Delphyq Reviews

pre alpha quality no one even quality checked the tutorial once to find out the mouse scroll doesn't work

This game had the potential to be great, and the beta was fun. But the full release is pretty much just the beta content with a few bug fixes and much of the game is incomplete. It's just the same few levels over and over, without much variation. Overall it's sad to see a game with lots of potential remain unfinished.

December 21, 2023 review update: The last update of this game is from october 2021. it's been over a year, so i can't recommend this game (wish there was a neutral option) as it is dead (as far as i know). I don't follow the discord, but since no updates in a over a year, it's safe to assume it's dead, shame, it had really great potentiel. ----- Old Review: How are people reviewing a game with less than 2-4 hours in? Hardly enough time to learn the nuances of a complicated (yet simple) game? .... Anyway, to the review: If you've played "Frozen Synapse" and/or "frozen synapse prime" it's a lot like that. Very strategic, which is great. The game is very much in early access, and it shows, but the core mechanics and gameplay are there, and it's fairly solid; just needs some additions and fine tuning. The tutorial is (mostly) clear, and the pause / play mechanic works nicely and in your favor (most the time), but if you're not used to it, it will take some getting used to. (The call function is a smidge buggy as well) There are some UI issues that need to be polished, and some of the pathing could be improved, but the core gameplay is solid. The Hopefull additions: Need more maps / to be longer. Desperately needs a way to manage your troops between matches. Would be nice to swap weapons / classes, even if there's a cap on them. 1 sniper, 2-3 assassins, etc. ... Some form of customization. The models and graphics are nice (in my opinion), especially for a small indie game. Summary: While it, admittedly, needs work; I could still recommend it. That said, I also refuse to give it a no vote, because no votes will cause it to not get the traction it needs and deserves to make progress. ((Downvotes will keep it from getting traction, and loss of traction might make devs give up on a sinking ship) .... If you are a combat strategy game enthusiast, you'll enjoy this.

I somehow expected more. The details to be higher or some base building or solder selection. now I know this is early access and for a game that only ask for this price, it is asking too much. Yet I have been spoiled by X-com and other game of that standard. I love that it is in real time. And I see great potential for the game. But I am not ready to commit yet. And I feel that if you are unfamiliar to playing beta games you are properly going spoil this game for yourself if you play it this early. this game is going back on the Wish list, and I will keep a eye on its developers. my down vote is more of a hold off for now. But that is not a review option.

Before i continue, I want to say my experience with this game is brief. I completed the tutorial and got halfway through the first mission before writing this review. The game is still in very early access and i imagine a lot will change before full release. I think it has great potential and cant wait to get my hands on version 1.0 to see how it plays! To begin, the tutorial works well and the tabs in the tutorial section of the pause menu are really clear and explain the basics of the game, just missing an explanation to say that the purple bar beneath the power-sharing character represents the amount of power they have left to share, had to figure that out myself once i used the ability but everything else i feel was covered well enough. The "prep phase" of the mission is also pretty neat and i even created a fun little route for my people, even planned on splitting into 2 groups and meeting later on in the level to secure an extra optional objective. The tutorial and prep phase are positive and feel good, i enjoyed them and they made up the majority of my 30 mins with the game. Now onto the execution of the first mission: Upon starting the mission, i ordered my team to move as a group around some boxes and sure enough they can do that just fine, however they dont actively look around and just stare in one direction (if you move as a group, they all look in the same direction, i didnt see an intuitive way to say make the people to the left of the group look left, the ones on the right look to the right, etc. etc. without controlling each person individually. This makes you feel sort of inefficient and silly as if you want to move together as a team, youre only looking at 25% of the directions you should really be keeping an eye on. Anyhow, there is the ability to control the engagement rules of each character, with one being a weapons free option and the other being stealth. these arent explained in the tutorial but are relatively easy to figure out on your own. there is also the ability to control the stance of your soldiers from standing to crouching but i didnt feel like they helped much other than slow down the movement of my troops and maybe keep me a bit more stealthy (didnt have time to experiment with it). Now onto combat: Upon being seen, stealth goes out the window and the timer starts ticking, and i found combat to be the weakest piece to the game... when being shot, the game pauses for you which i think is helpful, as it will help you organise your team faster but if you dont give a new order, they just walk to wherever you told them beforehand and get shot at without any self- preservation; they have no mind of their own. I suppose youre meant to be their brain, which is the point of the game and is no negative. the only point it becomes a negative is when you have to do it for around 6 soldiers every few seconds, constantly changing their cover and who theyre shooting etc etc turns a basic fight against a few enemies into a huge task of shuffling back and forth, and this has to be done over and over again and becomes a little bit of a chore after a while. Now, this is a big concern for me as this idea of constant real-time control should be the bread and butter of the game and i would love to see this become a smoother and more enjoyable process, by maybe giving the AI some degree of freedom in making sensible choices for themselves every now and then? Another thing i want to address is cover. as a mechanic, it works well and its rewarding to see your soldiers perform well due to you putting them in the right spot (love to power acting as abilities and "shields" if you will, very interesting twist too). The only downside to cover is when seeing the white hologram of your soldier and which direction they'll pop out to shoot still doesnt make it too clear where they can actually get LOS when peeking out of cover. Also, the fact you have to manually tell each person to hide or to peek out and shoot is again, something i think has to be done too often and can turn into a nuisance. I realise this is to allow you to set wait and go orders to have multiple people peek together and shoot (which is good fun to do and works well). I think having soldiers cycle between hiding and shooting every few seconds (perhaps as a third, slightly more automated control option?) will make the experience a little more enjoyable and less tedious as its a lot of repetition to manually control and change what 6 soldiers are doing every few seconds. So to conclude my review of the game in its current state, i want to say again that im no expert and only say this as constructive feedback for the developers, I love the idea of the game and saw the adverts for it and was super pumped to play, but at the moment the gameplay just feels a little too slow and a little too repetitive, which normally isnt an issue for me but it became frustrating just half way through the first mission. I think giving the units the ability to make some sensible decisions for themselves once in a while would go a long way in making the game feel better and maybe making the LOS with cover and when moving as a group a little easier to manipulate would take some frustration out the game as well. I could be misunderstanding the intentions of the developers and maybe they want us to have to constantly micro a good few soldiers every 2 seconds but to me as a player it doesnt feel like a positive experience in its current state due to the reasons above. I look forward to playing the game again soon but as it is right now, it still feels a little rough around the edges with its gameplay loops, and thats okay, its not near completion which is why im trying to do my part in helping improve it. I can see its potential and am interested to see in how its improved in the future, keep it going Dusk Wave Arts! <3 p.s. i ran into a bug where if i told soldier 1 to move into a room that involved using locked door and got soldier 2 to hack the door, soldier 1 just walks through the door before the door is fully hacked.