The White Laboratory Reviews

No Idea, but still fun!

extremely cool concept, the physics doesnt compliment the tower defense part of the game very well, its also very difficult

I remember playing the demo for this game a long time ago, I had no idea it actually came out until much later in life. As a fan, and developer of other various physics based AND TD things I love this game. Both way back then and now! I can tell many aspects are a labor of love, nuanced controls, AI behaviours, line-of-sights, and I really like the offensive nature of the game, more than just a defense, with many regions to travel between carrying your blocks along with you. Comparatively I do enjoy the wacky physics this game exhibits as it adds to the charm of chaos that the enemies also have. meaning its not just a game about stats as some times the fight might not go you way. If I HAD to nitpick somewhere, the 'one-joint' nature of some of the builds does end up limiting my creative design, or perhaps I am missing something (I'll update this if I figure that one out) Very neat idea. I love things like this

The White Laboratory is a cute and unique little physics based towerdefense game with RTS elements. Or atleast, that's probably what you are gonna think if you saw this on Youtube and decided to check it out yourself. You would be forgiven for thinking this way, as the early missions only have a small amount of RTS gameplay. In practice however you will find that after you clear the tutorial the game quickly abandons most of its towerdefense identity in favor of becoming an RTS focused game. Ultimately this game is kind of like an RTS game that's wearing a high quality towerdefense fursuit. While the towerdefense gameplay is still cool, the game does not focus on it and many aspects of its design are sadly unexplored. In terms of percentage it would probably be somewhere between 75 to 80% RTS. There are 3 main flaws this game has that you should know coming into this. Firstly, the game is actually quite short. The campaign of the game consists of only 4 levels, 1 of which is the tutorial mission. You can expect these levels to take somewhere around 2 hours each with the exception of the tutorial which is only 1 hour. This is part of the reason why the towerdefense aspects are so underexplored. Along with the campaign there is also a sandbox mode, that has 4 challenges for you to complete, although in practice its more like just 2 challenges since you only need 1 design to easily stomp the first 3. The second flaw is the awkward physics system. There are plenty of other reviewers will go more in depth on this but the main issue is that the structures are TOO flexible. Building something requires you to put pieces on the connection points of other pieces, but for some reason they will ONLY connect to whatever side you stick them on, even if it is possible for them to have had multiple connections at the same time. There is an option to connect them further, but all connections made this way are weaker compared to natural connections, as well as the process being quite tedious. The wonky physics heavily discourages you from making larger buildings or units, and you will find yourself feeling pigeonholed into relying largely on basic 2-3 high straight towers as anything much bigger will buckle under its own weight or the recoil of the bullet shooter. The RTS units fare a little better, but this is partly because there usually aren't enough blocks to build large units in the first place. The third and final flaw is the META of the game. This sounds a little bit silly since it is just a short singleplayer experience, but since the gameplay should lend itself to creativity atleast in theory I feel like it needs to be mentioned. The gameplay quickly boils down to building the same airship every leve. The laserbeam block is SIGNIFICANTLY better compared to the bullet shooter which leaves little reason to use anything else if at all possible. The defenses that you have to attack are quite strong, and your blocks are usually pretty limited so you are pushed into using only the best pieces for your airships because you don't want to build a weak airship that gets easily shot down. It is still possible to use different designs or strategies, (mostly ramming) but these are largely few and far between which isn't good considering the length of the game. Lastly it should be mentioned that actually putting together your towers and units can be fairly annoying and time consuming. While there are blueprints you can only use them in certain areas of the map so expect to build everything by hand every time. This kind of ties into flaws 2 and 3 already mentioned. While the game does have some pretty under the surface but very real issues, it still has some things it does very well too. For starters the core idea of the game is just great. A tower defense where killing enemies gives you the blocks to make your own towers sounds awesome! The RTS side of things sounds just as cool with being able to build your own units to then go and assault the enemies position. Both of these are indeed quite fun even if they are a little underexplored in the actual game. Secondly the aesthetics of the game are just amazing. The game has a very unique style to it and I would say it pulls it off pretty well. Every level is completely unique and has you slowly fighting across what are basically big industrialized space stations. The music is also pretty good too and definitely fits the game quite nicely. The game is also surprisingly in depth in some areas. For example you can get full diagnostics for whatever tower or unit you construct, which is cool but frankly quite useless. Overall this is a neat but short game that definitely isn't for everyone. If you were gonna get it because of the towerdefense elements then you probably should look elsewhere. It is probably a 6.5/10 mostly because of the short length of the game. You probably want to wait for a sale to happen to pick this one up.