Castle V Castle
This is a great game! It’s simple, with no tutorial needed, it’s fun, and the demo ends exactly where it should, teaching the game, but leaving you wanting more.
Play a card from your deck to build your tower or destroy your opponent’s. There are 3 resources (magic, brick, sword), as well as tower height. You can spend them in different ways (bricks build contraptions to increase your height, swords attack your opponent, magic uses hexes and attacks, and so on), or invest them to increase the per turn allotments. After fights you gain permanent boons aiding you in your run.
I can’t say how much depth the game has, but it’s going on my wishlist for sure! Find it on Steam.
Critter Crossfire
It’s a very good tutorial, in that it walks me through each step in a very clear way. I’m not the biggest fan of the art style, but the pitch is basically an XCOM that you aim yourself, Worms-style.
The first person aiming makes it very hard to target a grenade, and it feels like things take one more click to aim than necessary. The environmental effects, like shooting through gear wheels or being affected by conveyor belts are a little disorienting at first, but I actually really like them, and think the game would be worse without them.
The AI is pretty good, and the fact that enemies spawn in after time means you can’t just take it slow. Item shop modifiers are very fun! I was able to build a shotgun where each pellet ricocheted and also exploded. It could wipe out entire waves of enemies with one blast. The campaign seems solid, and I could see multiplayer being a blast, especially if it had couch co-op.
I do think it works as a roguelike, and it’s pretty fun. I’ll keep my eye on it. Find it on Steam.
Commander Quest
Wow. I cannot stress enough how badly this game wants to be Slay the Spire. The map, the UI, the gameplay loop, and even some of the events and relics are ripped straight from StS! Trying to look past that, you have a fairly unique innovation, adding a lane battler to the roguelike deckbuilder combo. It looks like those mobile games you always get ads for, but it feels good to play.
The UX is busy and not as polished as Slay the Spire’s. Healing at a campfire (as opposed to upgrading a card at the anvil, of course) doesn’t tell you the number of HP it will restore, only the percent. Where Spire occasionally uses dancing text to evoke a mood, this has text pulsating, flashing, spinning, and changing colors, sometimes all on one screen. It’s busy, distractingly so.
This is a good, fun game. It’s Slay the Spire with a lane battler slapped onto it. It is a little hard to look past how derivative it feels, but if you can manage, there’s fun gameplay to be had here. It works!
For a demo, it’s very polished! The tutorial walks me through every step, though some things need to be cleaned up for a full release. One event transformed a card and didn’t let me linger to see what I had gained. But other familiar QOL features, like right-click to cancel are still here. The flavor text isn’t great, and is slightly too prevalent for my taste, but that’s a minor quibble, really.
Update: The more I stew on this one, the more it grows on me. It’s a good game, I just wish it didn’t feel like a Slay the Spire knockoff. I’m glad it at least has a historic military slant on the fantasy theme. Playing it a bit more, I also have to mention that one of the songs sounds VERY similar to music from Legend of Zelda. Paired with the similarities to Slay the Spire, it’s not a good look!
Fogpiercer
This game is laser-focused for me. It’s a roguelike deckbuilder that’s also a trainbuilder. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this game?
The UI is slick, and the demo throws you in with no explanation. I would prefer slightly more. A common genre convention is to neuter the first run, not presenting all options, and explaining the subset you do introduce. This game does neither. Still, it’s not too hard to pick up what’s going on (though a better damage preview would be appreciated). Some card concepts were very confusing (many were labeled cost up or cost down, with no indication of what the base was. My shields would change in cost over the course of a turn. And so on). Most of it falls into the category of “things I’d be able to figure out with enough playtime”, and for a demo the big factor is fun. Is this game fun? Yes!
It reminds me, more than anything, of Into the Breach. Each fight is basically a puzzle, and enemies telegraph their intents clearly. Enemies have just a couple bars of health (just like you!), and there’s a big emphasis on movement. One of the coolest mechanics is that if you destroy an enemy truck, it flies backwards into the truck behind it. Neat! The moving background was distracting at first, and I could see some players getting sick of it (possibly in more ways than one!) but it quickly grew on me.
Here’s the takeaway:
- TRAINS!
- Beautiful UI
- Not quite enough tutorialization, but nothing unplayable
- It’s like the train levels of Into the Breach, except you’re the train
- And also you can customize train cars, which give you cards!
Will definitely be eyeing this one! Steam link.
Herald The Interactive Period Drama
A point-and-click adventure on the high seas! The ship, the Herald, is beautiful, with corners to explore. Walking is slow, and the frame story means that everything is presented in past tense, but adventure, mystery, and (as the title promises) drama abound rather quickly!
There’s a good cast of characters, and serviceable voice acting to accompany the excellent music. More choose your own adventure than solve the obscure puzzle by using X item in Y place. Fans of the genre should enjoy this one!