Kingmaker: Rise to the Throne: You have me kind of interested in this.
It's only ~$7 here [resolving the main complaint on Steam], and it can be played on my laptop [which is my main concern]. Plus, I've been thinking about jettisoning my blanket aversion to puzzle games.
The Collector's Edition is better than most CE's - I don't use strategy guides that often unless I'm really stuck, but I'm determined to learn how to do a couple of the puzzle types I'm not good at. The artwork in this game is fantastic, and the extras include some nice wallpapers and music tracks.
What impresses me most about this game is the
story. So many Hidden Object games just have a vague plotline that's quite forgettable, and the focus becomes finding the morphing objects, the collectables (assuming you're playing the Collectors' Edition), and solving the puzzles, rather than becoming immersed in the whole thing. With this one, the story grabbed me and won't let go.
With the game taking place over a 30-year timeframe (okay, most of the events take place on the same day, but the events were set in motion 30 years previously), there is so much scope for more stories (not that the game developers would go for prequels, so I'm going to do that myself), and the Collector's Edition does have a bonus chapter called "Act of Deceit."
And of course I want to know What Happens Next. That's one indicator that the story is good - the reader/viewer/player wants more. Even if they have to write it themselves.
As for price, I get my games via Big Fish Games, and once or twice a month they have 65% discounts for members... which means Collector's Editions go on sale for $6.99 USD. I've occasionally received email discount codes for even better CE discounts, one time as low as $4.99 USD.
From a rough sketch, I made my first attempt at drawing a map for my
Wee cover art [a la Tolkien].
It did not go well.
Colored pens on white paper...looks like the work of a third grader.
I'll try again later with colored paper.
BTW: I bow down to anyone with artistic talent.
===================================================
Second attempt: Much better.
I took out the colors, took out the cutesy waves, hills, & forests which did nothing but add clutter. I roughened up the shoreline and added river mouths and bays.
I did everything in black felt tip, but the printing is hard to read.
I might try again after lunch, doing the printing with a black fine-point pen.
Are you using plain paper or graph paper?
There are some good map tutorials online, such as
this one, and
here's a whole batch of Google hits, including YT tutorials, websites, and images.
At some point I've got some mapmaking to do, fleshing out the very basic map in one of the puzzles in Kingmaker. As near as I can make out, the kingdom of Griffinvale is situated in a vast lake (I'm assuming all that water is fresh, not salt, as I really don't want to get into researching how ocean currents would figure into a setup like this), so parts of it are somewhat like Venice, with little canals and bridges here and there. What I want to do is figure out where and how it's situated relative to the rest of that region of the world.
The pre-story events that set the present-time game events in motion (present-time being 1039 AD) involve a crusade (not a spoiler; this is mentioned in the trailer), so I've been trying to figure out who the King was at war with, and where it is relative to Griffinvale. This game isn't set in any specific European locale, nor does it mention any RL historical figure.
In going through my notes on structure. I came upon this entry: "3rd Act; Opens w/ bang; w/3rd Plot Point; Leads into character’s low point."
This cannot be! I must cast him down into the mire so that in Act III, he can be resurrected.
I need only shove my character into the ever-enlarging economic vortex. This will destroy everything he's been building up in the 8 chapters of Act II. 
And clever boy I, I've figured out just how to do this. 
I ran its batt down, then for lunch, we went to Kayla'a which has a diesel generator, and recharged.
The first ones seem to be for RPGs while I'm trying more to mimic Tolkien's map of Middle Earth, but at this point, everything's helpful.
For this I will need to mimic RPG maps. 
