Early Access – 0% Imagination

As someone with a tiny youtube/blog and a laptop that can’t record anything you can imagine my surprise when I actually receive a key from the site KeyMailer out of nowhere and its actually something that might run on the laptop. However sadly even with its low minimum specs I could not record a video.

The game is a currently Early Access real time strategy on steam developed and published by Outlaw Wars, early enough that there is only a single map and 2 teams which is still enough to review its current gameplay. Do note it usually costs £4, is on offer at the moment for £0.80 (until around 6pm 19th February uk time) and I got it free via KeyMailer.

Loading up the game the state of the menus was incredibly offputting with the only graphics being an awkward looking logo sitting on a black background with some menu buttons underneath. It does have options like details and shadows as well as if you want it windowed or not but the fact the only thing in controls were the basic directions (up, down, left, right) really bothered me. There was also an fps counter too which makes sense for early access but I turned it off.

It gets even more awkward when starting a new raid as you are met with a screen with Russia and USA. From first glance it looks like you are forced to play as russia but it turns out that to switch teams you have to pick the ‘switch position’ option in the cpu options (it also has easy, medium, hard and impossible). For the sake of simplicity I kept it on medium which it defaults at.

Note the screenshot is a little downgraded. Just a little.

While it didn’t take me long to realise it was right click to move the troops my first game went terribly, I basically moved the boats that were there to the beach to try and get on (and get a base) but instead got shot dead by the people already there. I ended up being defeated without really doing anything because the USA starts with a base already and therefore has a huge advantage. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t work out how to make them leave their boats, not that it mattered though since I somehow got a victory after a while of crashing into the coast with the boats.

Playing as the USA was far easier as you actually start with some people on land right next to one of the villages, oddly enough Russia seems fine with capturing a village too rather easily. However it is awkward how easy it is to get the villages being able to capture a chunk of the map simply by moving the 1 group you start with from village to village and therefore getting a much higher budget than the opponent. However since budget was done per minute it felt horribly slow. It also took some getting used to your army spawning from the side of the map and not the base itself although in all fairness it did make sense.

Very slowly upgrading the base and taking over villages I eventually take control of their base and win the game although it felt as though the ai didn’t try sometimes like how there was a fuel thing practically next to their base they never took back. At least it eventually seemed playable but its definitely not recommendable even if you factor in the next update (repairing vehicles, better performance and some damage changes).

If you would like to have a look at it though the link to the store is here. And if you want to support me (and maybe help me get a PC that can record stuff) check out the post here.

Song of Pan is an Puzzle Platformer on Android currently in Early Access created by Thumbspire where you play as Pan the Satyr collecting Zeus’ sheep with the help of an enchanting flute. This game caught my attention by not looking like everything else.

It was a little bit awkward how the game threw you straight into the game and not the menu’s but luckily you weren’t locked into it. The menu’s looked really good looking and the hub world where you choose each level was nice too. Options were simple with a music/sound toggle as well as alternate touch controls if you don’t like virtual buttons. Nothing jumped out as bad as I was expecting.

There were also chapter cutscenes and not only were they great but I also love how they were actually integrated into the chapter hub itself (you walk in front of it to activate it). I was actually looking forward to playing it after seeing how everything else was.

The game zooms out if you leave it, super useful for screenshots.

Gameplay was quite simple at first but that didn’t stop it from immediately grabbing my attention. The main gameplay consisted of getting the musical notes which causes the sheep to follow you for a time limit so you can take them to the hut, it does add more elements quickly though e.g. 1-3 introducing pushing and 1-4 introducing using sheep as a platform (which you may find out before by accident). As you can guess the controls are quite easy to use.

The music in the game was quite nice and the graphics were alright, it’s not amazing but its not bad either. It could be how some of the stuff is shaded but I can’t really tell and as long as the gameplay is good I don’t really care.

Those statues are actually clues which is quite cool.

Carrying on in the game I found that the devs had skillfully put together enjoyable challenges without any crazy difficulty spikes. It actually took me a few tries to beat the above level (amusingly you get an achievement for the first time a sheep falls to its death). There were 2 bugs I found while playing though although I did expect some to appear at a point. First was realising if 2 or more sheep fall at once it only registers 1 of them. Second bug was a few times getting stuck for a second in the jumping animation in 2-6 but I don’t know why. However these both only happened once each.

I found the game highly enjoyable and made it all the way to 4-4 out of the 5 chapters in the review session alone, I guess that means it’d be quite short for skilled people but honestly the finished version definitely deserves to have a price on it (even if I only can download free stuff at the moment). It apparently has in app purchases according to the store page but oddly I was able to play the whole thing, there was probably supposed to be a paywall somewhere so I’ll just consider this an accidental review copy unless told otherwise.

Overall I can recommend this game already, truth is unlike early access on steam this game has already been playtested and the quality shows. Give it a try yourself and if you like it perhaps share the link to other people: Song of Pan.