Try it Tuesday: April 12th, 2022
Last night’s selection of games for my weekly show Try it Tuesday were all quite interesting. I try to create a theme for each week, but didn’t entirely have one for this: you could link them together by saying that two of them were tower defense-style games, and two of them were sci-fi themed. Otherwise, they were all different and unique to one another, and managed to stand out as such during the stream. I’ll waste no more time getting into the general summary of the games.
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Lumencraft
Lumencraft shares a lot of similarities with Deep Rock Galactic. I don’t know if you’re a dwarf, but you’re definitely mining out a lot of rock and stone while fighting off bug enemies in this game. The game boasts a crafting system that has you constructing your own base that you’ll defend from waves of enemies every 5-10 minutes, so the loop of having to go out and gather materials and construct items to help with that progression is very addictive in its pacing. You are also met with some measure of strategic thought in how you carve out your pathways to gather materials that you need – each pathway could be a new way for enemy waves to reach you and destroy your base. After each wave, you can repair and fortify your base and its protective measures: turrets, walls, and more are at your disposal. It’s honestly a very fun title, and I would definitely recommend to anyone who loves Deep Rock Galactic and Terraria, and who are looking for something that maybe is a fusion of those two games. The top-down perspective had me thinking at first that it was going to be something more like Garage: Bad Trip – a narrative-driven game with a clear end. This is not that kind of game from what I experienced, though there are adventure modes as well! The game also boasts custom maps, which seems like it’s inviting a heavy modding experience. Lumencraft was a 4/5 experience for me that I’d love to revisit further down the road. It just launched into early access as of today, and I think it has a bright future ahead.
Links for the game:
GOG
Steam
ORX
I didn’t play Carcassonne, so going into this was quite the learning experience for me, especially because this game is SUCH a genre mash-up that at first, it was hard to grasp. But after playing it for an hour or more, things began to click, and I began to understand the true magic that was locked away behind the doors of ORX, a game that is nothing short of a strategy game on steroids. ORX blends city building with tower defense with survival with deck building with roguelike into a sprawling tileset of chaos that gets even more chaotic the moment the waves of Orx start filing into your city boundaries to destroy your home base. At the beginning of the game, you are given a simple mission of surviving X amount of waves as a win condition. Simple, right? Not entirely. Once inside of a map, you also have to make your way to special areas on the map that give you quests with card rewards to enhance your deck of tricks to use, whether those be castle pieces or buffs to your strategy. Redrawing your deck will introduce curses to your run. I struggled, for sure, and I stand by the game needing a base introduction or tutorial to ease in new players to the genre, like myself. I started to truly enjoy what ORX had to offer after I gave it a little time, lowered my guard, and let its unique blend of styles in as a positive learning experience. I’m still not entirely sure if I grasped exactly how to play ORX properly, but what I do know is that I survived several waves, got to the next part of the roguelike aspect (the next set of challenges where you get to select a path and a buff/debuff to run with), and I found myself having a hard time putting the game down. The game overall ranked a 3/5 with me, if only because of the rocky start: the art style and the systems fuse so well together that I think with some polish, ORX could be the next big strategy game to capture the attention of many.
Links for the game:
Steam
B.I.O.T.A.
As someone who genuinely did not play Metroid when I was younger, stumbling onto games that are newly developed and clearly inspired by it is nothing short of a joy. I fully intend to go back and play Metroid at some point, but what I’m getting at is that I can see how great of a game it truly is to have inspired so many incredible games still so long after its release. Such is the case with B.I.O.T.A. – a Metroid-inspired platformer with multiple characters and color palettes, an incredibly banging soundtrack, and an addictively engaging sense of exploration to it. I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be the challenging platformer that some might be looking for when they hear the term “Metroidvania” per se, but for people who want a more casual experience, or people who are looking to explore, or people who are just knew to the genre in general, this is going to be a really great gateway title to help you dive in further. I don’t think it’s a super long game either, so if you’re looking for something that’s short, and fun, then B.I.O.T.A. will be perfect for you. Similar games that I can think of right off the bat are Gato Roboto and OUTBUDDIES DX – both being titles that have a kitschy sci-fi vibe to them that deeply appeals to me, at least, but are also accessible to all while still being fun for someone who is more seasoned in the world of Metroid. My favorite part of B.I.O.T.A. is by far trying to explore every inch of the map, which I’ve found is something that I’m just addicted to now in general with games, and am happy to do with this one. This title ranked a 5/5 with chat, and I definitely agree with that score.
Links for the game:
Steam
GOG
