It's rather unfortunate that Skyshine's Bedlam is one of those games. You know what I mean: the ones that seem promising on paper, but instead of turning out as they should, they end up a disappointment. Bedlam has very interesting concepts and premises, and along with a very memorable art-style, its mechanics are surprisingly simple yet straightforward enough to suck you in right away. That is, until the imbalances and unnecessary grinding slowly begin to make it obvious that the game is yet another missed opportunity.
Skyshine's Bedlam (its official title: Bedlam, but another game had already taken that name, so the studio's name, Skyshine, is added as a prefix to avoid confusion with the other Bedlam game) is a turn-based tactics roguelike game, with a little bit of role-playing element and resource management. You are tasked to lead a band of pilgrims aboard a massive APC called the Dozer, which is basically a gigantic post-apocalyptic Noah's ark on wheels. With a handful of soldiers under your command, it is up to you to make sure the giant mobile fortress - along with thousands of passengers inside - safely make their way through the dangerous and ever-hostile wastelands of Bedlam, and reach a safe haven called the Aztec City down south with as little casualties as possible, or at least with the Dozer in one piece and enough survivors to start a new colony. In a way, it's FTL-on-land with Borderlands' and Mad Max's post-apocalyptic vibe and some ship and resource management elements.
First of all, reviewing this game can be a little tricky, considering the different versions that it has undergone and the complete overhaul it had midway through development. I've been playing Skyshines Bedlam since 2015 on and off. Back when it was still rather new, the early battle system was the "two action points per turn" system. That means for each turn, you get only 2 action points, which you can spend on any character(s), to do as you see fit. This system was interesting at first, but became problematic after a while. Midway through, the developers made a complete change: you can bring a maximum of four characters to battle, and each of them with 2 action points. So, basically they just turned something that was initially a bad idea, into something common. Nothing new, nothing innovative, but it did made the game less annoying to play. However, if you wish, you can turn the 2-points per turn system back on, and play the game the old way. Also, in the previous build, you could bring up to six characters in to battle at once, as compared to the current four-character limit. Regardless, the Redux version is its current, final build, which is a complete overhaul from the previous build. Therefore, I'll review this game as it is, without comparison with the previous build, for better or worse.
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| It's a hostile world out there. |
Bedlam has two games modes: Campaign and Arcade. The former requires more management than the latter, but basically they're almost identical. The gameplay has two level of depth. The first level is played on the campaign map, on which you navigate the Dozers by choosing its route. Each route costs specific number of days to traverse, amounts of crude oil to keep the Dozer running, and meat to feed your passengers or else they'll start dying. These two resources are consumed daily on fixed quantities, which you can reduce with some costs on the Dozer's management tab to make your Dozer more crude- and meat-efficient. There are unique locations of the map and most stops give you the opportunity to perform side-missions. The side-missions are straightforward, too. You'll be presented with a choose-your-adventure book style of narration, and your choices generally lead you to either be given resources, special weapons or characters to join you, and sometimes you can lose resources from bad choices as well. However, the most general outcome is fighting. This will bring you to the second layer of the game, which is the turn-based combat.
The management on the campaign map is pretty fun, but one minor problem I have with it is that despite them being settlers and the heart of the Dozer, the passengers are basically just a number that you end up not caring much about at all. In fact, they end up becoming just a type of resource since you can trade them for crude, meat or power cells. These other three resources are constantly depleting. On the other hand, the passengers do not, unless you trade them, and they are also abundant. This turns them into nothing but coins to "buy" the other three more important resources. That really breaks the pilgrimage premise of the game. If anything, the ones that you will end up caring about are your soldiers, who will constantly die in battle, but more on that later.
When starting a new game, you are given several options such as Dozers to select, what factions you want to make up your initial troops, their composition, and the game's difficulty. Eventually, you'll unlock different Dozers, each unique to its own faction. Each Dozer is equipped with two Weapons and two Equalizers, both of which vary from one Dozer to another. You'll find more of these along the way by doing side missions or by defeating specific enemies. Weapons are used to directly damage enemies during battles, while Equalizers are power-ups that assist your soldiers by various means, such as making them harder to hit, shield or heal them, teleport them around the battlefield, or double their damage, just to name a few. Dozers also have different attributes. For example, one Dozer carries more initial fuel than the other.
Your security squad boarding the Dozer and the enemies they're facing are made up of characters belonging to a variety of five different races, known as "factions" in the game. They are the Humans, Marauders (barbaric humans living in the wasteland), Mutants, Rogue AIs, and Cyborgs. Each one them has its own specific characteristics that affect the gameplay. For instance, Rogue AI characters become hard to hit every third turn, while Mutants self-heal by 1 health point every other turn. Meanwhile, the four character classes are Deadeyes (snipers), Frontliners (melee), Gunslingers (pistol wielders) and Trenchers (shotgunners). They are basically what you'd expect them to be: Deadeyes have low health and high attack range and damage, while Trenchers have medium health, high damage and movement range, and so on.
The game's combat system is straightforward, nothing that turn-based tactics fans aren't familiar with. You can bring up to four soldiers of your choice in to battle. The battle ground is usually very open, aside from some covers that reduce the damage taken by characters next to them, and explosive barrels that explode when shot. Obviously, you can use these to your advantage. Each character; yours and the enemies; has 2 action points. Here's the tricky part: if you spend the first action point on movement and then spend the second action point on attacking, the character's attack damage is reduced by 60%. That means, if you have a character with the base damage of 10, and make him attack an enemy after moving, he's only going to do 6 points of damage. However, if you spend the first action point on attacking, the character will do 100% damage, but his turn immediately ends.
There are several simple yet cool mechanics that are crucial to win battles, and therefore are an absolute must to know. Deadeyes (snipers) have a random chance to one-hit kill their target with a headshot if you let them pull the trigger with their first action point. Of course, this means that you need to have the enemy within their range of fire. Put your Trenchers (shotgunners) directly next to their target, and the point-blank shot will knock the enemy 3 tiles back. That means you can use your Trenchers to move enemy characters into the attack range of your units. Meanwhile, Frontliners (melee) are useful as tanks, as they can absorb damage and provide cover to units directly next to them. Gunslingers return fire if the attacking enemy is not hiding behind cover.
Your characters level up every 3rd kill and get one point, which you can spend to increase any of these stats: health, damage and move range. So, there's a bit of a role-playing element in Bedlam, although it's very minimal since the game uses "kill counts" instead of experience points for character-levelling. That means that only units that deliver the killing blow get the kill count. This can be both a good and bad thing. The bad thing is, it doesn't matter if any particular character does the bulk of the damage in battle, if he's not delivering the killing blow, he can't claim the kill count. The good thing is, this system allows you to help some units that are left behind to catch up. However, it still doesn't feel fair because the veterancy is not really earned by that particular unit.
As you can see, the game is rather easy to get into. But, once you're familiar with your units and have devised tactics of your own, there's not much else to explore, tactically. There's a lack of enemy variety, as they are just like your units. Their character classes are the same, their races and faction properties are the same, and their movesets are also the same as yours. They can use their own power-ups and throw grenades, but that's it. Bosses are not much different either. They are simply bigger, cover more grounds, have a larger range of attack, slightly higher healthpoints and their own unique looks. Their only special game-affecting characteristic is that they are able to do AOE attacks. Other than that, they are basically the bigger version of their minions. The good thing is, you can recruit them into your little army after defeating them.
Now here come the bad parts of an otherwise a successfully executed game.
There's a difference between challenging and punishing, and surprisingly, the line actually isn't that thin. Unfortunately, it's something that Skyshine Games failed to distinguish. As a result, Bedlam is somewhere in between, but leans more towards the unnecessarily punishing side. First and foremost, the negative outcome of winning battles outweighs the reward. For every battle you win, the threat level rises. In other words, the more battle you win, the more hostile the enemies towards you. There is no way to lower the threat level other than losing battles. Which means sacrificing one of your characters by putting only him into battle than you intend to lose, and at some point after winning too much, you do need to do that, desperately. That's because the game's only way to counter your squad's increasing power is by throwing more and more minions at you. Soon, the game will reach a point when the enemy factions completely overwhelm your forces, as your four-unit squad face ten enemies at once in battle, way too many for them to handle even at peak veterancy. Casualty becomes a guarantee every time you send them to fight, and it will stay that way unless the threat level is lowered.
Worse, main boss fights are a nightmare. Take note that the main bosses are different from the normal bosses, who are just recruitable minor bosses. The game's main bosses are, like I said, a nightmare. Instead of making the main bosses more unique and challenging by giving them their own movesets or unique playstyle, the developers simply amped up their healthpoints and attack damage over the roof. Does this make them challenging? In a way, no. They are simply an overpowered version of your characters. This makes winning borderline impossible when the boss you're fighting is roided with healthpoints 7 to 8 times your characters' health, and can one-hit kill every one of them in just 4 turns. Your Dozer weapons help, but you only get to use each weapon once per battle. Power-ups can be deployed multiple times, but you'll eventually run out of resources. The minor bosses you just recruited into your squad? They aren't going to do shit.
It's a shame, really. Bedlam feels so much like a missed opportunity. It's just too shallow in the way it throws challenges at you. The campaign map and dozer managements are enjoyable, and from the event texts and choose-your-adventure style narrative, you can see that the game's lore is interesting. It's not that developed, but it's just enough. The colourful art-style also hooks you in right away. I especially love the unique character portraits. The other part of the game, however, is not that good. Despite being rather shallow, the game's combat system is easy to get into due to that very reason, and it can be pretty addictive once you've mastered it. Completing the game is not impossible, and Bedlam is fun to play for a little while to unlock a Dozer or two. After that, it's just pointless grinding. Losing your best units over and over again to swarms of enemies is not fun. Losing to overpowered bosses over and over again is not fun. It's not challenging, it's just a shallow way to be punishing, and unnecessarily at that, too.
If you're a big, big fan of turn-based strategy and micromanagement like me and you feel that you can live with all the flaws, and also if you're tremendously intrigued by the game's art-style and concept, then by all means try it. I'd personally recommend turn-based tactics fans to try the game just for that. At the end of the day, Skyshine's Bedlam is a missed opportunity; a big one missed opportunity in fact. Pity. Had it been more balanced instead of resorting to the cheap increase-enemy-health-and-numbers trick, it could have been one of those legitimately challenging strategy games like Darkest Dungeon and FTL.
The management on the campaign map is pretty fun, but one minor problem I have with it is that despite them being settlers and the heart of the Dozer, the passengers are basically just a number that you end up not caring much about at all. In fact, they end up becoming just a type of resource since you can trade them for crude, meat or power cells. These other three resources are constantly depleting. On the other hand, the passengers do not, unless you trade them, and they are also abundant. This turns them into nothing but coins to "buy" the other three more important resources. That really breaks the pilgrimage premise of the game. If anything, the ones that you will end up caring about are your soldiers, who will constantly die in battle, but more on that later.
When starting a new game, you are given several options such as Dozers to select, what factions you want to make up your initial troops, their composition, and the game's difficulty. Eventually, you'll unlock different Dozers, each unique to its own faction. Each Dozer is equipped with two Weapons and two Equalizers, both of which vary from one Dozer to another. You'll find more of these along the way by doing side missions or by defeating specific enemies. Weapons are used to directly damage enemies during battles, while Equalizers are power-ups that assist your soldiers by various means, such as making them harder to hit, shield or heal them, teleport them around the battlefield, or double their damage, just to name a few. Dozers also have different attributes. For example, one Dozer carries more initial fuel than the other.
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| The Dozers are basically armored buildings on wheels... or in this case, metal legs. |
Your security squad boarding the Dozer and the enemies they're facing are made up of characters belonging to a variety of five different races, known as "factions" in the game. They are the Humans, Marauders (barbaric humans living in the wasteland), Mutants, Rogue AIs, and Cyborgs. Each one them has its own specific characteristics that affect the gameplay. For instance, Rogue AI characters become hard to hit every third turn, while Mutants self-heal by 1 health point every other turn. Meanwhile, the four character classes are Deadeyes (snipers), Frontliners (melee), Gunslingers (pistol wielders) and Trenchers (shotgunners). They are basically what you'd expect them to be: Deadeyes have low health and high attack range and damage, while Trenchers have medium health, high damage and movement range, and so on.
The game's combat system is straightforward, nothing that turn-based tactics fans aren't familiar with. You can bring up to four soldiers of your choice in to battle. The battle ground is usually very open, aside from some covers that reduce the damage taken by characters next to them, and explosive barrels that explode when shot. Obviously, you can use these to your advantage. Each character; yours and the enemies; has 2 action points. Here's the tricky part: if you spend the first action point on movement and then spend the second action point on attacking, the character's attack damage is reduced by 60%. That means, if you have a character with the base damage of 10, and make him attack an enemy after moving, he's only going to do 6 points of damage. However, if you spend the first action point on attacking, the character will do 100% damage, but his turn immediately ends.
There are several simple yet cool mechanics that are crucial to win battles, and therefore are an absolute must to know. Deadeyes (snipers) have a random chance to one-hit kill their target with a headshot if you let them pull the trigger with their first action point. Of course, this means that you need to have the enemy within their range of fire. Put your Trenchers (shotgunners) directly next to their target, and the point-blank shot will knock the enemy 3 tiles back. That means you can use your Trenchers to move enemy characters into the attack range of your units. Meanwhile, Frontliners (melee) are useful as tanks, as they can absorb damage and provide cover to units directly next to them. Gunslingers return fire if the attacking enemy is not hiding behind cover.
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| Awesome art though. |
Your characters level up every 3rd kill and get one point, which you can spend to increase any of these stats: health, damage and move range. So, there's a bit of a role-playing element in Bedlam, although it's very minimal since the game uses "kill counts" instead of experience points for character-levelling. That means that only units that deliver the killing blow get the kill count. This can be both a good and bad thing. The bad thing is, it doesn't matter if any particular character does the bulk of the damage in battle, if he's not delivering the killing blow, he can't claim the kill count. The good thing is, this system allows you to help some units that are left behind to catch up. However, it still doesn't feel fair because the veterancy is not really earned by that particular unit.
As you can see, the game is rather easy to get into. But, once you're familiar with your units and have devised tactics of your own, there's not much else to explore, tactically. There's a lack of enemy variety, as they are just like your units. Their character classes are the same, their races and faction properties are the same, and their movesets are also the same as yours. They can use their own power-ups and throw grenades, but that's it. Bosses are not much different either. They are simply bigger, cover more grounds, have a larger range of attack, slightly higher healthpoints and their own unique looks. Their only special game-affecting characteristic is that they are able to do AOE attacks. Other than that, they are basically the bigger version of their minions. The good thing is, you can recruit them into your little army after defeating them.
Now here come the bad parts of an otherwise a successfully executed game.
There's a difference between challenging and punishing, and surprisingly, the line actually isn't that thin. Unfortunately, it's something that Skyshine Games failed to distinguish. As a result, Bedlam is somewhere in between, but leans more towards the unnecessarily punishing side. First and foremost, the negative outcome of winning battles outweighs the reward. For every battle you win, the threat level rises. In other words, the more battle you win, the more hostile the enemies towards you. There is no way to lower the threat level other than losing battles. Which means sacrificing one of your characters by putting only him into battle than you intend to lose, and at some point after winning too much, you do need to do that, desperately. That's because the game's only way to counter your squad's increasing power is by throwing more and more minions at you. Soon, the game will reach a point when the enemy factions completely overwhelm your forces, as your four-unit squad face ten enemies at once in battle, way too many for them to handle even at peak veterancy. Casualty becomes a guarantee every time you send them to fight, and it will stay that way unless the threat level is lowered.
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| The battle map. |
Worse, main boss fights are a nightmare. Take note that the main bosses are different from the normal bosses, who are just recruitable minor bosses. The game's main bosses are, like I said, a nightmare. Instead of making the main bosses more unique and challenging by giving them their own movesets or unique playstyle, the developers simply amped up their healthpoints and attack damage over the roof. Does this make them challenging? In a way, no. They are simply an overpowered version of your characters. This makes winning borderline impossible when the boss you're fighting is roided with healthpoints 7 to 8 times your characters' health, and can one-hit kill every one of them in just 4 turns. Your Dozer weapons help, but you only get to use each weapon once per battle. Power-ups can be deployed multiple times, but you'll eventually run out of resources. The minor bosses you just recruited into your squad? They aren't going to do shit.
It's a shame, really. Bedlam feels so much like a missed opportunity. It's just too shallow in the way it throws challenges at you. The campaign map and dozer managements are enjoyable, and from the event texts and choose-your-adventure style narrative, you can see that the game's lore is interesting. It's not that developed, but it's just enough. The colourful art-style also hooks you in right away. I especially love the unique character portraits. The other part of the game, however, is not that good. Despite being rather shallow, the game's combat system is easy to get into due to that very reason, and it can be pretty addictive once you've mastered it. Completing the game is not impossible, and Bedlam is fun to play for a little while to unlock a Dozer or two. After that, it's just pointless grinding. Losing your best units over and over again to swarms of enemies is not fun. Losing to overpowered bosses over and over again is not fun. It's not challenging, it's just a shallow way to be punishing, and unnecessarily at that, too.
If you're a big, big fan of turn-based strategy and micromanagement like me and you feel that you can live with all the flaws, and also if you're tremendously intrigued by the game's art-style and concept, then by all means try it. I'd personally recommend turn-based tactics fans to try the game just for that. At the end of the day, Skyshine's Bedlam is a missed opportunity; a big one missed opportunity in fact. Pity. Had it been more balanced instead of resorting to the cheap increase-enemy-health-and-numbers trick, it could have been one of those legitimately challenging strategy games like Darkest Dungeon and FTL.
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