberpunk 2077 disappointment and I found a good one in the shape of this game.

@bigsocrates: I am glad they left some stuff intentionally obscure. No one tells you to put 3x3 mountains/rocks together to make a Peak (and it doesn't always form one, which confuses me), or to surround the treasury tiles to "cash out" the treasury, or the vampire's effects on the town (and I love stuff like that! Like "well, what did you THINK would happen when you placed a vampire estate right next to a village???") it's just when it comes to giving me a number without telling me what that number is affecting that I get frustrated because that just feels like lack of effort.

Definitely picking up the expansion as variety is what keeps me going on that game, and yeah I agree: they added bestiary/lore encyclopedia, which is handy because they've written some really compelling dialog and hints at history in the mid-boss fights, and the entire thing comes off like a '90s comic that actually did it right, tonally and design-wise. It's Spawn without all the tryhard bullshit that franchise has been attached to (and the VAST SWATHS of ripping off that it did as well). And no, it doesn't have much story, but again: compared to Slay the Spire, it has ENOUGH. And I don't mean to dunk on that game, I had a lot of fun with it, but it didn't stick with me.

I mean the Cook, Serve, Delicious! series of one of my favorites as well, and that too adds JUST enough story (especially the second one) to keep things interesting, but not at the expense of gameplay, which has only gotten better for my money.

@undeadpool: Just FYI, cause I went through the same thing, a 3x3 always produces a mountain peak, but you can only have one.

@sethmode: HAW! JUST watched the QL where Brad and Jan have that realization, but I appreciate it.

I guess I get why, you get a ton of "transformation" materials from it, but of all the enemies to put a hard cap on, harpies seem like the an odd choice. That said, I love all the weird interactions this game has so far. That vampire/village one is...just great.

@undeadpool: haha yeah... I kept making 3x3 things and wondering why other mountains weren't building, and that was when I decided I was going to look shit up about this game because it is hard enough without artificially making things more difficult for myself!

@sethmode: I kept rekajiggering how many rock VS mountain tiles I'd use, or I'd try not putting two rock tiles adjacent to one another at any point. It's amazing what one's brain comes up with when deprived of explanation.

@undeadpool: totally and I agree with you. And the vampire mansion on a town is amazing. Especially in the way that it turns out to be a positive? The counts lands or whatever.... So good.

@sethmode: The only "problem" I foresee is if there aren't actually that many, and I wind up driving myself crazy like, "Okay, what if all deserts with a dune in the middle and then surround it with rocks and mountains, and put the Crypt in the MIDDLE!! NOTHING!? BULLSHIT!

And yeah, it's...WEIRD that eventually: everyone just works it out in terms of the vampires and people.