Pluto - Is This Slay the Spire-Style Deckbuilder Worth Playing?
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
Pluto is a roguelike where you escape wizard jail by finger-blasting horrific monsters with your spell-slinging digits. It's grungy, chaotic, and heavily inspired by Slay the Spire, but it takes that foundation and turns it into something weird and wildly unique.
It all revolves around your fingers - your gnarled, claw-like fingers. Each one, except the tragically useless thumb, can cast spells by slamming cards directly onto your fingertips. Sort of like playing the piano, but with more explosions.
Nested Lands Beginner's Guide - 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting
- By Ash
- in Tips and Guides
1) More is Better
Nested Lands, much like every other survival-crafting game, has a million different ingredients. So unless you're a fan of manually gathering them and then slowly, painstakingly crafting basic supplies, you'll want to automate that. And for that you'll need to get some people. How many? As many as you can get, as quickly as you can get them. The more you have the easier it's going to be to keep things running since they'll be able to gather their own food, firewood and building materials.
And how do you get people? They sometimes spawn in event zones - that's the yellow circles - so just doing a lap around the first map should net you a good few. Just make sure you have enough houses before you set off on your adventure, because if you don't you won't be able to recruit them. Now this is going to be a pain in the butt the first few times, but thankfully it'll get much, much easier once you have a couple of workers under your banner.
Nested Lands Review - A Great Idea That Goes Nowhere
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Nested Lands might be one of the coolest survival game concepts I’ve seen in a while... and also one of the most frustrating. The premise is that you're rebuilding society after a supernatural, sentient plague wiped out the entire world.
The land is rotting, corpses lie discarded on the ground, and strange cultists wander the woods. Yet somehow... it all still feels weirdly tame. Because every time the game gets close to doing something interesting - it immediately pulls back.
Nioh 3 Beginner's Guide - 13 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting
- By Ash
- in Tips and Guides
Nioh 3 is a very technical game with loads of mechanics and systems thrown at you all at once. So let me help you overcome that difficulty hump so you can focus on what truly matters - dissecting demons!
Nioh 3 is So Close to Being a Masterpiece – 35-Hour Review
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Nioh 3 is without a doubt one of the best Souls-like games I've ever played. It can stand tall and proud next to even giants like Elden Ring, and I don't say that lightly.
But, that greatness does come at a cost - some of it expected, and some of it just kind of... weird. Let me show you what I mean, and don't worry - I'll keep the spoilers to a minimum. The stuff you'll see will be from the first chapter only.
13 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting Mount & Blade 2 in 2026 | Beginner's Guide
- By Ash
- in Tips and Guides
After forty hours of epic battles and embarrassing failures, I realized that Mount & Blade 2 is an awesome game that simply doesn't teach you how to have fun with it. So with this guide I'd like to help you skip past the learning curve and get to the good stuff.
1) What Do I Do?
Your first order of business after finishing the tutorial should be to gain reputation. Once you have enough you'll be able to pledge yourself as a mercenary to one of the kingdoms, and that's where the real game begins. At that point you can tag along with their armies, fight massive siege battles, and eventually even become one of the nobles.
So how do you do that? Fight bandits, do tournaments in big cities, and solve any quests that don't sound like a pain in the ass. It really is that simple.
Against the Storm - The Best Strategy Game You're Still Not Playing (2026 Review)
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Usually city-builders want you to kick back, chillax, and just watch the taxes roll in. But not Against the Storm. It wants you to suffer... which is an insane way to sell a game to someone. I mean, the trees want to strangle you and your boss is a phoenix god who will fire you - and I have to emphasize the fire - if morale drops too low. So why did I spend over fifty hours with it these past two weeks? Well, as I found out, there is a surprisingly addictive pleasure to be found in the pain.
When you don't even know what buildings and tools you'll be able to use in each mission, something weird happens with your brain. You stop thinking about creating a mathematically optimal beaver labor camp and just start working miracles with whatever garbage you have on hand. And then, five hours later, you'll finally wake up from your trance and realize it's 3 in the morning and you have to get up for work soon.