I'm not going to lie. There is a part of me that wants to watch Francis play a dating sim and optimize it.

@nerdygamer11

Жыл бұрын

I mean, I’m not going to hold my breath, but with the first of April right around the corner, I can’t help but feel that would be a great short little gag-video.

@larsruberti3315

Жыл бұрын

I was thinking the exact same. However, simply the notion of a dating sim makes me cringe

@AlthaeaMedea

Жыл бұрын

"Hello, and welcome back to Hatoful Boyfriend!" LMAO!

@TamiVelduraAuthor

Жыл бұрын

I propose Boyfriend Dungeon which is currently on sale XD

@Plasmafox

Жыл бұрын

IDK about "dating sim" but Long Live The Queen is surprisingly strategic.

It's insane that Song Of Syx is made by one person. He adds so much content so quickly. I played 6-12 months ago and I already see a ton of new stuff.

@pedrolmlkzk

Жыл бұрын

I have the same sentiment

@grayavatar9766

Жыл бұрын

It makes me wonder what full time workers at gaming companies are doing all day.

@lorenzocabrera6276

11 ай бұрын

@@grayavatar9766 meetings, a lot of meetings

It's funny to see him so happy about the various quality of life stuff in the game. The trauma from Dwarf Fortress was serious.

@larsruberti3315

Жыл бұрын

I've played df, You really don't know what you've got untill it's gone. It was hard trauma indeed, but it made me appreciate the things that matter.

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

In syx their is an option in the menu to mute the game when it's not in focus (alt tabbed to read the wiki lets say) you would be surprised how many games don't have this feature.

Francis, you can cut out tiles inside the building to strengthen the roof, just like real-life pillars in buildings.

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

I know you can put the pillars in but I'm trying to come up with a standard I can replicate. I want all the buildings to be 9 by X so I can fit them in strips. Might not work but I always like to be trying to come up with a standard that makes future planning easier.

Absolutely loved your mini tutorial on steam filtering! This is the stuff other channels don't even think of showing, and here we get relatable heartwarming commentaries from normal guy with same problems!

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

Well in Fairness I was trying to justify how I ended up on Songs of syx. I mean considering the games it shares "space" with there has to be something to it.

Love me some Songs Of syx :) ALways makes me happy to see more and creators playing this game :)

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

Seriously this has so many of the things you want in a colony sim, the whole building up from nothing until you are eventually a huge city. It also has an option to mute the game when you are alt-tabbed that is such a QoL feature. The person who made this knew what they were doing.

@HanniballNOR

Жыл бұрын

@@FrancisJohnYT Yeah :) And there is so much more in the pipeline for the game. It is one of this hidden gems. also reading the game dev log on the discord server is hilarious :)

Nice. I've been meaning to check this one out. Also, The Wandering Village. Has me really curious as well 🙂

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

I have seen a fair bit of The Wandering Village and it has me curious, the climate changing as you move incentivizes adaption which is a nice twist.

Love that you touched on this, development of Syx has been slow but man it is insanely addicting for me. I played 47 hours the week I bought it and had to pull myself away from it for new updates and It just got a new update and the only thing keeping me from playing it is being able to vicariously play it through you. Also, another suggestion. Cogmind.

Id really wanted to see gameplay of Songs of Syx, but i couldnt find a youtuber i liked too much. Glad youre trying it out!

Really interested in seeing more of this from you, looks rather interesting!

There is always something so nostalgic about graphics like these.

Excluding "Dating sim" tag you may by accident skip some really fun games, like "Dark Souls" =D Not 100% sure about current tags for Dark Souls, but "Dating sim" was there in the past and that was hilarious.

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

I'm trying to imagine the dating reviews. I died, would die again. I died, would die again. I died, would die again.

@RFC-3514

Жыл бұрын

To unlock the MILF, you must praise the son.

Nice to see Songs of Syx getting some love!

#1 Rule of Francis John: It must have a title I can mispronounce. Hmm.... 3 letters, s-y-x... STICKS! SONG OF STICKS!! Perfect for the channel. :D :D :D Having said that, the entire Creeper World family is amazing and is done by a single guy who loves making games. You'd enjoy them, but they're a bit easy for the channel. I mean, I mastered them, which means you'd demolish them while learning to play them. OpenTTD did come out in the 1990s as TTD. When the company went under, the public got into and remade it as a free-to-play game and has been alive and thriving ever since. It came to Steam for better distribution, but it's always been free to download. Again, like with Creeper World, I don't see you doing it for this channel. It's VERY VERY deep, but it's kinda like simplified Factorio, which didn't seem to do well here, either.

love this game, just gets deeper and deeper the more you play

5:40 Elven cannibals exist in "Divinity Original Sin" sort of, they can eat parts of corpses to see visions of the victims past and thoughts, in the tutorial if you play as an elf you can eat a leg to learn how a murdered guard died, but since you're a slave on a ship it leads to...hostility from the guard investigating it, later it can give you hints for puzzles or straight up give you vital information of where to find something you're looking for.

@VoresD

Жыл бұрын

Pretty sure in DF lore elves eat other sentient races they kill in battle and are also okay with other elves. I think Songs of Syx decided to pick same lore as a nod to DF

@Nukestarmaster

Жыл бұрын

Also, Bosmer from Elder Scrolls.

Oh my god. Supreme commander. So fun to play! Still can't believe that its community still alive

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

Still getting patches from the community last I checked. No other game has come close to the gameplay it provides. I still watch the odd Gyle cast.

This game actually had me on the visuals. The art is very reminiscent of earlier PC games, and I've always enjoyed this kind of "impressionist" style of pixel art, where objects have just enough detail to be distinct and identifiable, and when done well your brain tends to read the "noise" as being more detailed than it really is. I prefer the more personal Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, but this looks like a very deep civilization builder so far. I'm looking forward to you taking a further poke at it.

Really excited to see you dig into this hidden gem. This is a fascinating ant colony of a game, the scale of it never ceases to amaze me.

6 minutes in and all I can think of is "this looks like Dominion but with diplomacy" and I am very much sold thank you for bringing this to my attention

Oh, I played this game a few patches ago. Looks like there's been a lot of things added. I might pick it up again. Great video as always, Francis! Hope this becomes a series.

Just this fan's opinion, but I'll basically watch you play anything. You always have a wonderfully insightful and unique view into games and breaking them, and presenting highly entertaining scenarios.

I find this game has a very nice charm to it, seeing your stockpiles fill with iron ore, coal and then carried to the furnace and transfered to your massive iron piles. The amount of content in this game is beyond insane for example; races enjoy specific shapes to their structures, as well as specific foods that are useless to other races. Each race has unique home items, and they fill their homes with these things as well. I've never even made it to a population higher than 2000 after a couple hundred hours, and I never lose to being raided I always lose to overcrowding or building poorly. City design is crucial as time is very valuable early on. I often design my cities with a single wide road that allows for building statues and walls on and around. Always leave space for building decorations since they can be crucial especially torches.

Looks like a fun game to watch you play!

4:10 Against the storm -> this MUST be played on your channel. It is a must

@papric9553

Жыл бұрын

its great game, but im not sure if roguelite + deck builder hybrid would fit the channel :D

@asureaskie

Жыл бұрын

​@@papric9553Roguelite Colony Builder. There isn't really a "deck builder" component. :) That said, any colony builder would work here, I suspect.

This looks like a really interesting game. I'm looking forward to ep 2!

I was looking at this game a few months back, glad you are giving it a go here. Might pick it up myself soon.

i remember when i first saw this game the graphics were kind of a turn off but now i’m literally obsessed with how good you can make cities look at all stages of the game

Against the storm is soo addicting. If you get time try it once

@theral056

Жыл бұрын

There's no "trying it once" with that game. I couldn't let go of it until I beat the highest prestige level when I started, that's how addicting it was to me. Currently enjoying a small break until the new race is in :)

@All_Night

Жыл бұрын

Try it once. hahah. There isn't a try it once with Against the Storm.

Love this! Exited to see how you use the canibalism thing :)

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

Turns out not well, maybe we have to pick more fights.

Seems like some interesting potential for this game. Looking forward to more episodes!

Looks like a good mix of activity and detail, along with a much more playable interface!

I’m glad you showed me how to find better games on steam. I mean normally I just play whatever you’re playing, but every once in awhile our schedules don’t line up and I have to find my own.

Yay! I love this game. glad you picked it up

Great pick, love you walking through why you picked SoS too.

You know you’ve played too much Rimworld when you say “Ooh! Opium!”

I still think Terra Invicta would be a solid choice for this channel... Maybe not a repeat game, but the amount of thought that goes into each choice and the fact that those choices will effect you years later, make me think you will fall in love.

@LeCheckmate

Жыл бұрын

You can either make good, meaningful decisions. Or you can lock the baddies out of the inner solar system with Dreadnought that are as immortal as they are immobile.

@colebehnke7767

Жыл бұрын

Terra Invicta is a mess of a game. It was trying to be so many things that it forgot that it needed to be fun.

@ahmataevo

Жыл бұрын

Terra Invicta definitely has a number of problems as a game. One is that the other human AI controlled factions are far more interested in fighting the player than they ever are in pursuing their own goals. By late-game if you haven't conquered the whole earth early, then most regions you haven't taken are hard-locked by AI actions in never-ending coups, permanent unrest and permanently ruined economy that no amount of exploits can fix. It's a really big problem on the higher difficulty levels.

@LeCheckmate

Жыл бұрын

@@ahmataevo Did you forget to do diplomacy?

@ahmataevo

Жыл бұрын

@@LeCheckmate - That far in no amount of diplomacy will work. Even if I did non-aggression pacts they'd be broken when taking all the remaining countries and I'll be at war with them at the same point anyway. Without non-aggression they all drift into war status with me and the cost to raise relations is insane, and they'll still be trying to decrease my faction option, raising unrest and starting coups. In fact, they're all constantly running coups on each other in the remaining nations.

Well well well, another game I really love! I predict it won't be a stayer on the channel (it doesn't make for great content on youtube), but it's a nice game to relax to :)

This reminds me of Banished, which I've spent many hours on! Not empire scale, but I love the resource and colony managment

Actually, cannibal elves is a more common trope than one might think. The elves of Dwarf Fortress and wood elves of the Elder Scrolls are both cannibalistic, for instance.

Take a look at Rise To Ruins. City builder with attacks at night. Some tower-defense strategy works well, but supply management, people management, and the occasional fireball are key. You're given a world to work on with individual maps that you can progress independently, but progression follows you map to map. Also if you don't raise/bury your dead quickly enough they might haunt your village.

@ Francis John: Ahhh, I see you've picked another gem of the time-eating genre... I've taken the demo rather far, but I was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer numbers at some point. If you're looking for games to try out, I can also recommend "Going Medieval" - it's still in early access, but they're eager beavers working on it. It's roughly going down the RW lane with raids and all, but it does have its own flair, and multi-level building. Another interesting one is "Sapiens" - still a very young game, but the developer is also adding new content bit by bit, and has quite ambitious goals. It's roughly akin to "Dawn of Man" with somewhat more... I have no better words for it, "bling"? "joy of discovery"? "constructive mechanics?"

Door Kickers 1 is an excellent game, I've only played Door Kickers 2 in an early state so it wasn't all that updated with less features than in 1, but the graphics were bumped up. Another game giving an homage to DK1 is "No Plan B" which does the same things only differently, some better, some worse. Basically you have your soldiers that you send on missions, you place them at starting positions and drag commands all over the place telling them where to go, where to stop where to focus their field of view, when to deploy grenades etc. Then you press execute and they hopefully win, survive, and complete every objective for the map earning you three stars you can spend on upgrading/unlocking equipment, weapons and body armour, and they also earn xp making them faster, more agile and better shots. It's fun but can be infuriatingly hard since according to Murphy's laws of warfare a plan only holds until contact with the enemy. Another game I noticed on your results was "Shadow Tactics" which is "Commandos" or "Desperados" in a feudal Japan setting, it's pretty linear in terms of how to complete it just like the "Commandos" games were, not to mention story-driven and while fun definitely not similar to other games you've played.

Remind me when I finally finish my magnum opus strategy game to hire Francis to do the PR for it.

i bought this game a while back and couldnt be bothered in learning it, im excited to learn it through you

Just a suggestion but maybe Captain of Industry could be of interest. It's early access but quite deep. I love it ;)

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

It came up seven games below Songs of Syx. But I think the real contenders are Against the storm, Timber and Captain. The rest might not fit the channel. Against the storm Cosometeer starship architect and commander The Battle of Polytopia Timberborn Raft Barotrauma Captain of Industry

@jerome8124

Жыл бұрын

@@FrancisJohnYT Two Thumbs up for Raft and Timberborn!

the pawns building is pretty smart , they waited until every resource available and put the resource in the middle then start building

This game seems really good 👍👍

"Dating sims and visual novels don't really seem like fit with the theme of the channel" Hey, you never know. You should totally do an episode and see how well it performs

You should make more polls for new series, I would love to see you play Mindustry or AOE2

This game looks very interesting. I don't mind the art style at all and it looks like it has a ton of fun mechanics. Looking forward to the full playthrough.

This looks really promising!

Dude you're so fun to watch, and so good at the games you play, I'd watch you play Clash of Clans lmao

This is like a more user friendly Dwarf fortress.

There's an argument for elves to be cannibals, it all depends how much their settings make them worship trees and plant

Oh that fast forward looks legit. So many games have a fast setting and there's no need to play on the normal speed. This one looks like you could press it and find put I'd your colony is sustainable in like 5 minutes

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

It's such a nice QoL feature, if you leave that speed on for to long the game would pass you by.

4:25 Idk if I'm overthinking that but Krull's Revenge might be Easter Egg to Krell from Warhammer Fantasy, he was barbarian warlord and champion of Khorne. Digging too deep is obvious reference:)

I am looking forward to how this one goes, I hate to think what effects your cannibals will have on the rest of the world though...

ok, this game seems a lot more interesting and intuitive, i love the wiki built in, i wonder why :D anyway the steam tutorial was a real good touch, kinda curious on seeing you playing dating simulators tho XD

Elves can be cannibals. It's actually a thing in the Divinity games. At least Original Sin 2, which is the only one I played.

I don't think the graphics are ugly at all. If anything, I prefer them over Rimworld's default graphics. They're "pixely", sure, but the perspective is consistent (top-down, no mixing of top-down / sideways / random in-between angles), and the light effects seem really good (both the glows and the projected shadows). The menus' graphical style is a bit inconsistent, but they seem functional (which, again, is more than I would say about Rimworld without mods). Overall, the thing that annoys me the most is the mix of different fonts. Pick one, or two at most, and stick to those.

Dear sir: There is no T in the work Syx. Signed, Annoyed Pedants

Looking forward to seeing you explore this game, looks like a good mix of Banished & Rimworld

oh sweet summer child to keep it short. yes the tree hugger elves are actually quite often cannibals. nothing goes to waste. not the meat, the bones the hair or sinews

In The Elder Scrolls series wood elves are cannibals :) in their homeland harming plants is actually strictly forbidden, so wood needs to be brought in from outside provinces, and they only eat meat. Even their alcohol is fermented animal products!

+1 for against the storm, its really enjoyable.

This looks pretty cool.

Against the storm is sweet! You should definitely try it!

I really did like the original Desperados, that's come to Steam recently I believe. I would hesitate to recommend the series for the channel unless you were looking to branch further out, however, just based on my experience with that one game.

"doesn't really fit with the channel": wholesome checks out 🤣

Delightful! While visually granular, it also has an odd beauty. I hope this continues. I'd be down for a mini-series of _Warsim_ . (likewise _Door Kickers 2_ but it changes the way you'll consider every building you'll ever walk into again...) I think you'd find _Against the Storm_ too easy too quickly and ultimately repetitive, but as always, ymmv.

5:33 I seem to recall something about the bosmer from the Elder Scrolls series getting into the old long pig delicacy, maybe it's a reference to that?

@r3dp9

Жыл бұрын

5:40 Bosmer. Forest dwelling cannibal elves. Elder Scrolls series (morrowind, skyrim, etc.) Their name means "forest people" their own language.

This is one of those games ive been looking at and thought it was too massive for my peabrain to grasp.

This is also nice. Played it some time ago...

I dunno, I think I’d love to see Francis John play *I Love You, Kernel Sanders’ The visual novel where you date Kernel Sanders, the creator of Kentucky Fried Chicken

I like Against the Storm, recommend it highly, but I don't think it's suited to the channel. It's too repetitive. I think it's a great game for viewers of this channel, but other than a one off episode looking at the mechanics of it there's no way to really build a story out of it. The gameplay loop is 90 minutes of city building, get some upgrades, then start over. Every 5 or 6 cities the map gets wiped clean. It is a very well made game, and I've gotten about 90 very satisfying hours out of it.

When you finish with Songs of Syx, Against the Storm is definitely worth a look. "Roguelite Colony Builder" shouldn't work, but holy smokes does it ever! Sunk way too many hours into it, and when I'm just staring at the Steam library going, "I don't want to play anything," ATS just sucks me right in past my apathy and eats a few hours of my time.

I think Francis John would love to try Cosmoteer.

I don't know if you have looked at it, but Amazing Cultivation Simulator, starts as Chinese RimWorld, and then becomes crazy, though DBZ style staring at someone raising their power level for a while is a rather constant part of the game.

Oh, ive been waiting for someone to tackle this

They should have given you a free copy, this is not the first time I get interested in something you start playing and buy a copy for myself.

I can always point towards Amazing Cultivation Simulator, but... a big ass butt, that game is brutal, one mistake and you die from some of the most insane things possible. Or if Randy just hates you, thats what it feels like at times especially vs the god level boss threats, even with preparation. Song of Syx though definitely looks like a solid choice.

@Latronibus

Жыл бұрын

ACS is frustrating because there is this massive learning curve of stuff that isn't even in the plural hours of tutorials (stuff like what items you need and how to get them). That would be fine except that you need to learn a *lot* of that stuff before you get into any of the nuanced decisions of the game. It's also just really bad content IMO because the vast majority of the time you spend unpaused, nothing is really happening. A warp speed like in Songs of Syx wouldn't even really help (at least in the unmodded game) because you get interrupted to make repetitive adjustments too often for such a button to be safe.

oooh looks fun

Against the Storm is a lot of fun :) City building roguelite. Also, perhaps you could take a look at Lords and Villeins?

That game looks awesome.

I would seriously pay to watch you play a dating Sim. It would be hilarious.

Oh shit! Songs of Syx play by Francis!

Stranded: Alien Dawn might be worth a look. It is unabashedly a 3D Rimworld, right down to the "ate without table" debuff. No factions and only combat with bugs though (but I think the devs said they're coming) It's in early access and has been getting regular updates, the last one introduced animal husbandry.

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

I did look at Stranded: Alien Dawn but what I heard was very non committal. Effectively it was a much more shallow version of Rimworld but with better graphics and a waves system.

Love this game so far!

OOoh, this will be interesting! Wow, saying "wholesome" doesn't fit the channel, when we've had colonies supported by a mysterious pillar beaming psychic love into everyone nearby. I'm surprised Lords of the Realm II ranks so highly on steam! That game was unfairly abandoned and forgotten for so long, even though it's a gem. Let's start digging!

@r3dp9

Жыл бұрын

There's pragmatic, and then there's depraved. This channel has standards! The Emily thing doesn't count.

All for looking into new games: I will say I think Against the storm is a fantastic game but that Francis would perhaps find it too easy in its current format but it's still in EA. I was thinking that perhaps something like Battle Brothers might be a good one.

So while I agree that songs of syx is a better fit for your channel, against the storm is so so soooooooooo good.

There is also Wayward if you like to run away from a wolf by blocking yourself up with pre-made wooden wall and then die from exhaustion because you try to dig water for too long(while been dehydrated and being unable to sleep because the wolf behind the wall wakes you)

I sank 100 hours into against the storm, and it updates pretty frequently. It has aggressive difficulty scaling as you win too which i feel like you would like a lot. Also, its not really the usual style game you play but Hitman has a roguelike mode which is always hilarious to watch

Interesting to see your process for finding games. It was a digression, but not unwelcome at all. I'd tick "hide items in my library" since you've already played so many on the list!

The better a game like this one looks, the more shallow it gets, the more shittier it gets. A computer can handle a deep and convoluted simulation. A computer CANNOT handle making a deep and convoluted simulation simultaneously look good. Thus, the fact this game does not look pretty is not remarkable in any way, shape, or form; as in; it is not worth remarking about. Just play, and have fun doing it. We aren't here for the game, we are here for you. If you are having fun, we are having fun. It like I always say, enthusiasm is infectious. So you just be you, and have fun being you. As long as you do that you don't have to worry about us at all.

you should definitely do a series on warhammer 40k dawn of war (preferably dark crusade, i think its the most fitting for the channel) theyre such brilliant games

5:38 depends on which fantasy setting. Elder Scrolls Wood elves pretty much fit this description. They live in and worship trees, are the deadliest archers and don't mind cannibalism. They'd rather eat each other than harm trees.

Perhaps Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic is what you're looking for. It's a cross of Factorio and Cities: Skylines, focused on optimization and deep mechanics. And it's got 3D graphics.

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

Captain of Industry looks to be a slightly better received version of the same type of game. It came up on that steam list after Against the storm and Timberborn.

You can also put a wall in the middle of the room to get rid of the yellow if you find you need a room wider than 9.

@FrancisJohnYT

Жыл бұрын

Have played with that, you can put pillars every 4 tiles to support the roof. I just found I could not use the 4 tile gap efficiently so I just went with slimmer buildings I can copy paste.

@jemsterr

Жыл бұрын

@@FrancisJohnYT I saw I got a like on it and was going to reply that you'd done it once in the temple. Then I saw your reply and realised it was you. That strategy makes sense.