Saw a free to play TD game in the Steam Store and decided, sure why not, it's free to play and in the Alpha, what harm could it do to give it a try? After playing through essentially all of the content the alpha had to offer in a matter of 30 minutes, I had come to several conclusions about the game. I'll go ahead and make a pro/con list like several others may have done.
Pros:
- It has potential
- Relatively appealing graphics
- A decent amount of strategy required to 3-star the levels and get all of the gems from them
Cons: (can also be seen as a list of things to add/work on, almost like constructive criticism)
- Hovering over the spells in levels, you'll find that they entirely lack a description
- The plot for the game should not be just a button you can click at the title screen and read through a wall of text for any information as to what is going on in this world and what your purpose is for fighting these creatures. A good idea that many similar games have used is having a mascot-like character that assists and is almost like your partner (except they only appear as a still image and have text box pop-ups that help explain the story throughout your first part of the game)
- Having the scenery look nice is lovely but it also feels a tad bit cluttered at times, perhaps tone it down a notch
- At the start it not made clear as to whether or not you are attempting to build and defend your town or if you go out on missions to other places (the player is given the idea that perhaps the levels are just waves of opponents being thrown at their town)
- The entire town and all of the buildings that exist in it seem to have no purpose whatsoever as of right now, they have no description and there is no way to interact with anything there. The only thing that building accomplishes is leveling up your town level, but as it turns out upping your town level doesn't do anything yet either. Or if it does it's not made clear what it does
- There was no music (not sure if this was some sort of error on my part but everything seemed to be working just fine for me) and the sounds became repetitive and boring quickly, this is definitely something that can be expanded upon and improved, the example given in the video for the game sounds better than what is actually put out in the game as of this moment
- Since there is only 3 levels you have access to and can 3 star you have a very finite amount of gems when compared to the large number of things/upgrades or spells you can spend your gems on, makes it so you have to choose very few things and probably don't get to experience some or many parts of the upgrade and spell system in one play through of the current Alpha
- Towers, placing them, and upgrading them all feel a little rigid and/or janky and could use some smoothing out to make placing or upgrading that tower you need to clutch it out and kill the last guy before he makes it through a little bit easier.
- The option to zoom out even more so that you can view the entire map at once would be much appreciated, makes you feel like you have more control of the situation and can help areas in critical need more swiftly and adeptly.
For now, I can't really say that I had fun in the 30 minutes I played so I'm going to give it a negative review, there is a lot that could be done on top of the things I've mentioned to improve this game and I understand that it's only the Alpha. It makes me excited to see what it might become if they keep working on it. I encourage the developer to improve the game so I can change my rating to positive! ;)
