Cataclismo

I am happy that this game features a singleplayer campaign (I bought without checking first). Played the entire thing at normal difficulty, and just loved it. Building things is very satisfying. Having the rewind mechanic (a quick-load with extra flair) also adds to it, because during waves you cannot savescum so you either have to commit to your decisions or do the whole wave again. In most levels it's hard to get the economy right. Well, at least I did it all without looking online for a meta / optimal way of doing things, and while doing so I realized at my own pace what worked and what did not. I've bought it at full price, after getting a random recommendation from some Youtuber. No regrets at all, on the contrary I do recommend it if you are into strategy / management games.

This game is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, the devs do a really good job in creating the building gamplay, where you get to construct everything bricks by bricks, and rewarding you for doing so (taller buildings have more health, troops stand in certain height and position gains extra benefits, etc). What really frustrating is its difficulty, unlike other games in the same genre, higher difficulties not only increase the number of enemies, their health and damage, but also reduce day time. This means you will have LESS resource and build time (since day time is required for resources to be gathered and building construction to take place). On top of that, there are these random "holes" around your base that you can neither destroy, interact with nor do anything about them. Those holes are there to spawn boss enemies randomly. So you could build the most perfect defense ever, with all the high end troops stationed on top, just to then get destroyed because the boss enemies are spawned behind your wall. All of this is because the devs want to you use the Save & Reload Button, which they dress this up fancily as a "Time Travel Magic" lorewise. The idea is you get overwhelmed, see where enemies come from, then "Save Reload/Time Travel" back a few moments ago and try again. But that also means you have to go and re-build the whole thing. If you are looking for that satisfaction of building great colony, optimising its logistics, and watching its defense against waves and waves of enemies (like They Are Billions, Rift Breaker, Diplomacy is Not an Option, etc). This game won't get you any of that.

While the game is built mostly around siege defence and save scumming, its a very fun game imo. The story is also pretty good, and the campaign is pretty challenging especially Defense of Hogar. However, what I like the most about the game is that buildings can strategically be placed and "combined" with other structures. For example you can place Oxygen Pumps on certain buildings like the citadel and barracks. You can stack Shacks together into a condo of some sort. With enough creativity you can create buildings that not only looks cool but also serves a function. Its such an innovative mechanic that I feel like more strategy games should have such option tbh.

It's such a shame, its the kind of game I just want to love, and the genre is right up alley. b Its just too time consuming, especially since the time is spent building things that are mostly not that interesting, creative or fun. I love reving the eco engine but that's a small part of the game and the only one I enjoy. I feel like I'm halfway into the game and I'm just exhausted of losing and having to rebuild and replan. I don't even know if I can fault the developers, they have implemented A LOT of quality of life features. Autosaves trigger all the time, blueprint system works great and yet it is not enough. One thing it lacks is showing what enemies are attacking where, they have this weird system where you can time travel and go back in time (load previous save) moments before it all went to ♥♥♥♥. So why make me spend half an hour to build my defences not knowing what enemies comes where and then I die everything gets destroyed. Time to load and try "for real" to clear the wave now that I know what's coming? Why, its a terrible design choice. You get to know what is coming way too late and you only get vague estimates that doesn't help me and pictures of enemies I have a hard time telling apart. Not to mention the bloody rain, its my least favourite part of the game for sure. It literally means if your first building gets destroyed (where you build a roof to protect your units from rain) you're done its over. Why have a game where you are supposed to build tons of stuff and it is going to break and at the same time make it so that if it breaks you lose? Its the kind of mechanic that doesn't matter at all if you do well but makes it impossible to make a comback if you are struggling. Just anti fun

I have a LOT of negative reviews for games that have inexplicable blunders that, equally inexplicably, medium and big name reviewers just ignore, and these are things that really shoot "fun" in the foot. Let's be super, super clear with Cataclismo - you build bases, have a small army, and defend against waves. *The* defining element is that you place bricks, as others say, LEGO-like, that matter for how your defenses hold against the horde, and not in a "I built a ring around the base and it was good," way - you can build a spiral staircase tower for archers that looks and functions differently than mine, even if "optimal" gameplay results in a handful of designs. Everything about the execution of these core gameplay elements is executed either brilliantly, or very well. Positive review. Now for the "but," none of which should detract from the above - I don't feel like I got a USD$30 game. It's super, super close, and considering the bevvy of disappointments out there, I eagerly push this to the fore. I feel like the game requires a bit more... sustained concentration?... than I'm happy with for an evening cooldown game. Neither of these are big problems. I recommend the game. I think most people I know who enjoy genre games close to this would 100% be "missing out" to not get this. My -quibbles- are things the developers clearly have improved over time, so who knows? Maybe if this gets the audience it DESERVES, the developers will get that liiiiiiittttlee bit more time with the oven to nudge this high 9 to the 10.0 they're clearly on track for.

Игра очень неплоха, но глупые решения разработчиков, нулевая оптимизация (тупо тормозит на новом железе). Невозможно сделать светлее, у меня плохое зрение, я просто ничего не вижу, все сливается, при этом возможность сделать ярче гамму дебилойды которые это создали закрыли, якобы ради лучшего погружения в игру.. Бывают игры просто говнище, и там как бы все ясно, а тут реально хорошая игра, которую убили кривые руки которые не допилили самую мелочь. То что игра становится ♥♥♥♥ пошаговой даже на минимальных настройках уже в середине я вообще молчу, это просто днище адовое, для такой примитивной в плане графики по всем параметрам игры. Короче не покупайте, разочаруетесь..

the resource management is too intense and doesn't let you actually enjoy the "tower defense" / "base defense" part - that just basically amounts to strength via stacking as high as you can go. wonderful potential just needs some balancing to be enjoyable.

This game is underrated and I hope it gets the love it deserves. Not perfect, but you can't get this gameplay from other games. The allure of this game is the ability to lay down massive but intricate defenses at the drag of a mouse. Of course your are weak at the start, but resources start to pour in exponentially if your smart, and then you slather down stone walls like hot butter on toast. It becomes tedious to build structures and supports but the game almost becomes a puzzle at this point and the pause feature is perfect to slow the chaos down. There are CUSTOM BLUEPRINTS! They work amazing but integrating them into your other buildings can be a challenge, because, lets face it, you are playing architect managing space, weight and overall effectiveness of your designs. There is something special about slaughtering abominations by night, and spending the next 20 minutes designing the perfect efficient spiral staircase that has a side path to a lower custom made ledge where artillery is at its best elevation. The sandbox nature of the game is what keeps me coming back, storage filling up with stone? build a big dumb tower of stone 100 meters tall that you can recycle later when you need it! Sound design is punchy too with arrows whistling through a dark abyss. Units feel like beasts as they upgrade with experience. My big wishes: I wish we could get higher unit cap but I know for a fact they balanced this system so it wouldn't be too easy. I would pay again for a PVE, bright, colorful daytime game mode against other humans with castles that could scratch my itch to siege. TLDR I was looking for a fast paced castle defense game with intricate structure-based building on a massive scale and this one is the best so far.