ValeGuard

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34678286/]Follow us & discover a hidden treasure.[/url] 💎🏃🏼🏃🏽‍♀️[/quote] [h1]꧁TL;DR:꧂[/h1] [i]Plays like Kingdoms and Castles meets Reigns/The Yawhg. Several nonexistent settings options may be a dealbreaker for some people.[/i] ✂---✂---✂---✂---✂---✂---✂---✂---✂--- [i]* Patches addressing common issues & requests are beginning to be implemented.[/i] [b] REVIEW UPDATED MAY 24th[/b] [h1]Recommendation:[/h1] ☐ Content quality is a value at full price. ☐ Content [i]quantity[/i] is a value at full price. ☐ Positive experience, but wait to buy when it's on sale. ☑ [b]Mostly positive experience. Consider limitations before buying.[/b] ☐ Negative experience. Wait for improvements before buying. ☐ Very negative experience. Save your money. **************************************************** [h1]How the game is played:[/h1] At the beginning of a new game, you have the option to choose between a Ranger and a Paladin to take through the campaign with you, with additional heroes to unlock as you progress. Heroes level up and with each new advancement, you will have a choice to add points to their health, defense, energy, or damage. You will begin each map with a limited number of resources and men to begin building your defenses around your holdings, build your army, and gather up stockpiles for expansion. Assign men each day to cut lumber, build, mine, farm, make weapons, or bolster your military. At times, you will have the option to send some of your men as reinforcement mercenaries for a few days in exchange for payment. Pressure comes quickly in Standard Mode as you are challenged to manage what tasks you will assign your men after the events of the day. Each night, a randomized "Yawhg-like" wildcard event pops up, and you are presented with a choice most times that will either yield a reward or a consequence. The same events will pop up from time to time with varied results even if you make the same decisions. For example, you can let a filthy begar stay for free in your town, but come morning, you may find he stole resources and left town. The same situation and decision later might yield a positive result like having him join the workforce, and so on. These events will significantly affect how you will think on your feet for the following days in a fun way. Eventually, armies of Greenskins, Undead, or Demons will attack at night (always from the mist on the map), and hopefully, you had time to fortify your defenses, feed your men, grow your military, make enough weapons, and recover from the random events of the evening. Defend your town for the specified number of days to victory and advance across the world map to the next town. Progression into new towns makes new technologies available to you. [h1]What I like about Valeguard:[/h1] + Great price. + Tower defense gameplay elements. + Sound effects & music are well done. + Gameplay tips during loading screens. + Unlockable heroes (8 total) add to replayability. + Familiar & easy city building & defense controls. + I like the small details, like flocks of birds flying by. + Simple & aesthetically pleasing graphics & animations. + 3 difficulty levels. Standard Mode offers a good challenge. + Heroes can equip an item to use in combat or to bolster its unit. [i](phrasing!)[/i] + Randomized events that present you w/ a decision to make most Day/Night cycles. Rewards or consequences will apply. [h1]Neutral:[/h1] ~/= Exit map button could be in a more universally familiar location (top right corner). ~/= Once in a great while, I caught a mispelling. Nothing major. [h1]Room for improvements:[/h1] - No achievements. - Allow road removal. - Add ESC to return to menu options. - Pathfinding issues around structures. - Allow multiple saves for multiple games. - Allow game saves while in the middle of a scenario. - No keymap customization at this time (planned feature). - Invisible limit to how far out you can build from town center. - I would like to see a greater variety of random evening events. - Units can get out of your reach if they pursue enemies too far. - [strike]Recruited units do not have key bindings or UI icons for selection.[/strike] [i](FIXED!)[/i] - [strike]No "drag & select multiple units" option. Units must be ordered individually.[/strike] [i](FIXED!)[/i] - [strike]More camera movement control than just zooming in w/ the mousewheel on a specific unit is desireable. I would like to be able to center the camera into the action to zoom in for easier unit selection.[/strike] [i](FIXED!)[/i] [h1]Other thoughts:[/h1] Valeguard demonstrates what can be achieved w/ [url=https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/visual-scripting/playmaker-368?gclid=CjwKCAjw_tTXBRBsEiwArqXyMrIUltfRVnqjLvhCFzP1YhIsqATwtZ-0CFLGrqgI_3dKmlUmxfGGRhoC-cwQAvD_BwE]Unity Playmaker.[/url] Definitely a good start for a neat little game, but there are some glaring limitations with regard to [strike]unit selection[/strike] [i](FIXED)[/i], menu options, custom keymapping, saving the game, and [strike]camera control[/strike] [i](FIXED)[/i] at this stage of its development. [strike]Not being able to select *recruited* units via drag & select, or by hotkey, or by unit icon is problematic in later levels when things get hectic, especially if you need to fire off a heal and your monks are visibly lost in the skirmish. Your best option in that scenario is to randomly click on the fray and hope you select the unit you wanted.[/strike] [i](FIXED)[/i] The game itself is very fun to play as it is now, but it's weighed down by these limitations that eventually become slightly more obtrusive as you progress. Some of these features are on the drawing board and planned for future implementation. My recommendation is that, as with any Early Access title, you should only take the plunge if you are Ok with the state that the game currently is in at the time that you buy it and not for planned features that haven't been implemented yet. I will likely update this review as future features become available. [b]* Additional note:[/b] [i]Some people that use Kaspersky antivirus have had difficulty running the game. You may need to make multiple exceptions for various components of the Valeguard file folder contents.[/i] -END ⭐[i]If you found this review helpful please consider giving it a thumbs up! (Thanks!)[/i] 👍🏽 [b][url=https://twitter.com/ShesLevel18]@ShesLevel18[/url][/b] [b]Curator:[/b] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34678286/]She said she's level 18[/url] 🤘 ****************************************

Note: game is still in Early Access. Let me first start off by saying this is not a turn based strategy game in the traditional sense. The store page is saying: Gameplay: Valeguard is part "turn-based-strategy" and part "tower-defense". It just isn't. Battles are solved in real-time (you can use pause), Not that this a bad thing, but people who like turn-based strategy games could feel mislead. You don't have much influence on the battle, besides moving a character. The turn-based thing exists only in the town building part. It also is not a real Tower Defense game, sure you can built a guard tower and there will be a (small wave of enemies after random days), but that isn't the same as it being a part Tower Defense game. Again, it doesn't mean it is a bad thing. This game is very difficult to categorize, it has elements of so many different genres, but it also doesn't fit in either one completely. I would say it is a unique game, which is really good I think. The game has a tutorial. The game has 3 difficulty options. The gameplay: The game resolves itself in days. Each city has their own goals (days to survive) you must achieve. After you survived those number of days, you won and you got to the map and have to defend a different city. Each day you have to decide what to do, for example: Are you going to build a house, so you get more workers? Are you going to fetch more wood, so you can build more? Or building more bows, so you have to get more wood? Etc. All structures and weapons need wood or iron. All the people need food. You need houses to get more people. Most buildings need access to a road (which costs wood) You will get more options in later stages. After you give all the people a task for that day, you have to click end this day. The game goes into the night mode. During the night, people can visit your town. You are givev a text window from which you can choose a few different options (like in a choose your own adventure game). Some options give you something nice, others can mean a bad thing will happen. Monsters only attack during the night and they are always coming from the fog, so it is easy to know where you have to place your troops. You will lose the game if your hero dies or if your inn is destroyed You can equip items to your heroes and they can level up. The graphics are absolutely beautiful. I like the music, because it is subtle. This game is more for casual players, not for die hard strategy fans, I am sure they will get disappointed. The game has a very good price tag. There is absolutely enough content for this price. If I would review this from a real strategy point of view, I wouldn't recommend this game as much. There isn't that much deep strategy involved. If I would review it from a casual gameplay point of view, yes, I would definitely recommend it. I have encountered one bug: the game doesn't always save, so one time I had to start over again. It would be nice if a manual save option is added. Also I hope the dev will add achievements, because that would be really nice for a game like this one. My time in this game, I did enjoy it. I would give this game easily an 8.5 out of 10 (from a casual gamer point of view) [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/] More reviews on our Curator Page [/url] I got the game for free to review it, but it didn't influence my opinion in any way

background: I beat the game on medium difficulty once and played 4 hours. The main problem with this game is mostly that medium difficulty is extremely easy and hard difficulty is extremely hard. I beat the game on medium first try but on hard I lost the first level like 4 times in a row. the only difference as far as I can tell is just the enemies become bullet sponges on hard so I guess you can only combat that by spamming walls. The game isn't fun enough to make me want to figure it out. the rts mechanics are weird too because you can only get gold from random chance encounters and you need gold to make more troops, although you can just get by on spamming the defense tower that doesn't cost gold I suppose. I think the fact that the game is rng based is really weird for a tower defense. Normally you want a tower defense to feel crafted so you can barely win but definitely can win every time, but rng makes the gameplay loop feel loose. overall I recommend you just go play starcraft bw ums maps or warcraft 3 ums maps, you will also get much more variety. maybe buy this game if it's 5 dollars or less.

Wow, I just downloaded the early release and it's so good. After a long day at work I was just going to give it a quick try and go to bed. 3 hours later I'm still playing and feeling compelled to rate this game so others will try. It's a great mix of tower defense and RPG, but with strong elements of everything from Civilization, Warcraft, and even D&D. You can level up your heroes/units, which is a huge plus for me. A lot of classes to unlock and each one I've played has a different feel. Buy this game and get the soundtrack too! It's very catchy, and great for background music.

The game features a campaign that consists of a series of semi-random scenarios where you must construct defenses and and army to fend off enemies that will appear after a set period of time; once you lose, you have to start over from the beginning so there is only one saved game slot. Workers are assigned to collect resources, construct buildings, make weapons, or constitute your army. Town size can be increased by building houses with wells nearby, and food must be produced every four turns to support your population. Random events, such as merchants that will trade resources for gold and monsters that attack before the end of the scenario, mix things up mid-game. Combat is performed in real-time, where units are given move and attack orders and use special abilities. Units will attack nearby enemies to reduce micromanagement. The AI is basic but only needs to be in a defensive game. Ultimately, ValeGuard is a game of resource management, assigning the correct number of workers to collect and produce the right goods in order to have enough troops and defenses to fend off the final attack. While the mechanics are somewhat repetitive, there is flexibility regarding which weapons and resources to focus on. Overall, ValeGuard is an enjoyable defensive strategy game with a management slant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVnV-zqE-38

Tower Defense is not listed in the tags but this is totally a tower defense game. This is not a colony sim this is not an rpg and this is not a simulation. Avoid this if like me you are looking for a city builder and not a tower defense.

Glad the game was fairly cheap too get, it's just way too short. The AI is really odd, ranged units seem constantly like to run into melee. The guard towers are pretty much worthless, the "guards" die instantly and the tower crumbles. the enemies love too just rush right past your units and go straight for your houses. Walls aren't much use as kind of costly and only heavy walls seem to do much for defense. Overall though, the game had potential if the developers put more work into adjusting problems instead of just saying it's done. This game feels like it was a quicky made by students just trying to get a grade in game developement course

I was on the fence with ValeGuard and when I finally got off of it I settled into an unfavorable review / recommendation. Honestly, the game basically seems broken due to too many unpredictable elements. It also has some badly executed elements. This is a simple-ish village builder / fortress style defense game with rogue-like play and RNG-type events. At it's core, players place buildings to unlock opportunities to build weapons and later troops that can use those weapons. In combat phases players control where troops stand, but certain troops auto attack (and I wish they wouldn't) and certain ones don't auto attack (and I wish they would). It feels like keyboard controls don't work which ruins the experience. Players also have to manage what to focus on, gathering resources or building stuff. If one fails to build enough troops before a turn limit expires the village is conquered. ValeGuard's main problem is it's too difficult and the difficulty is off-putting. I'm not wrong on this one; the achievement stats back me up. Most players failed to unlock many of the elements in the game, with things like classes and unit builds stuck between 10% to 25% unlocked across all players. Unlocking stuff is really the main draw in a rogue-like game with progression, and this one is proving too hard to keep people interested in reaching that depth. For a casual-looking game the randomness really hurts it here. Only 30% of players have been defeated in an end-game situation. That's not due to it being easy, that's due to players giving up on the game before they ultimately lose. Another way of saying that: It's not enjoyable enough to keep people playing. I have plenty of gripes about in-game problems but, frankly, I don't care enough about this title to list them here. I'll try to summarize some of my issues: I can't predict incoming army sizes; I can't tell if my standing army can defeat them. I can't predict when merchants will arrive so I can't predict when I'll get gold for buying units. The merchants buy random things, much of which I can't make. I can't predict the outcome of random events; some negative results can scuttle a turn and a strategy and likely end a game. Some random events need a positive outcome to unlock a class and both the event and outcome are RNG based. Could I win this game? I don't know. I can't get far enough into it on easy mode to see whether it even has an end. It may not. I'll probably try a few more times, but there's a chance this one gets uninstalled. So who should buy this? Rogue-like gamers who love RNGs and want that mess of chaos in a city builder / fortress style defense game. That's basically it. It's not RTS enough and it's too unpredictable to draw in a lot of RTS fans. There's no save beyond making it to a level and then quitting to resume it at a later time. I suppose if one really likes a challenge or trial-and-error games this could be a maybe, but games can be ruined by events beyond one's control - making it hard to get a feel for what strategy really works.

I love the art design and soundtrack, but the game loop here was pretty rough and unsatisfying for me. Combat just never felt right, and I would have appreciated more granular control over difficulty. More talented players than me will probably have more fun.

[u]Summary[/u] It's really not a bad game overall so this is not a full "not recommended", but various bugs and lack of some QoL features push it more towards a no than a yes for me because they make playing the game frustrating at times rather than the game being uninteresting for my own taste. The game has potential and it was fun to some degree, but a little bit more polishing and a tiny bit more content would do it a great service. If you don't mind getting annoyed by some things working very weird or having to occasionally restart the game, pick it up on a discount. [u]Long version[/u] The game is pretty simple, but overall works good. You manage a small town by getting more villagers and then assigning them to either gather resources, produce weapons, or build building. You can also train units and you get heroes that are really strong for free with each mission. You juggle between using the villagers for building up more economy or making your defense better. The game works by giving you after each level a choice on what you want to unlock for future levels (I think it always includes 1 defensive building like tower or trap, 1 unit, and 1 free hero unit that you receive for free). That means that depending on the path you take you can end up with quite a different arsenal at your disposal (you can't unlock everything at the same time), and it worked very well as it made it more interesting to have to pick and play around my choices. A full path to the last mission only has a few choices, which is a shame as it makes for a rather short campaign. During the missions you often get some random events that are either trade deals or randomly getting a good/bad outcome, out of which some are fun, and some are a bit annoying as they can either be really good or really bad. Many of them give you some unique things (like unlock new heroes or get you hero equipment) so they can spice things up if you don't want to ignore them. Visually the game is quite simple, but still looks nice. Sound-wise it's nothing special, but nothing that makes you want to mute the game either (unless you really dislike derpy language that the units use as they only cycle between few voice lines). The biggest problem with the game is how some things are unexplained, some are annoying, and some are straight up dumb. You have energy bars on your heroes that they use for abilities, but you don't know how much it uses per cast. You have HP/damage/armor upgrades on heroes, but again, you don't really know how much you're getting. You build a road (which is required to connect almost every building), but made an error or later decided you don't need that road? Too bad, you can't remove the road. You started building a building, but then decided you don't want it? Too bad, resources are lost if you remove it (keep in mind that any building progress is made after you end the day, so removing a building that didn't even get any progress would be equal as an undo). If you want to train a unit, you better not having it too close because they UI will cover it and you'll have a hard time selecting it. Applying armor on units is also something that you don't know the amount you're spending. Building a wall onto a road gives you a gate, but you can't put a road onto a built wall to turn it into a gate, nor can you have a gate without having a road before you build the wall onto it. You don't know how much a repair will cost you. I have also had few soft-locking bugs where my keyboard controls were not working so I had to restart game during the tutorial and also one of the missions (luckily the game autosaves between each day). Some event made my unit get drunk or something and I had an empty window popping out and no text or button was displayed, making me have to restart the game. In later missions (or maybe only last one) the camera starts shaking after a boss kill and I ended up with my camera offset in a way that I can't see part of map where the enemy comes from because it wouldn't move the camera further in that direction, but I was able to see too much of the other side to the point where I'd see where the textures end, so that was another restart to fix the camera.