First things first, I loved the graphics in this game. Whether I was fully zoomed out to get a better view of the park structures or zoomed all the way in to watch the dinosaurs consuming people, it looked amazing. Yes, the dinosaurs can and will eat your park visitors and employees! Highly entertaining to say the least. There were also no game-breaking bugs that I encountered; it was very well optimized during my playthrough.

The overall goal of the game is to build up your parks to attract and entertain more guests. There are multiple locations you’ll unlock as you go through the campaign. Hire scientists to research different fossils for you, which will then allow the creation of different species of dinosaurs! Even more intriguing is that once you unlock the ability through researching, you can start to cross-breed them to make even more monstrous terrors!

Every dinosaur species has specific requirements they want in their sweet new home. They will also have different compatibilities. Some will get along with others, and some… well… some will straight up kill everything and anything on sight! Food is also different for each type of dinosaur you’re parading around in captivity. Speaking of, you’ll want to make sure you have great views on your viewing decks for your brave and loyal customers! Keep them satisfied with awesome dinosaur IRL encounters, as well as shops, and your park walkways will be packed!

Overall, I really enjoyed this game, and I’m not one to play many of the tycoon games. The campaign was nice for a new player since it held your hand as you went, giving you quests to do and things to achieve. The customization was a little limited due to space and dinosaur-specific requirements.

However, I really liked that you could zoom out like the god that you are while the little peons below lived their happy, blissfully unaware AI lives. Or you could get in there and drive the jeeps or fly the helicopters on your own to tranquilize an unruly dinosaur on a rampage or take a sweet picture for the gram, giving you the feeling of being more involved in your park rather than a lonely sky spectator. 

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We had the chance to check out the demo of the game, and here’s our thoughts on it.

Trust No One in Quarantine Zone: The Last Check

Every day, there’s a line of survivors eagerly waiting to either join or destroy your safe haven. They will meet you with the same poor excuses and lies, “I’m fine, I swear,” or “I was bitten by a dog, not a zombie.” Trust no one! The game gives you tools that will help you inspect everyone for infections. This includes a scanner to look for bruises, bites, or scratches, a flashlight/UV light, a stethoscope to listen to breath sounds, a thermometer to check for pulse and temperature levels, but most importantly… a pistol.

There is a checklist in-game to help you determine possible infections that these liars may be harboring. Symptoms marked with green check marks aren’t of much concern. However, those with a caution symbol could turn sweet little Susie into a flesh-eating zombie within a day or two. The biohazard symptoms, well… those should be treated like Old Yeller. Send them off to liquidation or do it yourself with that sweet side piece you’ve got. The choice is yours

Maintaining Your Base

On top of making sure that anyone trying to enter your blockade is healthy or infected, you also must keep up with maintaining your base. Each survivor correctly placed or disposed of will earn you some cash or cost you if chosen incorrectly. Spend it upgrading your base’s bed availability, food, and generators to keep all the buildings running smoothly and healthy survivors alive. You’ll have to restock your storage and bring supplies as needed to each destination daily for operations to run without incidents.

As if this game didn’t already have enough to do, occasionally there will be zombie attacks on your base or healthy survivors will need to be evacuated. During these times, you’ll have to use all your forces to keep the zombies at bay. The wall of your base, as well as any evac transports, will have a green health bar that deteriorates with damage done by the zombies. Keep everyone safe and blast them all to smithereens!

Demo Final Reaction

There are so many different aspects of the game to keep things interesting. This ranges from checking survivors for infection and managing your base to the occasional zombie horde attacks. This game even has a trophy system. While checking incoming potentially infected people’s personal bags, there may be golden items you can keep. These are then placed on the wall of your tent.

The music and ambient noises are immersive. Each playthrough had different people trying to get into my camp, which created a nice variety. I’m excited to see where it goes from here and really enjoyed playing the demo. The Quarantine Zone demo (which allows 7 in-game days’ worth of play) is now available for PC on Steam, with the full release scheduled for September 2025.

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When you first enter the game, your new house will need repairs. This includes picking up any remaining trash, destroying or replacing any damaged furniture, replacing or repairing the floors/walls/ceilings and restoring power. The graphics in the game are amazing, there are music and constant ghostly noises, making the atmosphere very immersive.

I have to say, this game feels very overwhelming right out of the gate though. There’s not much of a tutorial on how to do things other than a list of objectives, a few pop ups with some information and a quest log. There is a tool bar with all the available tools you’ll need. This includes a floor cleaner, the ability to move objects, clean objects, pick up objects, break down objects, fix objects, change wallpaper, and repair objects. There’s also a camera to photograph any haunted activity as well as a shopping cart where you can purchase new items to decorate your newfound home.

I love the concept of this game, renovating a home and exterminating haunted apparitions. The more you clean and fix, the more money you’ll acquire in order to keep renovating. However, there’s so much to do in the game right away with little direction that I felt overloaded. This includes the tasks you’ll need to do in the quest log to the skill tree for your tools, as well as trying to figure out how to handle any hauntings with a lack of guidance.

After you finish your initial home renovations and exterminators, there’s a map with other properties that are in need of your assistance. Like most simulation games, it’s a repetition of the previous location with a few different elements.

I did run into a couple minor bugs here and there, such as a carpet floating above the floor until it was moved or things would fall off of walls while interacting with another object. Maybe they were ghosts!

Overall, I think the game has a lot of potential and it is fun just a bit confusing and a lot right from the start instead of easing you into the game.

Haunted House Renovator is available on Steam.

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Starting off you get to name your theater, have $800 in the bank, 1 theater, a counter, a popcorn machine, a drink machine and 1 refrigerator. You’ll have to buy licenses for the movies you want to show in your newfound cinema via the tablet, which is where all your purchases can be made from, including food and furniture items. I admit that the movie titles are funny as they are spoofs of legitimate movies. Depending on which movie you purchase a license for to show in your cinema, you’ll get a bonus based on the popularity of the movie choice.

After you have a movie to play in your theater, you can determine which showtimes you want the movies to show. If you show a movie too often, you’ll lose a bit of demand for your sales. There are also 3D movies available, but you’ll have to upgrade your theater to allow 3D. (This wasn’t available in the demo.) There are 3D glasses you can sell to customers, which is another added thing you’ll have to grab when ringing someone up at the counter. There are other upgradable options where you can theme out each auditorium you own.

Speaking of your patrons, this game really does capture that emergent feeling when working at a movie theater counter right before shows start. People rush in and line up like lemmings to purchase their tickets and snacks. Apparently, at your theater, people choose their dedicated seat at ticketing. You’ll quickly have to print out their seat ticket and grab whatever food/drink they want before the timer runs out.

Yelp must be a thing in this world since if your customers wait too long or you forget to clean up your theater before the next show, the popularity rating of your cinema will decrease. You can hire staff in this game to help you however, this wasn’t available in the demo, so I’m unsure of what the staff will do for you. Work the register, grab specific food/drink items, I have no idea.

Speaking of food and drink, there’s a plethora of items you can add to your theater as you level up. Candy, sandwiches, water, and more can be purchased using your tablet. Once you purchase items, they’ll plop down at the delivery service store next to your cinema.

Your new cinema is located in a shopping mall, by the way. There’s a bunch of clothing stores nearby, but unfortunately, you can’t go shopping at any of them during the downtime between movies. There is a little cart you can use at the delivery store to stack any purchased packages on, then stroll everything over to your cinema in one trip (depending on how much you buy).

I was able to have two movies available for my single theater room, playing at different time slots which really did captivate the anxiety of trying to quickly clean the theater room, then running over to work the concession stand with a line of customers wanting to watch the next showing, and being the booth tech by starting the movie on time. I imagine the more movie time slots you fill and movie rooms you have going, the more hectic the game will become. Fun fact: if you run in the theater room while a movie is playing, it actually does show something on the screen! Kudos to the developer team for that extra detail.

The purpose of the game, like any simulator, is to earn money and beef up your cinema with more movies, theater rooms and concessions. I’m not sure how much will be added to the game as, again, I only played the demo, which limited you to what you could do in the game as well as abruptly ending my gameplay once some limit was reached. But overall, having worked in a movie theater as one of my first jobs, it really captivates that feeling of running one pretty well. I’m looking forward to seeing how this game develops over time.

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The Beginning of The End of the Sun

Let’s dive into the game itself. At the beginning of the game, I was curious about what I was getting myself into as I knew nothing about The End of the Sun, aside from the trailer and little bits in the description on Steam. It took me a while to fully understand what I was doing as the player. The gist of the game is time-traveling through multiple bonfires to change the current story. There are four time periods: Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall, all of which are years apart in time (Spring being the earliest period). You’ll see a short clip of some interaction between the main characters when clicking on a fire. After that, something is missing that you need to do to induce a change in the story.

Once you’ve determined all the changes a bonfire requires and stabilized it, a short clip will reveal how your actions have influenced the unfolding story. You will also be able to collect a fire feather (I’m assuming from ‘Rarog’ a firebird that represents a Slavic god you’ll see occasionally throughout the story), and you will also be able to meditate at the completed bonfire.

The Gateway

As you meditate at a bonfire, it becomes a gateway to time and will transport you to a new area. In this area, there are four different bonfires, all of which have different foliage paths leading to them. This is where you’ll be able to switch to different seasons/periods in the game (Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter) depending on what you’re trying to do in the game. I didn’t figure this out until my second completed bonfire. With that said, it probably would have been handy to know earlier on. Certain actions you need to complete for a bonfire can only be done within certain times/seasons.

Every bonfire you complete gives you more and more pieces to the past. Additionally, it adds to the story that you are now creating by intervening. I found it fascinating because the main adult characters at the beginning of the game can be seen as children and elderly adults, depending on which season you are currently in. Basically, it’s watching the whole life span of these poor NPCs while changing their lives through actions you do within the game.

WTF Moments in The End of the Sun

There were definitely a few “What the heck is going on moments.” These include a mushroom tea party that affected your screen and zombie-like baby creatures that would attack you (Water children). Perhaps that’s due to me not being super familiar with Slavic mythology, who knows? There’s a map that will help you navigate over the decently sized playable area. There is no instant GPS on this map though. It’s as if we’re back to the old-school MapQuest days when you need to recognize landmarks to figure out where you are.

Final Reaction

Overall, I enjoyed the game, graphics, story and puzzles. If you’re looking for an action-packed game, this is not what you’re looking for. However, it’s a great story-driven indie game with an interesting story and great music that led me to play it from start to finish just to find out how it ended.

The End of the Sun is now available on Steam, GOG and other platforms.

The End of the Sun was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

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One, in particular, is for this man… let’s call him Bob. Bob can be found at this hunter’s location on the map inside a cabin.

Bob has a problem that needs solving. His rabbits are all over the place and your quest is to catch them and bring them back to him.

As you set forth in your quest for hunting rabbits, you’ll notice that the little buggers are hard to find. They blend in well between their less-than-distinct coloring and the grass foliage in the game. They do make a distinct rabbit sound; however, if you manage to come close to one. So, keep your eyes and ears peeled as you roam around aimlessly near Bob’s cabin like Elmer Fudd. When you do manage to come across a rabbit for Bob, make sure you quickly pick one up as they will try to run away from you. Unfortunately, there is no bait to coax little Bugs to come to you.

Here’s the tricky part I found with this quest from Bob. In this game, you are given a little tractor your dear Grandfather left for you to make things a bit easier, building your ranch up from a pile of rubble to a Homesteader’s dreamland.

You drive from point A to B, whether on a hunting adventure or gathering supplies. The game does factor in gas usage as well, so be sure to keep your eyes on the gas level or press your luck driving on less than a quarter tank hoping you don’t hit that dreaded E. (It will leave you walking to the only gas station in town provided you brought your gas can.)

The tractor is a quick way across the map, but you can also haul things with it. Cutting down trees to make lumber? Pile those babies up in the back of your customizable tractor. Going to the general or hardware store? Pack up all those shiny new purchases in the back of the tractor, livestock included. This rabbit you are hunting for our dear friend Bob though? No, you can’t put Bugs in the back of the tractor.

For whatever reason, the rabbit is not included in the hauling capabilities of your sweet little joyride. No matter how far or how wide you’ve searched for little Bugs, be prepared to walk all the way back to Bob’s cabin rabbit in hand.

Once you’ve brought Bugs back to Bob, he will show his gratitude with the utmost exciting facial expressions and a whopping $200 you can use to either stop driving around in the tractor pushing E (fill that bad boy up) or any other supplies to spruce up that Ranch your dear old Grandpappy left you. Happy Ranching y’all!

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