Now here is a unique take on the city-building genre. Instead of on flat grounds, Laysara takes place in the mountains. The single-player campaign revolves around building cities on different mountains and creating symbiosis between those cities via routes and trading networks. The setting seems to be inspired by Central Asian wonders such as Tibetan mountain towns.
Overall, I really enjoyed the entire 30 minutes I spent on the demo. The resource management and production are quite straightforward, which is fine by me. My only gripe is the camera control, which is a little bit annoying as it feels semi-fixed. Zoom and rotation don't feel as comfortable as they do in most other strategy games. Laysara: Summit Kingdom is still in development and has yet to have a planned release date. However, it's not near the top of my wishlist for the time being, and there are other city builders title that I look forward to more.
Previously titled Homicidal All-Stars (no idea why they changed the name, it was perfect), Showgunners is a turn-based tactics game that takes place in a dystopian cyberpunk future, where you control a team to participate and must survive in a brutal reality game show. The levels are tight, and the combat encounters can get quite intense. Different heroes have different abilities, you can equip them with a variety of weapons, and synergizing their strengths is the key to winning every encounter. So far it already has a couple of DLCs, but I'm not pulling the trigger yet.
Gunhead is a roguelike FPS bullet hell, in which you play as a space pirate whose job is to breach alien spaceships to loot, salvage and even destroy in your weaponized mech suit. I think it's fair to compare this to Mothergunship as they are very similar in many ways. Its gameplay loop is also quite similar, with the major difference being that there's no guncrafting system in this game, and that Gunhead actually requires some strategic planning instead of the rush-and-gun approach of Mothergunship.
As soon as I read the title, I was 90% sure that Tanasurga is another potential gem from Indonesia, which is really cool, considering the surge of fantastic indie titles from Indonesia in recent years. Sure enough, the game takes place in an Indonesian-inspired setting. Additionally, one of the first noticeable things is the art style. The gritty line art and sepia color tone make the game quite distinct.
In Tanasurga, you lead a team of mecha mercenaries. You manage a base, construct mechas, and foster relationships with your team. The latter is very important because as you improve your relationships with them, you'll unlock more advanced skills. The combat is straightforward and quick. It certainly needs a little more depth, but I enjoyed what I've experienced so far. The game is still in development, with no release date announced yet.
Space Tales is a real-time strategy and tower defense game with a heavy retro-futuristic theme. Okay so, when I said these demos caught my eye, I literally meant it. They caught my eye, but this doesn't mean they're good. Space Tales demo is a terrible showcase of the game. The only available mode in the demo is the survival mode, which would normally be fine, but there's no tutorial whatsoever, and no narration that at least could've introduced players to the game's universe. The interface and controls are barebone, your troops are lowly responsive, and the first wave is too strong for your base's strength at that stage. Hard pass.
Shadow of the Old Gods is a grand strategy where you play as an ancient malevolent god, ready to rise again and unleash an apocalypse to the world. But first, you must start by slowly corrupting the world and strengthening your grip on the population. You control various agents to do your bidding, by terrorizing the population, bringing chaos to cities and spreading your cult.
This game is developed by one person, so it's understandably not as polished as you'd expect. The artwork is constructed from various sources and images, and the UI feels flat. Regardless, it's a very complex game, but once you get the hang of it, it'll get rather immersive, and the strategy can get surprisingly very deep.
Capes takes place in a city where superheroes are oppressed and in hiding. Akin to a police-state, the city is under the control of an organization called The Company. Capes is a squad turn-based tactics with its own twist of interesting features, such as ultimate abilities and various synergies between superheroes. Your superheroes take actions on fixed turns, but each is free to move or spend action points in any order you want.
What excited me most when playing the demo was the persistent environment. By that, I mean: one of the superheroes has powers that revolve around crystal shards, which he leaves all over the place. If I position the other two superheroes on tiles where there are shards on it, they would actually use the shards as a part of their actions. I don't think it's intended as a part of the combat mechanics as there's no difference to the damages, but still, it's a very nice attention to visual detail.
Microcivilization is a clicker strategy game where you grow a civilization from a tiny village to an advanced and powerful civilized nation. This game is straight up adorable with its cute artstyle and upbeat music. It took me a while to understand the mechanics, such as combat and its quest system.
It was also my first time playing a clicker game, so I was unaware that clicking too much would incur a penalty of sort. Overall, it was very fun while it lasted, but after an hour or so, it started to feel like a waiting game, and I got tired of the whole routine of clicking periodically. Regardless, it's a very promising title, I must say.
The narrative premise of Solium Infernum is that the ruler of Hell has vanished, leaving the throne up for grabs. You, as one of the archfiends of Hell, have to use deception, diplomacy and brute force to secure your ascension to the throne.
Unlike most RTSs, achieving complete domination is far from the most viable way to win in Solium Infernum. In fact, you cannot attack anyone unprovoked in this game, without any reasoning triggered by the games of diplomacy and deception. The politics of the players is governed by a board of sorts, called the Conclave. Obviously, the settings won me over, but I also find the main mechanics of this game refreshing.
After an almost 4-hour demo playtime, I can pretty much say that depending on the reviews shortly after release, this might be one of the games that I wouldn't be waiting long before buying, which is something I very rarely do. I said that this list is in no particular order, but Solium Infernum is definitely the one I look most forward to. What worries me though, is that it's supposedly multiplayer focused. No release date has been announced yet, but I'm keeping a close eye on it.
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