The Amazing American Circus, from Klabater is a fresh take on the deck building genre. You are the estranged son of a failed Ring Master who’s recently passed away and left you his failing circus. Hesitant to take over, you’re informed of a circus competition with a grand prize of $100,000 that piques your interest. Can you pull this failing troop out of the dirt and raise it to new heights?

Gameplay

The gameplay for The Amazing American Circus is split between shows, circus management and travel. First things first. You put a show together and build a deck. Shows are made up of 3 entertainers, each has their own associated themed cards, some entertain, others protect or regain focus, so by picking three entertainers you’ve already chosen a combined strategy for your deck, depending on their level entertainers have a selection of different cards to choose from, you pick 5 for each to make up the deck of 15.

Shows have 1 objective, impress the audience members enough to get them to sit down and enjoy the show, This means dropping audience vitality with entertainment cards, once they hit 0 they sit down. However different audience members have special moves to distract entertainers, dodge being impressed or recover vitality, you need to choose carefully who to focus on.

You also need to avoid your entertainers losing focus, by balancing defensive actions with entertainment actions you can survive each round while witling down vitality. Finally, the show is also a race against the turn count, the longer the show goes on the more you will cycle through your deck, each cycle removes focus from your performers and causes you to lose cards permanently for that show. This can cause a carefully designed deck to perform poorly.

You can’t lose from 1 failed show but it does harm your income and several bad performances in 3 cities will end the game.

Management

After the show, The Amazing American Circus shifts to resource management.

How do you spend the money you’ve just earned? Do you upgrade the wagons to give bonuses to recruiting and entertainer levelling? What about upgrading the entertainers themselves? Or hire new ones?

The upgrade feature for entertainers is unique for the genre. You can either add more cards to their deck or upgrade an existing one, this can potentially break the game by creating a very powerful combo between cards, like stacking more juggling balls on the juggler and unleashing them all for 5-6 impress points per ball.

Money also has to be put aside for travelling food, when moving to a new city if fed well, performers can get boons, if not they develop flaws which can impact the show.

Art and music?

The art is 2D and minimalistic but isn’t exactly a bad choice, in fact as it’s based in the Old West it often resembles an old-time 2D puppet show. The music is at home in a saloon, with western piano and harmonica toons matching the visuals nicely.

Any negatives?

The tutorial could do with being broken up over a few shows. It throws every mechanic at you at once. However, the game is meant to be played multiple times, with each attempt teaching you something new. Other than that it has a lot of promise and has hours of entertainment.

Stay tuned to GamEir. Come talk with us on Twitter (@gam_eir), Facebook (@GamEir), and Instagram (@GamEir).

I promise we’re nice! Keep up with our streams over on Twitch (GamEir) and our videos on YouTube (GamEir) and we’ll give you all the latest content.

The post Run away to The Amazing American Circus appeared first on GamEir.

What’s new about Back 4 Blood?

While the gameplay is the same, the devs have added replay value with some new systems such as resource management using copper pieces as currency, a weapon customization system, and a deck-building system. There is also the noticeable absence of any form of custom skins or microtransaction system in-game, the developers previously stated they don’t want to include these at launch.

As you travel through the map you can find copper coins, these can be exchanged at saferooms for weapon upgrades, ammo, and medical supplies/tools/grenades. This adds a layer of consideration when spending copper, should I refill on ammo, Buy a medkit or should I save up for that scope attachment?

Weapon attachments can be found or purchased, upgrading things like the range, swap speed, ammo capacity, and weakspot damage of the weapon you’re using, there doesn’t appear to be a way to trade old attachments onto new weapons right now, something that makes parting with a starting gun notably painful.

Card game mechanics you say?

The most unique addition is the deck-building system. Players can assemble a deck of 15 cards before a game. Each card gives unique bonuses with some tradeoffs to the player and or team.

When the game begins you start with the first card in the deck active, then pick from one of three random cards, each saferoom you can choose another card from three and slowly assemble a collection of active cards for your run. I found selecting a weapon card first useful here as it meant I started the game with a superior weapon I could then focus on upgrading right away, some cards come with tradeoffs, for example, there’s a card that increases normal running speed but disables sprint.

Alpha Issues and missed opportunities

As this was a closed alpha some issues are guaranteed, a gun firing audio bug that wouldn’t go away was particularly frustrating, these are to be expected and should be fixed by mid-2021 for the release date, but something I couldn’t ignore was a missed opportunity for the returning franchise. There’s no real upgrade to the core sections of the game, the same old shooter is there, same old gameplay but it’s also the same old mission system.

The original Left 4 Dead maps consisted of a single tunnel corridor with very little alternate paths, just some slight alterations each playthrough, while this was acceptable in 2008-2010 a decade later it feels substandard,

Developers have access to tools that make generating large maps far easier than in the past. As Turtle Rock has also made Evolve they’re no stranger to it either. Why was this not considered? I can’t help but feel that several large 1km x 1km maps would be better than the isolated corridor system they’re sticking to.

Such maps could have safe rooms dotted in several locations, with random spawn in and exit locations making each game feel unique, Not only would this quadruple the replay value of the game it would give it a modern look, but it would also solve the problem with the ogre boss they’ve added, He’s far too large for the small scale maps, it leaves you no room to manoeuvre. This means running away is your only real option.

Final Thoughts on Back 4 Blood

A few extra systems make for an interesting addition to the franchise but I’m not completely sold just yet, right now it feels far too much like a decade-old game, can Back 4 Blood make a triumphant return in 2021 or will it slip and fall flat on its face?

Back 4 Blood? Only time will tell.

Stay tuned to GamEir. Come talk with us on Twitter (@gam_eir), Facebook (@GamEir), and Instagram (@GamEir).

I promise we’re nice! Keep up with our streams over on Twitch (GamEir) and our videos on YouTube (GamEir) and we’ll give you all the latest content.

The post Back 4 Blood Alpha: An old classic with some new polish appeared first on GamEir.

At first look ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos appears to be an anime VR mech game with a branching story, on closer inspection though I found it to be mainly a visual novel with very little “game” to be found. Let’s dive in.

You play as Chloe, a human that’s been genetically engineered to pilot a mech in the defence of A.T. City, humanity’s last standing underground stronghold. What is Chloe like as a character? Let’s just say if she were in Snow White, she’d be a perfect Grumpy.

Chloe’s standoff nature at social events doesn’t like celebrating with squadmates after a successful mission and is only interested in the next fight with the Meteoras, that’s the mysterious enemy that’s driven humans underground, it makes an interesting contrast with her AI assistant Noa, who follows you almost everywhere with a cheery disposition.

The VR connection in ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos

VR is relatively new, and so studios are still experimenting with it, there is no official “rule book” on what makes a good VR game but I think player immersion is a reasonable starting point. I’ve seen studio’s take full advantage of the technology, enhancing the player’s connection to the game’s world through their senses, I’ve also seen others who’ve built an entire control system that disconnects players from the game entirely, unfortunately, ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos appears to be the latter side of this.

Players can’t choose to navigate the environment, during story sections, the game automatically moves you from place to place using a standard “blink” teleport system, any notion of exploration or submersion into the world is abandoned. You can point and interact with objects to get some further reading but a loading circle is needed every time, making the game drag on at a snail’s pace, you eventually learn this is less of a game and more of a story experience.

Combat is scripted, you don’t actually feel like you piloting a powerful mech in the defence of humanity, ironically you feel like your sitting at a console pressing buttons while a screen in the background plays a disconnected movie, any illusion that would normally draw you into the game is just not present. I honestly found myself wondering why the game is using VR at all.

The themes of ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos

The strength of the game is definitely in its writing, what I thought would be a generic sci-fi story began adding themes of philosophy, reality, and social commentary on state surveillance of all things.

The underground city of A.T. is, in itself, a semi-virtual world, the real city is a grey dystopian setting, no colour, no vibrance, the sky nothing more than a panelled dome. Citizens hide from this truth using an augmented reality called “textures”, when looking at a cold lifeless street they see neon advertisements, green trees, and crowds chatting away in the background, the lifeless dome ceiling is replaced with a night sky of vibrant stars. In a way it explores the same idea’s found in The Matrix (1999), would you rather live in the real world or a comforting lie?

Noa, the ever-playful AI, seems to follow you everywhere, monitoring your condition, trying to keep you happy, you quickly learn she keeps adapting her programming to be more human, her goal, to learn more about how humans think and experience the world, to better meet our needs, but there is something unnerving about a program monitoring your every action, its learning process coming close to influencing through social engineering.

Final Thoughts

At its heart, ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos is a choose-your-own-adventure game that’s very light on the VR. The story takes some 3 hours to complete and replaying the various story branches adds about 10 hours to the total game time. Apart from the few noticeable anime tropes that are to be expected, it’s a worthwhile story experience.

Just don’t go into this game expecting a lot of combat or action, It’s a slow-paced story, not a Gundam.

Stay tuned to GamEir. Also, be sure and converse with us on Twitter (@gam_eir), Facebook (@GamEir), and Instagram (@GamEir).

Check out our videos on Twitch (GamEir) and YouTube (GamEir) and we’ll give you all the latest content.

The post Living that virtual life in ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos appeared first on GamEir.

For there’ll be peace when you are done. True for you, but not for the poor humans found in this game. Unlike most titles where you valiantly save people from the horrible monster, Carrion lets you be that monster, players familiar with the movie The Thing will find some similarities here, as you’re a morphing, tentacle welding, thing of nightmares, you are flesh, you are teeth, and you are hungry.

Flow

The first thing I noticed is this is no ordinary platformer, in fact, it isn’t really a platformer at all. As you move about the underground research facility your avatar of hunger automatically reaches out with tentacles, gripping surfaces, swinging from ceilings etc. So long as you’re close enough to something to grip you sort of flow effortlessly through the environment. This prevents you from getting stuck on corners and reinforces the feeling of being an apex predator scurrying in and out of the vents as you search for prey.

Sound Design

Cavernous music with an echo-like quality, the soundtrack for the game fits perfectly with the environment, what I’d like to focus on here is the games attention to detail, entering water dulls all sound effects, moving has this rhythmic whipping effect as your wet tentacles move you about, chains hanging from the ceiling in something seen from Alien make light clanking as you pass by and if you delicately grip a door handle and pull back, metal doors make this tiny squeaky sound. The game is littered with these tiny effects that all add up to a very detailed environment.

Power

Your health is tied to your bodies biomass in Carrion. I found as I consumed bodes and progress through the game my mass grew, throughout the world you find more “Samples” of whatever you are, merging with these unlocks more abilities and expands your total mass, consume enough and you can morph from a tiny critter into a monstrous entity, changing what abilities you can use.

You’ll unlock such abilities as echolocation, a charging smash, and a ranged web attack, these not only aid you in combat but, in the same vein as Castlevania, allow you to unlock more parts of the map by pulling levers or breaking open tunnels. There’s also a selection of hidden powerups for completionists to hunt down.

Final Thoughts

If you’re a fan of horror movies involving strange alien creatures or just want to blow off steam smashing relentlessly through squishy humans then I highly recommend Carrion, It plays equally well on keyboard and mouse as well as a controller. Its only downside is its length, as you can blow through the game in a matter of hours, hopefully, the developers consider expanding the content with challenge modes as it currently doesn’t have much replayability.

Stay tuned to GamEir. Also, be sure and converse with us on Twitter (@gam_eir), Facebook (@GamEir), and Instagram (@GamEir).

Check out our videos on Twitch (GamEir) and YouTube (GamEir) and we’ll give you all the latest content.

The post Carrion my wayword son appeared first on GamEir.

Stela is another addition to the growing list of Limbo inspired, atmospheric platformers. Similar to its predecessor’s: Little Nightmares, Gris, Inside to name a few, you awaken as a silent protagonist in a strange world and have to progress forward passed platform puzzles and threatening foes. Stela has beautiful yet simplistic graphics, touching music and a few noticeable problems, so let’s get into it…

Building Atmosphere

This is where the game shines, In the beginning, you emerge from a cave into a field of dead crops and with that small hint of foreshadowing the visual storytelling begins,

As the protagonist is silent and the world itself is hostile the backstory of this genre is told visually, as I explore I see a darkened sky, dead plants, barren dust blowing in the wind and in the first few minutes I encounter a swarm of beetles, so this world is gripped by a plague driven famine? Progressing onwards I see malnourished humanoid creatures stalking a nearby forest. Stela does a wonderful job of using visuals to reinforce the theme that this world is on its last legs, its the end times. I encounter references to war and further in the game, forest fires and frozen landscapes, perhaps hinting at climate change.

The world of Stela

Each new environment comes with its own style of unique enemies so you’re kept on your toes trying to figure out how to deal with each new foe.

The music, subtle sound effects and overall design is fantastic, when walking through a still forest you can hear the gentle rush if a stream, the wind rustling past dead leaves, the creak of a tree.

When running through a snow-filled tundra the sound shifts to chilling winds and the crack of frost underfoot, This creates very tense moments when a threat appears and you need to hide, the game knows exactly when to drop the sound entirely or change to a faster-paced track to add tension, I highly recommend playing the game with a good headset.

When Stela is less than stell-ar

This is where the game shows its first shortcoming, controls are basic. Move, grab and jump are all that are needed to interact with the world. The problem is the puzzles themselves are extremely simple, offering very little challenge, I found the game holding my hand and not letting go.

If I need to drag a box to climb a ledge the box is typically next to the ledge, carry a torch to light a bonfire? They’re both shown on screen at the same time, switch a lever to open a door? Just climb a ladder to reach the switch. Everything is spoonfed to you, I expected this from the first few puzzles as it teaches you the basic mechanics but they’re never expanded on later, they’re simply repeated throughout the game. It’s hardly a puzzle if you don’t need to think.

By far the largest criticism of the game, it’s two and a half hours long, with the price hovering around $17 that’s a lot of money for such a short gaming experience. There’s almost no replay value except to find some hidden glyphs in each stage of the game, a single collectable type.

Final Thoughts

Stela is a fun casual experience with some light puzzles and neat storytelling. I could say the game leaves you wanting more but for the price, I’d wait for a sale to buy.

Stay tuned to GamEir. Also, be sure and converse with us on Twitter (@gam_eir), Facebook (@GamEir), and Instagram (@GamEir). Check out our videos on Twitch (GamEir) and YouTube (GamEir) and we’ll give you all the latest content.

The post Stela & the lingering influence of Limbo appeared first on GamEir.

First off Legends of Runeterra looks beautiful, the fun cartoon style of League of Legends really shines through, the unique animated art on some cards and the cute sticker emote system really brings the game to life. The cards are grouped into the regions of Runeterra with each one following a theme, so you’ll see similar keywords showing up for each, such as Frostbite (reduces a cards power to 0) for the Freljord and Last Breath (Activates an effect if this card dies) for the Shadow Isles.

Decks can be built with cards from one or two regions, allowing for a large level of unique deck combinations. This will add a high level of replayability and will probably make forming a static meta difficult, which is a good thing.

It looks great, but how does it play?

Legends of Runeterra has a very back and forth, move, counter move structure to each round, when it’s your turn to attack, every card played offers your opponent the chance to play a card themselves. I found the pace of each match was set by the aggressor. This makes games quite fast compared to other card games, they really seem to want you to complete a match within 10-13 rounds.

Champion cards offer unique objectives to focus on during play, when completed this unlocks their next level for a large advantage, they also help players new to deck building design a deck, for example, Elise requires spiders to level, so designing a deck around spawning many low-level spiders

Another unique aspect of play is spell mana, this is a separate, 3 gem pool of mana, which fills from your unspent mana each round. It adds another resource to manage during play and removes the wasted mana issue other card games face.

I noticed during play that if early low-cost cards aren’t traded early they can become obsolete as the pace of the game continues. You can only apply a single defender to each attacker, meaning several low-cost cards can’t be used to remove a single large enemy, there are other means of removal so this isn’t game-breaking, I just found it a little odd, you have to always be trading for an advantage or you quickly flounder with little chance of coming back.

There’s also a nice Oracle Eye tool that allows you to see the results of the next move as it will currently play out, very useful for new players.

So the game has unique rules from other card games, is it fun to play? well kind of, the combat isn’t very deep, while you can combo cards together for interesting effects, the limited health and faster pace of the game means very few game-defining moves occur. I found many matches just build up to a single move that wins outright.

There are a few very strong cards that need some adjustment and due to the fact regions can be combined the game is going to face larger teething problems than most card games when fully released. Allowing so many combinations of cards makes it a hard game to balance.

Expeditions

If you’ve played the arena in Hearthstone then Expeditions is a similar game mode, you pay for a run, build a deck and hope to earn back the “buy-in” price with random rewards.

However, Legends of Runeterra handles this a little differently. First off, you always seem to make back the buy-in price of 4000 shards, second its extremely forgiving. You build your initial deck from random cards and each win gives you the option to add new cards and trade out one card you don’t want for a replacement. If you lose twice in a row you’re out, no three strikes here, meaning you can alternate between winning and losing and still complete a whole trial. On top of this, you get two attempts per expedition, with your highest run being used for rewards.

While this is extremely forgiving it also means it takes a long time to complete a full expedition, I can see some people getting a high score on their first run and skipping the second just to save time.

Incentives to keep playing

Daily quests are normal for this type of game and used to farm XP used to earn cards, more on this later, you’re given the standard 1 reroll per day.

Each player has a weekly fault which they also upgrade by earning XP, at the end of the week it unlocks granting large rewards based on its level.

The rewards page allows you to select a region to unlock cards from, not only earning wildcards.

As deck building offers many combinations from the different regions and you’re allowed 3 of the same card in a deck the level of content to unlock is high, and with the method of unlocking cards players will find themselves earning progression at a steady pace. It is a game you can be committed too for many months.

Monetization

Here’s the big one, traditionally you’d grind for an in-game resource, then trade it in for a card pack and hope RNG was on your side.

Legends of Runeterra doesn’t strictly do that. Instead, you grind for XP, this unlocks ever-increasing rewards along a region-specific reward track earning only rewards from that region, these rewards range from shards, a resource used to buy cards directly, single random cards, and wild cards.

The unique resource here is the wild cards, they come in 4 types, common, rare, epic and champion. each one can be redeemed for a single card of that rarity. As simple as that, you want to unlock an Ionia champion to build a deck around? Trade-in a champion wildcard, want a specific Demacian rare for your elite combo deck? Just trade in a rare wildcard.

The level of flexibility in earning the exact cards you wish to use is fantastic. You still have to grind, but now you’re working towards a what you want, almost no RNG, You can buy wildcards directly but paying players are limited in how many wildcards they can buy every week.

What’s interesting about this system is free to play players can invest their time in mastering one or two regions and keep up with the paying players that have bought most of the cards directly.

Wrap up and future

Legends of Runeterra has enough new mechanics, and play style options to make it a fresh take on the card collecting genre, It also has a very unique approach to building your collection. I can see it making a stable launch, the question is where will it fall compared to existing card games, it’s not as technically demanding or complex as magic the gathering, but its also not as simple as Hearthstone, I’m not sure which demographic of gamer, hardcore or casual, it’s aiming for, it seems to be riding the line between both.

One thing I will say is, given the rewards system and its approach to unlocking cards, it may be possible to release new regions into the game will little disruption to the existing content, Runeterra regions like Shurima and the Void are noticeably absent from the game and as players can specifically choose to farm cards from a region, if these were added player could farm the new content with ease.

I look forward to seeing its final release and it looks to have a bright future ahead.

Stay tuned to GamEir, and if you’re interested, converse with us on Twitter (@gam_eir), Facebook (@GamEir), and Instagram (@GamEir). Check out our videos on Twitch (GamEir) and YouTube (GamEir) and we’ll give you all the latest content.

The post First impressions of Legends of Runeterra appeared first on GamEir.

Outer Wilds is… hard to describe, it’s not exactly a platformer, not exactly an adventure game and walking simulator doesn’t do it justice. It’s difficult to place the game in a preexisting genre, The most accurate label might be exploration, as you’re dropped into a unique solar system, given a rickety little spaceship held together with wood and tape and asked too… explore.

I say asked because the game doesn’t really tell you what to do, instead it does a fantastic job of enticing you into exploring with its exotic visuals and collectible notes. From the moment I first saw the night sky, I was left with questions that needed answers. What was that large explosion I just witnessed? Where did that strange object leaving the explosion go? Can I travel to the massive, green planet both objects were just orbiting?

The intrigue deepens as I moved through the tutorial settlement, you play as a reptilian race with four eyes and an adventurous nature, they introduce you to the mechanics of the game and the Nomai, a mysterious goat like race that vanished thousands of years ago and who settlements are found throughout the system, some of their advanced technology has even been adapted for use in your ship.

So, armed with questions and a ship that’s passed every safety inspection (well most of them) you set out into this wild system looking for answers.

Get out there & explore Outer Wilds

The visuals are simplistic and cartoony which work great for this type of game, with a diverse use of color as well as light and shadow. From the barren clay reds of ember twin, to the swampy greens and browns of dark bramble, every planet has its own color palette, coupled with this is the shifting “daylight” on the surface, the whole solar system moves rather quickly and the day-night cycles take mere minutes to complete. You’ll often find yourself glancing upwards as something passes between you and the sun.

Platforming, Puzzles, and planetary flight plans, this is the bread and butter of outer wilds. Each planet has its own unique dangers such as gravity, topography, plants and… fish (don’t ask) I spent a lot of time dodging threats while searching for a clear path to the next ruin or cave to explore.

One of the early obstacles I had to overcome was exploring brittle hollow, a hollow planet made almost entirely out of geode rock, the planet itself is falling apart by the time you arrive, meaning most of the pathways are barely traversable and over time it only gets worse. Most of my time was spent unraveling the mystery of the solar system, finding text left behind by the Nomai and searching for lost colleges from the starting settlement who have been exploring the other planets in the system.

Yet another area where the game shines, the game boasts over 25 tracks, campfire-style tunes and epic violin featuring guitars, banjo’s, drums, harmonica and flute, each planet practically has its own song but they hum away in the background as you explore. The game incorporates the music into gameplay extremely well, I became well acquainted with one song in particular as it’s tied to a repeating event within the solar system. Please feel free to check out the music on soundcloud and support the artist for his amazing work

Back in 2013 Outer  Wilds was Alex Beachum’s master’s thesis, his aim was to capture the “spirit of space exploration” portrayed in movies such as Apollo 13 and 2001: A Space Odyssey. for the next few year’s he and a small team built an early build of the project before gaining the attention of Mobius Digital who hired the entire team and started work towards a full development commercial release.

Mobius Digital have done a phenomenal job taking the early vision of the game and polishing it to professional perfection.

There’s a whole lot more to the game I’d love to talk about but let’s avoid spoilers, This is a game that should be experienced for itself. A unique and thrilling single player title that proves creativity and real innovation in games is still alive and well.

The post A Review in Progress: Outer Wilds appeared first on GamEir.

ZIQ is a is a highly polished endless runner from developer Midnight Sea Studios published by 3D Realms. It’s the developers first released title.

Now from what I can make out you take control of a neon frog halfway through its development from tadpole to adulthood, as he makes his way across a drug-fueled neon vision of the giant’s causeway!!! (Yes you read that correctly) Sounds fun? well, let’s dive in and take a look.

Graphics:

ZIQ looks great, sharp contrasting neon blues and oranges highlight a hexagon runway, a soup of toxic sludge lies underneath the tiles, its basic but that’s all the game needs. One subtle touch is the dimly seen highlights on the side of the running track flash with light along with the beat of the music. Other than that there’s really not a lot to talk about.

Gameplay:

You run forwards, hardly groundbreaking for an endless runner I know but the heart of the game is the mini-games along the way, you run along 3 tracks, left middle and right all the while dodging walls, rivers of toxic green goo and colored barriers your little “frog” friend must match in order to pass. Coupled with this are coloured spheres you can collect, match the colour sequence at the top of the screen for a bonus to your score. Over time you get to new stages with increasing difficulty, vanishing floors, obstacles appearing from nowhere and shorter times to react.

While all of this is going on a faceless entity in the game taunts you as you play, negging you to improve, mocking your deaths, clearly inspired by the game Getting Over It. where the developer takes on a similar role.

So we have our main gameplay, optional tasks while running to boost our score, a voice in our head telling us to improve and its all in service of!? Gaining a high score, yep the game just wants to see how far you can get, having played a multitude of endless runners over the years this is the minimal requirement for your game to technically be a game, there’s just no reward system. This is the dealbreaker for me, ZIQ is littered with “sticks” encouraging to you improve but no “carrot” as a reward and a challenge without a reward is a chore.

Wheres the content to unlock? Different game modes? New characters with new abilities? Something to make you feel you’re progressing towards something.

Music:

ZIQ’s music is fantastic, it perfectly fits the tone of the game, badass wolf shirt clearly has some talent, it doesn’t take a front row seat as your busy reacting with your eyes but without it, the game itself would be lifeless.

Final thoughts:

This feels like a highly polished college or game jam project. The work is there but it doesn’t amount to a rewarding experience.

The design is just flawed, ironically an endless runner with limited replay value. If you enjoy the repetitive gameplay and improving your reflexes for its own sake then this is the game for you. You can get far more game time for your money from anywhere else on steam. If you really want it I’d wait for a sale.

The post A Review in Progress: ZIQ appeared first on GamEir.

Sleep Tight is a unique mesh of twin-stick shooter and base building mechanics all wrapped in delightful Pixar visualization that’s not entirely unlike Monsters Inc. Developed and published by We Are Fuzzy and is the studio’s first released title.

You take on the role of a kid just before bedtime and like most you don’t want to go to sleep, a smart move because you’re not alone, creeping from the shadows, purple horned creatures with rather goofy looking eyes close in around you and armed only with a nerf gun you must find a way to survive the night. If you managed to make it to daybreak you’ll have some free time to explore your bedroom. This is the downtime screen where you prepare for what’s to come each night, spending literal daylight in the form of “suns” you get each morning and “stars” obtained from monsters to build pillow-forts, develop nerf guns and researching new bonuses.

Graphics:

The comparison to Pixar is plain to see, its clearly the devs main inspiration, the visuals are playful, goofy and the theme of a child’s imagination is the perfect setting for a game full of monsters. They did an exceptional job with shadows and a silhouette cast across the bedroom floor from a window at night gave me a genuine feeling of unease.

As the number of survived nights increase the design of the monsters shifts from playful and fun to a more creepy design, Small horns become twisted, clean smiles become fanged jaws and like watching a mogwai become a gremlin, things get a little more sinister. The music is quaint but that’s to be expected from a running background track if it drew your attention it would get repetitive very quickly.

Gameplay:

Sleep Tight is a delight to play,  the twin-stick controls are sharp, the pace is fast and the camera is zoomed in just enough to require fast reflexes when a creature sprints into view. As with other games in the genre, it’s all about staying mobile to avoiding damage. Every so often a lull in the action leaving you wondering where the next enemy will lunge from, I often found myself seeking refuge in a corner, back against the wall just to be sure nothing could sneak up on me. At one point when I did finally run out of ammo, I was left scrambling around the room trying desperately to avoid being hit by the mass of horned horrors in hot pursuit.

Having a look at the list of upgrades you can buy this is where Sleep Tight left me rather dumbfounded, I was surprised to find genuine depth and rogue-lite elements which you wouldn’t expect to find in a games with such simple visuals, health and ammo are resources you must purchase with your nights earnings of suns and stars, bonuses for your character only last a few nights, defenses must be repaired. This gives you a lot of choices on how to play, do you want to take a bonus shield to conserve your health or take a risk in gaining more resources each night? Build a new turret or buy a new gun? with 12 characters to unlock each with their own unique bonuses Sleep Tight has a lot of replayability and lets you double down on min-maxing a particular strategy.

Speaking of character unlocks they’re no simple task with some characters requiring 25 or 35 nights survived to unlock or unique tasks such as using every weapon in a single game.

So what doesn’t work?:

The game is not without its issues, while the twin-stick aspect of the game works wonderfully, the base building doesn’t mesh with it well,

These two genre’s in the game are at odds with each other, twin-stick shooters are all about staying mobile, using your character’s agility to avoid incoming damage while dishing your own out in spades. Base defense is the exact opposite of this, you build forts to hold back the waves of monsters, construct turrets to reduce enemy numbers and add your own firepower where its needed most, The problem with this is when you construct defenses you’re limiting your character’s mobility, you’re filling the play area with objects that block movement, this might seem like a small issue but when you’re only able to use half of your characters strengths it feels a little limiting.

Coupled with this is the issue of how monsters spawn into the playfield, the game takes into account how much of the room you can see and spawns enemies outside of your camera, seems like a good idea but if you walk away from your base for a few seconds the game spawns a monster inside of your defenses and turrets don’t have the largest HP pool, I’ve lost a few just venturing out to collect stars from fallen enemies, again the game is forcing to you stay stationary.

The largest issue which could easily be patched is the turrets AI, the level one turret rotates so slowly it often doesn’t have a chance to hit anything before the players already taking care of it, its a little annoying when you’ve saved up resources to place a turret only for it to barely make any impact on the game. they are also coded in a rather strange way, when designing a turret you’d imagine it would find a target, rotate to aim at target and then fire but no, these turrets begin firing the moment a target is in range regardless of whether the turret is aimed at it, this results in shots fired into thin air, this becomes a larger issue with the level 3 turret which does high damage but has a long time between shots. The first shot is wasted and by the time the turret has an enemy lined up the second shot is 3-4 seconds away.

Final thoughts:

All in all the base defense of Sleep Tight is a little underdeveloped but don’t let that put a put a damper on your day, The gameplay is fun and varied, the number of upgrade paths and characters to unlock leaves you with buckets of content and plenty of replay value. I hope to see more from this developer in the future.

If you enjoyed our new writer John’s review be sure and keep up to date with GamEir as you’ll see more of his stuff soon.

The post A Review in Progress: Sleep Tight appeared first on GamEir.