Elemental war on the surface seems like just a basic TD game... However, it can shine if you do more than just scratch the surface. Admittedly, it does hit the graphics card pretty heavily, and even I never use the zoom feature as it does seem to have a scrolling sensitivity issue on linux.

My full steam review: https://steamcommunity.com/id/stretch611/recommended/917850/ [External Link]

The initial waves are quite simple... because that is how you get your initial elements. There is a fast forward option to breeze through the easy waves. Every 5th round, an elemental monster is released (or you can call for one every 5 rounds if not in random element mode.) When you kill it, that element can be used to build or upgrade towers. While a single tower can be upgraded and possibly kill off the first 4 or 5 waves alone the waves get progressively harder once you have unleashed 2 or 3 elements.

There are 192 different towers in the game. Essentially they are based on the various elements. Fire/Air/Earth/Nature/Electricity/Water/Shadow towers based on the 7 elements in the game. But to get to 192 towers you need to combine fire and water for a steam tower, fire and air for a smoke tower, water and earth for a mud tower. You can combine up to three elements which all the combinations make 192 different towers.

Unless you are playing one of the modes with unlimited waves you will never collect all the elements. This means that only a subset of the towers are unlocked. (And even on unlimited, they are not all unlocked until wave 105... and good luck getting that far.) This brings out the true beauty of Elemental War... Your strategy needs to change based on the towers you have available. In random element mode, you are forced to use a different strategy every time you play and for me, this causes infinite replayability.

I already have more hours playing this game than I do in Dungeon Warfare and all 3 Kingdom Rush games (and I bought it back during the winter sale on steam.) I am actually close to having as many hours in Elemental War as I do in those 4 other TD games combined,

This is definitely a buy if you like Tower Defence games.

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Quoting: Linas

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: LinasI understand the importance of Steam Play and Proton, but is this really Linux gaming newsworthy? I personally don't think so, but I'd like to hear other options.

It is a game, running on Linux. Buying with Steam Play shows the developer a Linux sale.

You say you understand the importance...yet you made this comment?

Sure, all of that is true. But there are a lot of games playable in Proton (which is a good thing!), and this one is not special. The game itself or its developers literally have nothing to do with Linux. That it runs on Linux is purely due to external efforts.

But that is just like my opinion man. :)

I agree. If this site starts to comment on any title that works through Steam Play, it might as well remove the word "Linux" from the website name.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: devnullBit confused by this.. I already don't give any credit to people who have spent very little time actually playing the game. Why can't valve use that?

There's games where you can say you'll never like it in half an hour or less.

It's also easy to fake playing time.

That would require effort. Which requires motivation.
Something someone who has judged a game after half an hour if not liking it will only muster in extremely rare cases.

Yes, but if things change and you are required to play for one hour to leave a review, it is easy just to leave something running on your computer when you grab some lunch. That takes very little effort and people will do it if it is needed.

In general, only a small percentage of people leave reviews.

Factorio has sold over 1 million copies and has only 37,000 reviews. That is less than 4% of the players (though it hit 1 million [External Link] almost 2 yearw ago and I think it is closer to 2 million which would make it only 2%)
Rimworld also has sold over 1 million copies and only has 30,000 reviews. That is only 3% of the players. (again, it is probably more in sales by now.)

Those are 2 indie games with highly motivated players. (both 98% positive.) It requires motivation to write a review... forcing a little in-game time is unlikely to stop someone from creating a review.

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Nice that some people are NOT relying on linux support through "SteamPlay."

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Quoting: stuffWell, before just putting out pitchforks, we should remain objective. There are instances with games being review bombed and these reviews having nothing to to with the quality of the game. For example Metro series because Metro Exodus is an Epic store exclusive. This has nothing to to with the quality of the game and should not be taken into consideration for the rating in the store. Another example being Shadow of the Tomb Raider because it got a sale soon after release. Some other games because of some Youtuber.
Because of that, this feature might be not necessarily anti-consumer, but actually pro-consumer. So, if anyone has info which games' ratings were purged, it would be nice to know. Because then we can see if this system is used in a sensible way.

While I agree, the case of Metro:Exodus had nothing to do at all about the quality of the game. (although the Denuvo DRM part does screw up player experience and lower the quality.)

It was review bombed because of the Epic Game Store exclusivity agreement. However, as we all know, exclusivity agreements are anti-consumer.

Other than a you-tuber not getting his/her narcissistic fantasies fulfilled, I would argue that review bombs are generally pro-consumer as they notify the public to anti-consumer behavior, whether that is DRM, micro-transactions in paid games, broken or horribly programmed garbage, or exclusivity agreements.

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While initially I was not happy about this change, after some thought, I can live with the change.

For the most part, I do not rely on overall rating which is the only thing that this truly affects. I prefer to read the reviews to make my decision. In fact, if a an overall rating is "Overwhelmingly Positive" I make it a point to find and read the negative reviews for some objectivity.

As long as all of the reviews are out there, I do not expect a big difference to how this affects my evaluation of titles.

Quoting: wvstolzingAnother automated system to contain highly erratic behavior?

How about adding a 'complaints & suggestions' box to the product page, in addition to the reviews? And moderating that space for high profile releases?

I doubt "complaints & suggestions" will ever happen. What publisher would ever be willing to put up an area of "please feel free to trash our game here." Most probably don't want an unbiased review section which is probably why Valve is doing this. (and as mentioned in a different comment why Epic Game Store doesn't have reviews.)

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: TcheyRevenge of the Titans was, is, one of the best tower defense i've played until today.

Revenge of the Titans is NOT a tower defense game…

No?!?, thats a shock to me. :O

If not tower defense [External Link], what do you call it when you build offensive gun/laser turrets to prevent the enemy from reaching and destroying your base/buildings, especially when the enemy follows a predefined path towards your base?

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Quoting: kurp

Quoting: buckysrevengeAmong the Sleep has been on my wishlist for a while, no excuse now I guess :-)

Same here. Nice surprise. :D
However it would be nice to get the game DRM Free. I hope the recent changes in GOG rules mean that we'll receive some interesting third-party bundles with GOG keys soon.

This Humble Bundle has DRM Free builds of each game (in addition to steam keys.)
For the DRM Free version, you download it directly from Humble.

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Not to distract from the value, as this is generous of the developers...

But, as pointed out linux is not a huge market share.

Also, other than Basingstoke, the games are quite old and are probably close to market saturation... Not likely selling much due to age and the people that want them have them. Maybe a few sales from time to time, but not much continued revenue anymore. (And after looking at Steam DB, I am guessing that Basingstoke did not do as well as they hoped it would.)

According to Steam DB...

Titan Attacks [External Link], $9.99/$0.99(sale), 100k-200k sold, Released Feb 3 2012
Revenge of the Titans [External Link], $14.99/$0.99(sale), 200k-500k sold, Released Mar 16 2011
Droid Assault [External Link], $9.99/$0.99(sale), 50k-100k sold, Released Jan 9 2013
Ultratron [External Link], $9.99/$0.99(sale), 50k-100k sold, Released Mar 18 2013
Basingstoke [External Link], $29.99/$10.19(sale), 0-20k sold, Released Apr 27, 2018

Note: I bought a triple pack of Titan Attacks, Droid Assault, and Ultratron directly off the developer's website before Revenge of the Titans was released... So this means SteamDB is showing the release date on Steam... Not the original release dates. Also some of the titles were on Humble prior to steam as well, so it is likely SteamDB's numbers might be underreporting estimated sales of the older titles.

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I really enjoy Puppy Games. I found out about them (and their linux support) back from one of the first few Humble Indie Bundles, well before Steam for Linux was a thing.

Of course I already have all their games for linux already, so this offer does nothing for me. But it is all the more reason to enjoy the developer, and lets just say if I didn't have them all, I would get them all now.

(I admit that even though I bought it for practically full price, I did not care for Basingstoke; however, that is because I don't particularly care for that genre of games, nothing specifically about that game.)

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