Just got it this weekend and I’m having a blast. Time traveling giant robots vs monsters, in the form of a chess-like turn-based tactics game. Lots of fun and highly recommended!
WHAT
this sounds amazing and I am putting it on my wish list for later.
Edit: Christ, I just looked at it, it’s like a cross between FTL and XCom. I don’t buy games full price, but I might buy this one.
I just got my first full win on the Normal difficulty, but I can already see there’s tons of replay value (lots and lots of varieties of giant robots and monsters), so I’m still playing!
FTL is so ridiculously good that this is a must buy. $15 is a bargain if it’s HALF as good at FTL.
Yup, it was worth the money and then some.
My first win must have had a lot of luck, since I haven’t been able to repeat even after several more run-throughs. Still having fun, though. I’m experimenting with different robot (mech) combinations – some mechs work really well with others. I find the lightning-whip mech (who can chain lightning damage through any adjacent enemies) works really well with mechs who can move enemies from space to space (such as the punch-mech and the artillery and boulder-throwing mechs), who can set them up for a wicked chain.
I only seem to able to get the melee mech, tank, and artillery. I don’t see that the lightning whip mech is even an option for anyone but the melee guy.
Like FTL, the genius of the game is it’s simple but it takes awhile to realize just what you’re doing, and the fact that you have to plan ahead. Your instinct is to just start punching and shooting, but then you realize you’re screwing up by doing that. Just figuring out how to best run a single round takes a little while, and then you realize you have to plan ahead to the net round, too.
A big boost in my success rate was realizing that it’s just as important to kill the Vek coming out the next round as it is to kill the ones in the round you’re in. Anything you can do to get the Vek to block one another is just an enormous coup for you; it’s much, much better to force a Vek onto an emerging Vek than it is to kill it. Strategically, therefore, what I’m doing is
- Use power cores to add HP to my melee mech before anything else. More HP is everything.
- Have the melee mech charge into the Vek side of the map as quickly as reasonably possible; that way the Vek may be motivated to attack him, not the structures, and that keeps them close to emerging Vek.
- Then, in addition to using Vek to block each other, you can use your melee mech to block them, too. If you have him bombed up to 5-7HP, giving up a point to block a Vek is worth it.
- When you have the upgrades, jack up the tank’s HP and do the same with him.
Awhile back I complained to my best bud that the FTL people hadn’t made a game in awhile. I don’t know if I was right or wrong. On one hand I love this game and wish I had it earlier. On the other, if it takes them years to produce this kind of brilliant game, maybe I should trust the process. This is a much better game than “Civilization VI” and I paid a lot more money for that.
When you lose or abandon a timeline (and “beam up” one of your pilots to start over) you have the option to choose mechs. Based on how many achievement stars you’ve earned, you can “buy” some new mech teams. You can also choose “custom team” (or something like that) and make your own mech team based on the mechs you’ve earned.
By the way, I find mobility is almost as important (maybe more important for artillery and ranged mechs) as HP. Also, making the artillery safe for buildings (with 1 power core) is hugely beneficial. And keep in mind that there are unique pilots that you can carry over, with special abilities. Some of them are robots with special abilities that need power cores – two of my favorites are the pilots who get a free move after their attack, meaning that you can move into the line of fire, attack the enemy, and then step back out.
I loved FTL but I could never beat it. Came agonizingly close countless times.
You’ll have to take my word that I understood the game, how it was deeper than it seemed, watched all the videos I could and so on. Through some horrible combo of bad luck and just enough lack of skill I could never win it.
Not kidding and I played FTL a LOT.
I am really worried to try this. I don’t want easy street but I’d like to think a win is reasonably possible.
There’s an easy difficulty level (and normal, and hard). IMO, it’s easier than FTL – I won on my 4th or 5th play through, while for FTL it probably took me a dozen or two. As for FTL, I’d recommend you get the mod that turns off Rebel fleet pursuit. It makes the game much more relaxing, and more like you’re just exploring the galaxy rather than fleeing from the enemy.
I refuse to play any game on “easy” mode. Seems like a cheat to me.
That’s just me though.
I hope you’ll try the game anyway!
I don’t “play” games on easy mode either. But sometimes if a game is especially difficult or very different from anything I’ve played before I’ll start out in easy mode for a while until I get the hang of it then start over again on normal or harder. I think of it like a tutorial.
Me too but only as a tutorial when the game is complex and hard to grasp.
In the case of FTL it is more like chess. You can be taught the rules in minutes but take a lifetime to master the game.
For me there is no easy mode for chess or FTL that is not anything other than nerfing the game.
FTL’s easy mode, though, IS the game. It’s not a hack. The game is deliberately offered with difficulty levels.
FTL’s modes should have been called “Hard”, “Really Fucking Hard”, and “You’ll never beat the previous difficulty level, so why bother?”. That’s what they were for me. It was a great game for a while, but with too much RNG for me to take seriously long-term. Too much of the game was about getting the good results of events, and when you hit a good run of them, it was much much easier than when you hit a bad run. I definitely would look into another game by the same people so long as they didn’t slather probabilistic events all over the place. Chess doesn’t do that shit to you. If you lose a chess game, it’s your own damn fault.
I find this much easier than FTL – I almost always win on Easy, and often win on Normal.
Once you know how to play FTL, the game is probably 75% a matter of whether you pick up some good weapons or not. If you’re lucky enough to add two Burst Laser IIs to your ship’s initial loadout you’ll tear apart every enemy ship in thirty seconds. If you end up in the third sector without a decent upgrade, start over.
I’m the reverse so far; I can breeze through FTL with all but the most nonsensical ships, but I think I’ve won this game TWICE out of many plays. It actually feels MORE random than FTL because I have no ability to predict what the enemies will do.