Finished a couple of shorter games.
I was excited for this one, because the developer's previous game, Spectromancer, was amazing. Unfortunately, Astral Towers doesn't measure up. The basic mechanic is that you and your opponent take turns summoning creatures onto a 3x2 grid, where they'll slug it out with each other until one of you destroys the other's tower. It's almost identical to Spectromancer's system, except messier. If there's only one unit in a player's front row, it will be auto-targeted by all enemies, even if they're in different lanes. It makes for fights where it's almost trivially easy to maintain board control once you take over, and also cuts down on the ability for units to have a powerful effect but weak stats. In late-game battles, I just spammed a mana-gain spell until I could play my biggest cards, and it didn't just worked, but it seemed like the only viable strategy. It's a fun enough campaign, but it just feels brainless compared to the deep strategy that defined Spectromancer, and I can't get over that.
The game is probably more interesting against other players, but the online option is locked out, and hotseat multiplayer isn't going to cut it. The game is actually from 2011 (never having made it to Steam). I think the multiplayer option is a relic of that release, and probably not going to be available in the future.
6/10
This one's a puzzle-stealth game where you control a girl and a cat, trying to slip past a bunch of robot guards that are keen on beating you with nightsticks. The core gimmick is a timeline that lets you slide back and forth through time, synchronizing all of your movements to perfectly evade the patrols. It has a small pool of mechanics that get doled out slowly: switches to open/close doors, special gems that give you a one-time-use ability to either repair a bridge or destroy a guard, a meow from the cat to lure robots, and vents for the cat to crawl through for quick escapes.
When the guard patrol patterns are simple, the game is interesting and fun. You usually have to come up with some clever way to sequence things to make a path for the characters. However, a lot of levels feature complex patrol patterns and they make for some tedious trial-and-error gameplay. Those stages require a lot of "try something - nope a guard moved and spotted you - rewind a bit - try again accounting for that guard" over and over until you get through. I'm not sure any of those stages did anything particularly clever, and they were a real letdown compared to the levels that demanded a more proactive approach to the guards.
The presentation was great though. The graphics are crisp (feels very Lara Croft Go inspired) and the cat is cute. I had a good time with it, despite a few dull puzzles.
7/10
I was excited for this one, because the developer's previous game, Spectromancer, was amazing. Unfortunately, Astral Towers doesn't measure up. The basic mechanic is that you and your opponent take turns summoning creatures onto a 3x2 grid, where they'll slug it out with each other until one of you destroys the other's tower. It's almost identical to Spectromancer's system, except messier. If there's only one unit in a player's front row, it will be auto-targeted by all enemies, even if they're in different lanes. It makes for fights where it's almost trivially easy to maintain board control once you take over, and also cuts down on the ability for units to have a powerful effect but weak stats. In late-game battles, I just spammed a mana-gain spell until I could play my biggest cards, and it didn't just worked, but it seemed like the only viable strategy. It's a fun enough campaign, but it just feels brainless compared to the deep strategy that defined Spectromancer, and I can't get over that.
The game is probably more interesting against other players, but the online option is locked out, and hotseat multiplayer isn't going to cut it. The game is actually from 2011 (never having made it to Steam). I think the multiplayer option is a relic of that release, and probably not going to be available in the future.
6/10
This one's a puzzle-stealth game where you control a girl and a cat, trying to slip past a bunch of robot guards that are keen on beating you with nightsticks. The core gimmick is a timeline that lets you slide back and forth through time, synchronizing all of your movements to perfectly evade the patrols. It has a small pool of mechanics that get doled out slowly: switches to open/close doors, special gems that give you a one-time-use ability to either repair a bridge or destroy a guard, a meow from the cat to lure robots, and vents for the cat to crawl through for quick escapes.
When the guard patrol patterns are simple, the game is interesting and fun. You usually have to come up with some clever way to sequence things to make a path for the characters. However, a lot of levels feature complex patrol patterns and they make for some tedious trial-and-error gameplay. Those stages require a lot of "try something - nope a guard moved and spotted you - rewind a bit - try again accounting for that guard" over and over until you get through. I'm not sure any of those stages did anything particularly clever, and they were a real letdown compared to the levels that demanded a more proactive approach to the guards.
The presentation was great though. The graphics are crisp (feels very Lara Croft Go inspired) and the cat is cute. I had a good time with it, despite a few dull puzzles.
7/10