[h1]No Tower, All Defense[/h1]
Although [i]Dwarfenstein[/i] is a neat little game, especially when looked at as a work of a lone developer, it still suffers from a certain kind of crisis: the crisis of the identity kind. Its name evokes the imagery of a boomer shooter. Its store page describes it as a story-driven FPS, tower defence hybrid. Yet, aside from the obvious first-person perspective, the game can’t quite measure up to what’s advertised.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2808702225
[i]Dwarfenstein[/i] is about a lone dwarf in space; and like most, if not all, games about dwarves in space, this one is a story of jumping from planet to planet, robbing them of precious minerals and annihilating their populations in the process. Booting up the game for the first time, you get an impressive-looking cutscene introducing you to the world and the storyline, which is then, unfortunately, undercut by a narration, done by the most basic-sounding, text-to-speech programme. Meanwhile, the writing itself has notable room for improvement. This kind of a shaky start might lead you to believe that the game is a barebones abomination of store-bought assets, but by the time you’ve finished the tutorial and played a couple of levels, the visuals will have started to grow on you, and the gameplay will reveal itself to be the focus.
In spite of the game being described as a story-driven experience, the narrative in [i]Dwarfenstein[/i] amounts to the aforementioned introduction, the twist at the end, and a one-note plot stringing them together: there’s a bubble of text from the game’s only character, other than yourself, at the beginning of each level, but these are kind of jarring when compared to the tone established by the cutscene earlier. As for the levels, they all have the exact same goal. Outside of a bit near the end, which comes as too little - too late, the story doesn’t inform the gameplay nearly enough for the experience to be considered story-driven.
The gameplay has a bit more meat on its bones, though not by much. The tutorial does a good job of laying out the basics: the weapons at your disposal all have an alternate fire mode, while holding down the right mouse button can either freeze enemies, execute them while they’re stunned, or reel in the weapons from their hands so they can be thrown for extra damage. There are also abilities you can cast, as well as a sort of double-jump that turns into a dash with the second press of the spacebar. It’s all quite hectic and provides that good ol’, fast-paced, meaty action that retro shooters are known for. The sound design for all the weapons ain’t that bad, either.
Once you start looking past that, however, the game comes up lacking. The level design is pretty straightforward: arenas with specified spawn points for enemies to pour out of in waves, as you dispatch them before they can destroy the equipment gathering those precious minerals for you. This is where the “tower defence” aspect of the game is supposed to come in, but [i]Dwarfenstein[/i] has no towers for you to place. As such, there’s no point to the timer in-between the waves, since there’s nothing you can do other than wait. The arenas themselves are mostly open, with no specific paths for enemies to follow. They just beeline it, either for your equipment or for you. Some enemies will prioritize a different target, but it gets old fast, and you’ll have a surefire strategy only after a level or two.
Different stages have you fighting different enemy factions, but it seems as though their tactics do not change. They’re basically reskinned versions of each other: the faction in the first stage has stone giants as their siege unit, the second faction giant ogres – and so on, you get the picture. When there’s almost no variety and no strategy, what else is there?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2808705639
In an attempt to give you at least some choice in how to approach the levels, the game provides three classes to choose from, each time you start one. You’ve got Gunner, Engineer, and Electrician, each with their own set of weapons and abilities, purchased with minerals collected during (and awarded on completion of) previous levels. While every ability and weapon must be bought for each class separately, they all choose from the same pool of perks.
As heartbreaking as it is, I must say that the class system and its progression are severely misguided. For starters, each class plays the same at its core, and their weapons are quite poorly balanced. There are numerous redundancies, and it becomes quickly apparent what the best class is. Gunner's second weapon is, essentially, his only one, as it is a straight upgrade from his first, while his third is the only weapon in the game with a limited number of uses per level.
On the other hand, Engineer has access to a high-damage dealing crossbow that one-shots most enemies with no drawbacks, as well as a fast-firing machine gun that allows you to mow down hordes with little difficulty. Electrician’s weapon selection is by far the worst, pretty much consisting of weaker versions of the other weapons in the game, and I’m convinced his starting weapon’s alternate fire is broken; either its projectile’s trajectory doesn’t line up with the crosshair, or its hitbox makes it sometimes pass through enemies. Oh, and there’s also a pickaxe that all classes have access to, though there’s no reason to use it whatsoever.
As far as abilities are concerned, they’re thematically different enough, but the Engineer still reigns supreme, as his turrets can affect the battlefield for a longer period than the “fire and forget” abilities of the other two dwarves. It’s also the only time the game resembles a tower defence in the way it plays out, even if still isn't in the traditional sense of the genre.
Choosing a different class in [i]Dwarfenstein[/i] from the one you’ve been playing up until that point always feels bad, as the necessity for anything aside from the starting gun having to be unlocked with minerals means you’ll be going back to square one, with next to nothing to differentiate the experiences of the two. You're, essentially, going back to playing a worse version of the same character. The pool of perks everyone gets to pick from doesn’t help either, as the high costs of these will lead to them being among the last things you buy. Even then, they’re just static crutches that don’t mix up the gameplay in any way: increase weapon damage, increase movement speed, double player health… Once you find the two stats you consider the most lacking, as you can only have two perks active during a level, you’ll probably stick with them ‘til the very end.
Still, if you end up wanting to play more after beating the story mode, but are dissuaded by its shortcomings, there is a survival one which unlocks afterwards and plays out closer to the game's strengths, as it pitches your favourite class setup against countless waves of enemies.
[h3]Verdict[/h3]
All that said, [i]Dwarfenstein[/i] stands as an unpolished mix of several genres that ends up going almost nowhere, both in its narrative and progression. While one can't be too hard on it, as it is a project of a one-man dev team, you're probably better off playing anything else that aims to be a tower defence with real-time combat - at least in its current state.
Who knows! It is billed as [i]Dwarfenstein: Chapter 1[/i] in some of its art, so maybe there'll be something more worthwhile here in the future. At the very least, it is a solid game at its heart, and that's more than most one-man projects can say for themselves.
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