You’ll play, get killed, be mad, then play again!
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| Strategy, Indie, Turn-Based |
I picked up Guards, a game created by developer
Battlecruiser Games, because I am a huge fan of turn-based strategy games. I opened the game, selected my four default
heroes (peasant, healer, archer, and witcher… that’s right, a witcher is a default
hero) and began my first attempt at survival. My archer shot arrows, my healer healed, my
peasant threw pitch forks, and my witcher witched! I crushed the first 3 enemy waves, but on wave
4 I was immediately crushed by them.
Upon returning to the main menu I thought, “That was fun, but the
difficulty curve was crazy!” and then I realized I had gained enough Mithral
(the in-game currency) to upgrade a few of my heroes and even unlock a dwarf
with a shot gun! After a tearful
farewell to my pitchfork flinging peasant, and the joyful welcome of the
shotgun dwarf, I immediately started out on another mission feeling more
powerful than ever! I blasted through
wave 4 with my new dwarf, but was then crushed on wave 5. Upon returning to the main menu I thought, “That
was fun, but the difficult curve was crazy!” and then I realized I had gained
enough Mithral to upgrade a few of my heroes and even unlock a... “Wait a
Minute! I’m stuck in a loop!”, I thought, but then decided I should unlock the
Amazon.
Overview
Guard’s a very simple game to understand and play. You select a team of four heroes, and then
try to survive an onslaught of enemies that are separated into 10 levels. Once you get to level 10 you have to defeat a
final boss while surviving the relentless assault. If you defeat the boss, you have completed
that difficult and then move on to the next.
Between deaths, (and you will die a lot) you have the opportunity to
upgrade you team, buy items, and unlock new heroes to take into battle.
How It’s Played
Guards is played on a 3-lane grid with your heroes lined up
in a sideways “T” on the left, and the attacking enemies on the right.
It has a unique swapping mechanic that drives it strategic
gameplay. Each turn, you swap the
position of two of your heroes, and then all of your heroes (besides the one in
back) make an attack. The enemies then advance
toward your heroes, making their attacks.
As you eliminate enemies, new ones will continue to spawn. Swapping with the hero
in back will make that hero recover some lost hp, but will also make the hero brought
forward unleash a usually devastating special attack.
This swapping mechanic allows you to strategically adjust your
team based on the type of enemies you are fighting. For example, if my knight (melee) is in a
lane facing down a goblin shaman (ranged), and my low health archer is in a
lane cowering in front of an armored cow-mammoth-turtle (not sure exactly what
it was) then I can swap my knight and archer to allow my archer to shoot the
goblin, and let my knight take the hit from the cow-mammoth-turtle. Since a variety of enemies are always
spawning, the battlefield is always changing, which means you need to continue
to swap hero positions to succeed.
After you eliminate a specified number of enemies, the level
ends and you are awarded gold to upgrade heroes for that playthrough (the
upgrades bought with gold are not permanent).
When you finally die, you are awarded with Mithral, which can be used to
permanently upgrade your heroes, buy items, and unlock new heroes.
What I Liked
If you’re on the fence about playing an indie turn-based
strategy game, play this for the hero swapping.
Hero swapping is a simple mechanic that allows for complex
gameplay. Given that there are eight
heroes to choose from who all have special attacks, there are many potential
strategies for progressing through the game.
I opted for a team of low health ranged heroes so I could eliminate
enemies quickly at a distance, but if I allowed too many enemies to gang up on
one hero, it was game over. I also enjoyed
the difficulty curve that the game presented.
Each time I played, I made it a little bit further before I would die,
and of course I would get upset, but never at the game. I was angry at myself because I could have
totally avoided dying if I would have just swapped my healer with my archer.
At first I was super disappointed when I learned that
upgrades bought with gold were not permanent, but after a few playthroughs I
began to enjoy experimenting with which heroes I should upgrade. This opened up an extra layer of strategy
that made each playthrough feel slightly different.
The visual style of the game is simple, yet cohesive, and
you probably won’t even care because you will be too busy planning your next
hero swap.
What I Didn't Like
The grind is real with this game. Each time you die, you have to start over
from the beginning and that can be extraordinarily disappointing. Mainly because once I make it to level 8, I
know that I can always make it to at least level 8. I don’t want to have to replay levels 1-7
just to try my luck at level 8. I know
this would interfere with between level upgrades, but the grind up to level 8
takes more away from the game than the upgrades between levels gives, and it feels
like an artificial way to increase the length of the game. To further my qualm with how real the
grinding in this game can be. I was able
to find an optimal strategy that allowed me to only swap two heroes constantly,
and blast my way through at least level 7 on each difficulty. So not only did I have to replay levels 1-7
to play level 8, but replaying levels 1-7 was just a constant swapping of two heroes
until I got to level 8 where the fun strategy component could start
again.
I also found myself wondering if the visual aesthetics were
the right choice for this game. The
swapping mechanic is amazing and should not change, but maybe using heroes that
fight enemies was not the right choice for that mechanic. There is no indication why the heroes must
swap places in order to attack. Is their
commanding officer a huge fan of music chairs? Also what exactly are they
guarding? It seems to me that there is never anything of value behind
them. And why does the game end when
only one hero dies. Are they such a
tight-knit group that when one comrade falls, they consider it a defeat even if
the player wants to press on? A different
skin of the game could possible answer all of these questions, but then again,
everyone loves heroes killing enemy monsters.
The Verdict
Guards unique swapping mechanic makes it worth a playthrough
for fans of turn-based strategy games.
If you can get past the grind, the game offers a lot of variety and
complexity of gameplay for being a small indie game.
7/10 Good
