Guile & Glory: Firstborn

This is a great puzzle game. It's tagged as turn-based tactical/strategy/RPG, and while it is turn-based, it's really a series of puzzle levels that you have to solve. Sort of similar to "Into the Breach", but different enough that it's not the same game at all. You have multiple characters, and as you complete levels/battles, you gain glory points that you use to buy different "kits" for your characters. These kits might have more health, more action points, more movement points, and even new and unique skills. It's pretty cool and open-ended. You can spend your glory points on whatever upgrade kits you want for each of your characters. And they matter, too, because one level may need your dude to have two action points available, while other levels you might want to move farther each turn. It's a cool way to pick and choose your team and try them out against each of the battle/puzzle levels. One thing I'm not sure matters much, at least as far as I've played so far, which is almost four hours and into chapter 3, is that health points aren't really important unless you don't care about completing each level perfectly. You get bonus glory for perfect completions, which is usually take no damage, complete the level in a certain number of turns, and/or kill all the bad guys. I am trying to complete every level with no damage if the level has a bonus for it. So, hit points aren't an issue, YET. Hopefully some different win conditions will appear as the game progresses. There are boss fights, too, which switch things up nicely. A couple minor negatives are that there are no tool tips for the innate abilities each of your characters have during battle. There are icons to remind you of what innate abilities they have, but no tool tips. There is a lore book that you can refer to to read about what each of the ability icons mean, but it's a bit of a hassle to keep having to do this. Everything else in the game has tool tips except these ability icons. Hopefully the developer will add these sorely needed tool tips. Oh yeah, tool tips are also missing from the icons in the ESC menu. It's no biggie, but if you don't know what they mean and you click on the map icon during your battle, you will lose your progress and have to start the battle over again. Not a huge thing, and after you do this once you probably won't make the same mistake again. But, missing tool tips are always a bummer in my opinion. Overall, this is just a very enjoyable tactical puzzle game. Jake and Elwood are pleased, and they give this game two dark sunglasses up, and a couple orange whips to boot!

Awesome game! It's tactical combat reminds me of Into the Breach. You can't hurt the enemies directly, so it really forces you to use the environment creatively. Some of the monster designs get pretty crazy too. The story is good. It's nice to feel like you're playing through some epic quest and not solving room after room of puzzles. I was surprised how much I liked the characters - especially the Scoundrel, he was really funny. The gameplay is deceptively deep. I haven't unlocked all the upgrades yet, but every time I get one, it really changes my approach to combat. Every level seems impossible at first, but then you try a new strategy and *click* it just falls into place, and you feel great for having solved it!

Turn based RPG puzzle + pixel graphics + unique gameplay = Clear each stage by pushing blocks and monsters into traps to reach the exit. Recruit and develop party by collecting glory to buy upgrades. [h1][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35180752-3-point-play/] Follow our curator for similar games [/url][/h1]

*Written whilst playing* If you're looking for something that makes you think then this turn based strategy game is for you. Whilst it is still in development, it offers a robust assortment of enemies and challenges, and the puzzles are far from easy, despite looking to be so at first glance. Part of the joy of playing that I have had so far is using features like the turn order and the environmental hazards to dispatch enemies, especially if I can manage to get them to dispatch each other. The writing is quite good, with a few funny one liners from the Scoundrel especially, and I love that with each new character comes new challenges and an entirely new play style. As a fan of the older games in the Zelda franchise I find the top down puzzle solving aspect of this game to be very enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to the new additions to this game as the development continues.

ᓚᘏᗢ Very enjoyable turn-based tactical puzzler; one of those "modest" little games (started as student project) that turns out to be a gem!

A lot of people compared this to Into the Breach, but it's really more like Deadly Rooms of Death for people who aren't masochists. Like DROD, there's no miss chance, no random choices from the AI, and no excuses besides your own incompetence if you get yourself killed. But unlike DROD, you can level up, change your loadout, or even take a hit and accept a lower score. There are outcomes in between "choose exactly the sequence of steps the dev intended" and "die horribly," and the bonus objectives encourage excellence without mandating it.

Great puzzle game with a compelling metagame. Wish there were a way to speed up animations. Since reattempting is frequent, it can get really time-consuming.

On the surface it's quite simple, you move your characters around, you move your enemies around, there are hazards that you try move your enemies into. From there it's a drip feed of new mechanics and ideas, but always focusing around this core of positioning. With each new hazard and enemy the game gets gradually more complex, and so does your tool kit of methods to deal with these hazards. The game is filled with those "ah ha" moments when you're stuck on an encounter, and you realise than there's some trick that you haven't discovered yet that makes the whole thing trivial. And all this depth from a move set as simple as "you can push and pull enemies". Unlike many puzzle games these days, it also has a fully developed narrative that drives the experience. I'm yet to reach the end of it, but I'm loving the Conan-esque blasted world filled with demons and the echoes of gods. This world is depicted in a fantastic pixel art style with an incredible attention to detail, and a great deal of text both in the form of character dialogue and lore fragments about the setting. Overall a wonderful experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the twilight zone between tactical combat and abstract puzzling.

Nice puzzle-like tactics.

It turns out that Sokoban and RPG progression go together pretty well! It's fun to plan how to push a bunch of not-orcs into pits/spikes/water. The RPG balance is a little bit weird (some classes are strictly better than others) but that doesn't detract much.