Fate Tectonics

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Fun visuals and a good difficulty curve. Starts out simple but gradually becomes frantic as your world grows and you have to juggle the demands of more gods.

Its simple yet nice. The music is really nice and changes as you do things. It's kind of like tetris in that you're trying to make the pieces fit with those around you, and all the fates are unique in terms of their rules.

This is a game you play to see where Dorfromantik came from; the core game play loop is the same, but Dorfromantik have basically refined out all this game's poor parts, chief among them the unwelcome time pressure. The time pressure comes in two forms. First in that you can circumvent the stability mechanic if you're quick at tossing down tiles in the right places, be it by multiple tiles shoring up each other, or some stabilizing special tile like a town or a fleet added on to the instability you first created. Second in that the game ends when your time runs out, and you get bonus time for gameplay achievements. Both are frustrating if you're below average in mouse speed and accuracy. You feel like you are playing to win against an opponent that is invincible and will never yield except to taunt you. When really, this is a single player game of creation with no ultimate goal. The game burries its best aspect, and burries it deep.

The game throws many things at you at the same time, the aesthetic and UI are not suited to getting an overview, many aspects of the game are cryptic, or seems important when they really are not, and in general is poorly cobbled together in terms of gameplay mechanics and their introduction (or lack there of).

Unless you're studying the lineage of game genres, I'd give this one a skip.

Well, there`s no point in playing this game. I mean, it does well enough without the player. Not like Majesty, for example, where you don`t have the direct control but you are presented with a set of challenges every time. Nothing happens (except for the plague lord, wich can be ignored completely). I think, the point of such games is that the environment you build starts to work in different ways depending on how you construct the world. Take Loop Hero, for example, where natural tiles are just a small fragment of the gameplay, but they work together. Here everything will be peaceful unless you press some buttons. The map can even expand by itself after you build a couple of cities. It plays more like a screensaver than like a game.
The vusual style is awkward and somehow uncomfortable, looks like a pixelated office time-killer from the 2000s. The music has some interesting decisions but the only track in the game starts to get on your nerves pretty quick. It evolves with the map and additional shrines, so that`s a nice touch, I guess.
Overall, this game is just uninteresting to play.

A calming and relaxing building strategy game. The added tutorial is helpful in understanding the basic mechanics of the game. As others have mentioned, though, in normal game mode the fates floating around can be distracting and cost you some seconds during the timed mission. The game does offer a sandbox mode, however, where you can comfortably make your own world at your own pace and not have to worry about time or angering each fate. For the price, Fate Tectonics is worth it as a fun, casual experience.

Fun world building game. Could definitely use a bit more focus and direction, but the core gameplay is a lot of fun. Plus, the additive soundtrack is outsandingly done!

Fate Tectonics is a beautiful game with a great core gameplay loop of generating partially random tiles and trying to stitch them together in some stable manner in order to please the pantheon of gods that allows you to build this world. Failing to appease the gods will cause them to throw tantrums, creating pollution, plagues, earthquakes, floods, and general strife, which often displeases other gods creating a raucous and hilarious chain reaction that destroys the planet.

And with how much I love Fate Tectonics, I am sad to say that it is also not very good.

The main reason being a simple design decision that undermines the game entirely. Any tile that is generated can be thrown into the void to no affect, removing any real tension to drawing less ideal tiles. And that is aside the game's generally cryptic nature. It seems to me nearly an exploit that permitted me to summon the final god to the world.

One of the most well done retro games I've played, as it captures the SNES spirit well and does it better. I was looking for a casual game on Steam, as it is also unusually rare to find a good one. Fate Tectonics is a little more hands-on than I would have though, as sometimes you have to be quick to make certain tile combinations work. But it's still a fantastic, usually slow-paced game that you can just relax to. The music is brilliant 16-bit style.

Fate Tectonics is perfect for me, and so I'll try not t hype it too much. But for a semi-organic strategy game with a perfect retro asthetic? There's nothing else like this I've seen.

I will say, I think it could use some bug fixes. There seems to be a memory leak, or there was in the Serenity mode map I played. Everything slowed down. I also thought the time before tiles fall could be scaled down a bit, because I find myself really racing to fix them. Hotkeys are another thing. They're bound to 1-9... for a strategy game I'd rather have my action buttons on qwerasdfzxcv and put the camera on the arrow keys or mouse panning. Poor hotkeys make the game a little more difficult than it has to be.

If you like interesting puzzle games involving hexagon tiles, biomes, and angry gods, this is for you. A little bit buggy as the developers ran out of money, as this game was a financial flop (to my enormous dismay). Seriously, you won't find another game like this.

Forever unfinished, buggy, cryptic, and not worth buying (even at $1). The developers have abandoned the game even though it needs more work. I really wish I could reccomend it, but I can't.

I bought this game ages ago on the hope that it would be finished soon and to this day, nothing has changed. There are numerous bugs that carry across playthroughs that can force you to restart everything. The game's mechanics and goal aren't explained very well, and the "fates" are unbalanced and needlessly cryptic on thier various functions.

You're supposed to appease the fates by building tiles they like, but half of them will get angry anyways even if you make nothing but their favorite tiles. Sometimes they will get permanantly enraged and will either constantly destroy things or bob around in some kind of rage coma, never to destroy anything ever again.

The core gameplay is just drawing random tiles out of an imaginary bag and trying to place them intelligently. There is no real way to do this without just throwing away tiles by placing them by nothing which doesn't feel like something you should be doing, it feels like cheating, theres no downside to throwing away 1000's of tiles to get the one you want. It feels cheap considering placing a tile that doesn't match up on a side usually causes the whole area to collapse into the void.

Making it to the end only gets you a couple of abilities that don't really help you. Nothing is explained and it's hard to tell if something is a bug or feature. This game hasn't been worked on forever and the developers seem to have moved on, despite plenty of bugs still existing and many mechanics either underused or flat out unexplained.

Spend your money elsewhere, it's not worth it here.

This was interesting and neat, viewed through the lens of this being a beta/early access sort of game.

The last update was over a year ago, though, so I have to believe that this is intended to stand on its own as a full game, and it just doesn't have enough content or polish to do so.

The game badly needs another pass through of the basic mechanics, another game mode or two, some tutorials (I remember being told by a dev that tutorials were coming soon, obviously that is not the case)

The God Game genre, with games such as Populous, Spore, Black & White and Reus, has very few titles, even with the strong indie scene. Fate Tectonics, developed by Golden Gear Games, is a pleasant surprise. Joining the typical freedom of the God Games with some puzzle elements, it manages to surprise and entertain with a simple concept.

The player must fit several tectonic plates in order to enlarge the world of the game. Each type of board is provided by a different god (called "Fate" in the game), and there are those that have perfect fit, others that fit but are somewhat misshapen and also those that do not fit properly and can fall apart. Everything works not necessarily like a puzzle, as it is possible to use unusual combinations and even save a piece that does not fit naturally when adding new elements in the scenery, such as houses, boats, mountains, among others, that serve as glue for the pieces.

There are three modes: a campaign mode, where apart from construction, destruction is also part of the process and both alternate with each other; A free mode that is more relaxing and gives total freedom for the player to build or destroy at any time; And a creative mode where it is possible to manipulate even the rules of the game, but without the possibility of unlocking achievements. All modes are fun in their own way, and both players who prefer a gameplay with predetermined goals and fans of total freedom will have fun.

As a negative, I point out the lack of variety in the songs and the price charged. Although the soundtrack contains 19 tracks, many of them are just the same song with small variations, not to mention that they are not remarkable and have a rather sad tone, which contrasts with the cheerful mood of the game. Fortunately, you can turn off the music and play only with sound effects or with your playlist, which greatly improves the experience. The price charged does not match the amount of content offered. Do not misunderstand me, as this is a very fun game, but also very simple, and in a few hours you can see all that it has to offer after unlocking all the gods and fulfilling all the objectives in the campaign mode. The good thing is that Fate Tectonics is constantly on sale, with discounts between 75% and 90% off, which makes it a great buy.

If you are looking for a God Game style game that is minimalist, fun and great for fast gaming, Fate Tectonics has everything to please you, especially if it's purchased on sale. It brings an interesting concept in a rarely explored genre. Just be sure to play with your own playlist for a more enjoyable experience.

Pros:
* Easy to pick up and play
* Great to play fast matches
* Three distinct modes to please everyone

Cons:
* Too little variation on the soundtrack, with sad tunes
* High price for the content

A potentially interesting and fun game ruined by one stupid decision. This feels like a fun mix of strategy god-game and tile-matching puzzle game, and can be a lot of fun once you really get into a groove and start building out your world more quickly, while trying to balance the desires of each of the various Fates. However, I had to stop playing it just as I started to get into the mechanics, for one reason. The developers decided to have each of the summoned Fates constantly flying around on-screen. While this is kind of nice visually, it absolutely ruins the game for me. The Fates are quite large on-screen, and every time you do anything that one of them likes or dislikes, they fly over and hover on top of the area where you placed that tile, effectively stopping you from seeing what you are doing for a second or sometimes a few seconds. This is mildly annoying on its own, but is infuriating once you start placing tiles that want to crumble if you don't quickly place additional ones or towns to stop them from doing so. I can place a tile, and grab another to solidify the area, but while trying to quickly rotate it to fit into place, I can't see what I'm doing because one or more of the Fates decides to block my view. And this is only compounded by the fact that the whole point of the game is leveling up and being able to summon more of these Fates with different powers. More Fates to then permanantly fly around and hog your screen realestate. It honestly reminds me of playing multiplayer Warioware on the Gamecube, where players that have been eliminated can then move their character around on-screen to try and block your view of the game. Except in that game, it was MEANT to be irritating. Bad games suck, but what's infinitely worse is seeing a potentially really good and interesting game ruined by one stupid decision like this. For now, I'd say pass. I hope the devs add more options, like disabling the animated Fates and simply moving them to a stationary HUD element. The game would be far far more enjoyable and playable.

An interesting hybrid of puzzle and god game, Fate Tectonics stands on its own as a unique and entertaining experience. Though admittedly light on the usual god game mechanics that you would find in a more simulation-oriented game, the immersive and engaging theme absolutely makes you feel like a powerful deity.

The premise of the game is that you are the creator of a world. You begin with a single minor god that grants you powers, the primary one being the ability to create terrain composed mostly of grassland, but with some forest and small bodies of water appearing as well. However, as this is a puzzle game first and foremost, you are given a tile with four random segments that vary. These segments must connect with the same segments on tiles adjacent to where you place them or it will destabilize the world and potentially cause parts of it to collapse into the abyss.

As you continue to succeed in building a stable world, additional minor gods will join your pantheon and give you additional powers. For example, the second god that you unlock is the fish god of the ocean who allows you to create tiles that have the potential to create far larger bodies of water than the first god.

These new powers come with a price, however. Each of these minor gods demand attention and representation in the world. If your world is one giant grassland, the god of the ocean will become enraged and begin causing chaos throughout it. Fortunately, each achievement that you accomplish allows you more time to create your world before armageddon tears it apart. An early game might be ten minutes long while after a few hours of play each world lasts far, far longer.

A fun and unique game, Fate Tectonics is a quick thinking puzzle game that allows you to create a world based on both your imagination and the tiles that the minor gods provide you. I recommend this game to fans of puzzle games especially, and to those who enjoy god games as long as you are able to acknowledge and enjoy it with the time constraints and critical thinking that are required.

If Tetris and Populous had an illegitimate child, it might have ended up something like this, only prolly with a bit more of a lounging gait and definitely not having such a cute style. It was love at first sight (Hey babeh).

Thoroughly addictive, the timed mode ensures that you keep replaying, as you hunt down achievements for more time to make a larger world (before it all goes to hell in a handbasket - again!)

I've spent far too much time playing this already and I can't stop, somebody help meh. This and listening to Abba songs when I'm drunk are the two banes of my social life at the moment.

I get the underlying appeal to this game. It has a good art style and a creative match the tile concept. I might even be convinced that somewhere in here there is a great game waiting to be uncovered.

Unfortunately, the experience I had with it was poor right out of the gate. In enabling the full screen option, I had the game not resize and then crash. The initial menu is not intuitive, so much so that I did not realize I had started the first mission until the NPC god character started moving around. At this point I was ready to accept this game as an unpolished gem, ready to accept that I just didn't "get it" yet.

I enjoyed the first level enough. Matching the tiles and watching your cities come together had a good feel to it. The hint for the boat tile never popped up, so not sure exactly what that did, but I floated a few boats as well.

Then the doom timer for level one hit. I was ready for the angry Fate (god) to wreck shop on my poor villages. Except now I was the god with a toolbar of options that were not explained. Ok, no worries, I'll just click them all. Destruction rained down, it looked cool enough, but there wasn't any sense to what I was doing because it wasn't explained. I'm fine with the (DARK SOULS tm) approach by which you don't baby sit and explain everything to the player, but there wasn't a lesson I was learning. There didn't seem to be any cost to each button, so why not rain the meteors down over installing industrial factories (wut?)?

I was even fine enough to give this a pass. But there was, again, no clear method for moving forward. Was I supposed to restart level one but do better? Was I supposed to move on to level two? If so, how? In restarting level one, the entire world was shaking and would not stop. I have to assume and truly hope this is a bug, otherwise why was this decision made? I could no longer play due to getting a serious headache from watching the screen shake. Saving and reloading the game did not solve this.
EDIT: After checking the forums this shaking was supposedly a bug that was fixed prior to me having installed and played the game. Clearly it was not solved entirely. The dev post saying it is fixed is from Sept. 12 and it is currently the 14th.

tl;dr: The game doesn't give any sense of how to progress or play it. It's fine to not hold the player's hand, but this is just bad design. The game had numerous bugs causing it to crash. It crashed due to some interaction with OBS while trying to stream it. The worst bug had the game screen shaking constantly to the point it was unplayable. First steam refund ever and it makes me sad to have to do so.

This game is super chill. Something about endlessly placing the tiles is soothing. I don't find that any of the Fates seem to get particularly angry or destructive even when I flat out ignore them to focus on just the fish guy, but I've come to believe that maybe the game is better off without being particularly tense or challenging. The Serenity mode is probably even more laid-back.

If you like making a pretty world that you can get strangely attached to, I'd say go for it! Lots of interesting little achievements to hunt down as well.

Having gotten a solid 7+ hours out of this game, I'm satisfied.

Fate Tectonic's is an interesting and amusing diversion, but, to me it lacks long term appeal.

There's little apparent reason to what angers the Fates, and inevitably it all crumbles, which may in fact be the point. There's bugs and things that show lack of polish, like one screen says you've survived 'title' waves.

I like the game and it's charming, but, it's probably not something many others would find appealing and the frustration level is high.

Tetris was always an interesting game to me. The whole idea was to sit and build up as perfectly as you can only to watch your work destroyed. This game works similar to that.

There are various "fates" that have temples, you place these temples on the map to spawn tiles around them, then each temple gives you access to 3 powers that you unlock by building more tiles of that fates type. As your world gets bigger you unlock more fates who give you more powers and more temples.

The tiles themselves are random and you must place them so that each side touches a land/element of the same type when placed. As you place tiles further out they start to weaken, think of it like legos being built off a table, the further you go the more likely they are to break off and fall. However you can use powers or build larger blocks of solid land to strengthen these areas so that you can expand out further and further. A skinny strip of land sticking off to the side would break off more easily than a solid piece of land, for example. You can visually see this thanks to the cracks that start to form near the weak points of your planet. You can also use fate powers such as placing cities on land to help strengthen the areas.

The problem is each fate has things they like and don't like, and if they get angry enough they'll eventually unleash their unique power on your planet in anger.

So how does all this play out? Well basically you sit around building up a lovely pixle world using these fates and their powers while trying to strike a balance that will keep them happy enough not to trash it. See how big and beautiful you can make your world before that happens.

There are two gameplay modes, timed and free mode. In free mode there is no time limit and your only worry is the anger of the fates on your planet, in timed mode you spend your time building up your planet and then once the time limit for each "Age" runs out you get to use various powers to destroy the planet you just built.

However you'll also be unlocking achievements for pulling off certain tasks, and these achievements will bank you extra time in the next "Age" so that you'll get to spend more time building before you have to destroy what you built.

Overall it's a beautiful puzzle game of balance, strategy, creation, and destruction. There are some issues with clarity as to why certain things happen due to lack of explaination but beyond that I enjoy the game very much and recommend it.

A strange game, kind of like a "Good and Evil" Sim City game. It's frustrating at first, trying to balance the various gods and land masses together before the time limit runs out for your world's life.

At first, easily overlooked and hated.. But as more time is spent the challenge of keeping your world stable creates a better experience.

Give it a chance :)