Neongarten Steam Charts & Stats

I'll look this game back up in six months because I really like the premise but it should not have been released in its current state. Its currently a challenge to get a specific build running but overall I just HATE how it gives you a score at the end of day 50 which is completely meaningless. There are no leaderboards and you cant even continue after day 50 with ever increasing tax targets. Plus only having three levels is just rubbish and there are so few buildings per "faction" that its just not great. I've put 4 hours into this game but in that time I've beat each of the levels twice and unlocked a bunch of building but it still just feels bad. If I could refund this game I would. I bought this game on sale for £5.50 (about $8) and even at that price its not worth it as you'll be lucky to get 10 hours out of this game at the max.

Fun music and inoffensive art A puzzle builder somewhat like Islanders, where you play for points and carefully consider placement to get adjacency and orientation bonuses. Got addicting for a bit.

A fun little roguelite puzzler. Even when you fall short, you end up with a pretty little block, which is part of the fun. The Black ICE mods add additional challenges, frequently upending your usual strategies. Each run isn't too terribly long, so it's nice little timewaster when you are between bigger things. Loved it from the Prologue version and the full version delivers. Fair warning, the Government buildings are really odd and require a lot of thinking about how you want to pull them off, as they have odd effects...but some of them add up to a lot of power.

Very fun game that is surprisingly addicting. Fun to play a round or two during break sessions.

I'm putting this down as Not Recommended off the back of it being marketed as a strategy puzzle game. On that basis, it is on the same level as a slot machine. To summarize, if you enjoy slot machines and numbers, this is a game for you, have fun, but if you are looking for a logistics based space management organization game, this is a big miss, and will mostly aggravate you more than anything. In more detail, here's what's good: - The game looks great; the neons are pretty and the colors pop. More than a few times I've switched to photo mode to take screenshots of my mini-Kowloon. The way the numbers and increasingly large coins pop out is fun and feels like a slot machine payout animation. Not quite on the level of Balatro's ramping, but good non the less. - The different "factions" present interesting options, and the game presents quite a few spatial decisions that can be implemented to create some pretty satisfying builds and payouts. - There's a lot of potential here; the bones are good, and with a bit of content patching and adjustments, this could be a really satisfying puzzle game. Unfortunately, it crashes hard because of a few major downsides: - Far Too Random; this is the big one. Since you have no direct control over the buildings you get, it's very hard to implement any kind of strategy, planned or adapted. The game can simply choose to never give you a specific building, or give you far too many of another building, limiting what you are able to do. You might get a few Volt buildings early on, which have stacking benefits the more you place in a chain, so you reason "This is a Volt Run, alright" and then never get another Volt building for the next 60 turns. To be fair, this isn't a massive setback for beating each level, the game is pretty lenient on score requirements just to pass any difficulty, but the achievements, which are the games only real "end game" have ludicrous asks for how random the game is. - Inconsistent strength of "factions"; once you really dig in, you find that some of the factions, like Volt, are far too strong compared to some other ones, both in how forgiving their placement is and how few restrictions you have on their placement. This leads to scenarios where even if you're trying for another goal, placing Volt buildings for bonuses is just a no-brainer for progression. - Unappealing Challenges; this is the most subjective of my criticisms, but the additional challenges you can apply feel lacking in two major ways. The first is that, while they put a restriction on you, adapting them just requires good draws, and failing at them largely come down to drawing poorly, something you can't control; this means that when you lose to them, it's not because you need better planning, you need better luck. The second is that there's no benefit to them, no score multiplier or further unlocks or even cosmetic effects you gain, they only exist to make the game more complicated, which in this case means more reliant on dice. As I said before, if you aren't interested in the deeper strategy elements and just want to see payouts go brrr, this very much might be a game for you. I've had fun most of my 16 hours, but very little of that has been from strategy and planning and has mostly been from getting an incredibly strong early draw (Organ Harvesters) early on and being able to simply stack bonuses on two buildings to delete any tax requirements the game has, and even then I've only gotten a little over 50,000,000 of the games required 1,000,000,000 for its highest score achievement. If you are looking specifically for deep strategy and planning, I'd pass on this one until there are some mitigating balance patches that better implement that side of gameplay, which is completely doable and I really would keep an eye on this title if you are interested in that.

There's not too much to say about Neongarten other than it's a really fun and super chill city building puzzler, and one that is criminally underrated and deserves WAY more attention! It's the perfect game you can just jump into for a good half hour to an hour and see how dosh you can make from your cyberpunk megabuildings. It can be a tricky game to start out with, as getting those really good combos and set ups is tough, but as you learn how everything synergises together, the more money you make and the more buildings and perks with increasingly powerful properties get unlocked. Eventually when you manage to create some of the most insanely powerful set ups, you will basically never lose and becomes more about achieving the highest score possible and working towards those achievements within the 65 turns the game allots you, and honestly I think that's perfect for a game like this. It really is a ton of fun and super chill, with a great soundtrack, lovely visual style and is perfect for that short pick up and play session. However I would love to see more ways to play, like an endless mode and watch as people create some insane buildings that goes up insanely high into the sky and with crazy synergies, or perhaps new building shapes to contend with that's not the usual stack, cube and stiletto setups, or perhaps some more achievements for players to obtain. I suppose sometimes the game has the occasional hitch and stutter the further into a session you get, but if the vast majority of my critiques is "I wish there was more to enjoy" while still having plenty of hours of fun to offer, then you know it's a total banger already. I would gladly pay for an expansion or two that adds tons of new buildings and ways to play as well, the game really is that much fun. However there is one big caveat that can be a positive or a negative depending on your own taste; just keep in mind the game is quite heavily dependant on RNG. Each turn you get a selection of 3 buildings, and all of those may not be what you want for that current turn. Luckily though the game does give you plenty of control over that RNG, thanks to being able to reroll your selection and even able to use hacks to save certain buildings for future turns or perhaps turn one building into another random one of the same rarity. On top of that, you have plenty of perks and buildings that can give you more rerolls and hacks to give you the edge later in a run. It's still RNG, but there's a lot you can get to help alleviate it and use it in your favour when you have the means. So yeah, if you're looking for a really chill casual game that can evolve into something with tons of depth and can sink plenty of time into, then Neongarten is a fantastic time and absolutely worth the full asking price.