SHAFTED

You blink once and suddenly you spent 3 hours playing a long round combination of resource management and puzzle, this thing will really make you think. verdict: extremely recommended

Great, fun, compact puzzler.

[i] My Experience [/i] I was first drawn to [b]SHAFTED[/b] by the cool art style. I found the pictures used for the aliens, for your operators, and for the shadowy cabal to be evocative. I was also intrigued by the gameplay displayed in some of the screenshots, which reminded me of [b]Pipe Dream[/b]. I've always enjoyed this style of mini-game, from playing [b]Pipe Dream[/b] itself in [b]Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2[/b] to the hacking minigame in the first [b]Bioshock[/b]. It's a good thing I enjoy it too, since [i]much[/i] of your time with the game will be spent utilizing this gameplay mechanic to maximize mineral output. Your mineral output is also affected by the arrangement in which you place your structures. Initially I found myself pulled into the puzzle of it all, but after a while I began to get frustrated. Every turn, the alien (that is demanding payment from you, no less) destroys certain squares with some sort of orbital laser blast. It feels awful to have carefully considered the placement of a structure and to excel in your [b]Pipe Dream[/b] mini-game, only to have the structure randomly destroyed. To make matters worse, you'll often spend currency to upgrade …

Been playing the Beta for a while, and it's a nice and relaxing game. If you got the money, go for it (if you like what you see) It's a few hours of fun, and if you wanna give yourself a challenge or two, even more hours.

Easy to learn, hard to master

Meh.