Saturday Morning Gaming Post: Into the Breach
Remember when FTL came out waaaaaay back in 2012? Man, I played the heck out of that game.
One of those roguelikes that taught you how to play the game by killing you. Over and over and over again. Like, getting to the other side of the first map was a milestone that you could be proud of. And then the game told you that there were 8 maps! Oh my gosh, that was rough. (I just took a short break to play a quick game. Man, that game is awesome. And it’s on sale for 75% off!)
Anyway, the people who made that game made another game. I admit: I put off getting the game because of how much of my life was taken over by FTL. When you’re learning how stuff works, you’re going to die. You’re going to die a *LOT*. But dying tends to take 5 minutes. So you can get a game in while waiting for something (rather than having to carve time out to play).
This one is a mech game. A rogue-like mech game. Turn-based rather than reliant on pause buttons.
The gimmick is that your world is under attack by giant bugs. They’re really good at destroying your world. So good that the only way that you have a chance to beat them is time travel. Like, they destroy your world and then you time travel your best pilot back in time to before they destroyed your world and then you try again.
And then again. And then again.
You start out with three mechs and two generic pilots and One Protagonist Pilot. The three mechs are distinct. The Protagonist’s mech is a punchy one. You run up to the bugs and punch them so hard that they move a square on the map. There is a generic tank. The tank hits something from a distance so hard that it moves a square. There is a mortar mech. This hits its targeted square so hard that whatever is in the four adjacent squares gets pushed a square.
Pushing stuff around comes in handy. If you push stuff into other stuff, it takes damage. So you can push a bug into another bug and do damage to both of them. Or you can push a bug so that another of your units can push it into another bug. Additionally, the bugs telegraph their attacks… so you can push them around and make them not attack the square they were going to attack and, instead, attack a different square. Some of the bugs spin webs and make a mech immobile. Pushing the bug out of its square will cause the web to break thus freeing a webbed mech.
And, on top of all that, there are water squares. Push a ground-based bug into water? It’ll die. You can set forest squares on fire. If a bug is on fire, it’ll take damage at the beginning of a turn! (Also true of mechs, though.)
Some of the bugs are shooters that can hit things at a distance. Some of the bugs are punchers that can only hit the square next to them. The first couple of times you play, you’re going to do stuff like “punch bug into one the buildings you’re trying to protect” or “push bug out of the square you were hoping to shell with your mortar”. You’re going to figure out order of operations and then figure them out again.
And *THEN* you’ll finally beat enough regions to meet your first boss monster. And then you’ll lose and start over again.
Until you beat it. And *THEN* you’ll move on to the second island.
You’ve got tons of pilots you can unlock, tons of skills to learn, tons of upgrades to install.
A brilliant game. I can see this eating up as much time as FTL did. (And it’s on sale this week!)
So… what are you playing?
(Featured Image is screenshot of Into The Breach title page.)
Into the Breach is a lot of fun, I heartily recommend it.
On your recommendation, I decided to give Cultist Simulator a go. The first couple of games were monumentally frustrating, but I can now manage runs that don’t end in a Despair spiral inside of 10 minutes.
So far my favourite legacy is the Bright Young Thing – all that money gives you so many options. I still don’t understand how the Aspirant is in nay way viable though.Report
I’m doing the Dancer in Cultist Simulator now.
I figured out a couple of engines to make money, but part of my problems with games like this is that I don’t feel comfortable without having at least 30 in the bank at all times if not 50 if not 100.
So most of my games end up with me painting a lot whether I be doctor or aspirant or BYT.
The Dancer DLC is a *LOT* of fun when you reach the point where you know how to play it. (But I played it 20 times before I figured out how to play it.)Report
By the way, did you know that the developer of Cultist Simulator wrote an event chain for Stellaris. It’s called Event Horizon, and it’s … weird, as you might expect.Report
oh, jeez… I can’t handle getting even more games.Report
Into the Breach was my favorite game of 2018. I enjoyed the quick pace of the games, you don’t need to sink a big chunk of time into a playthrough. I played a lot of FTL as well, and I appreciate the kind of work that went into making a game challenging when you can see everything your opponent is going to do next turn.Report
They have the roguelike perfected.
I *KNEW* I shouldn’t have bought this game… anyway, I’m off to play it and probably kill my main pilot again.Report
Crysis 3 on the XBox360. I was getting the Bug some new Kinect games and the store had a used copy for $7, so I snatched it up. I had long since played 1 & 2, but never got around to 3. So far, much enjoying it, although it took a while to get used to the game with an XBox controller, as opposed to mouse and keyboard.Report