Knights in Tight Spaces - ★★☆☆☆
Knights in Tight Spaces takes the ideas introduced in Fights in Tight Spaces and attempts to build upon them. It comes with some fairly significant mechanical changes – more on that later – and eschews its previous, minimalist art style for a highly-stylised, hand-drawn aesthetic. I think the game looks wonderful: everything has been animated beautifully, and the graphics and UI are clean and easily readable. On appearance alone, I’d happily sink hours into Knights. Unfortunately, we don’t play games for their appearance alone, and when it comes to gameplay, it’s difficult not to feel let down.
Few Nights More - ★✮☆☆☆
My first impressions upon opening Few Nights More were not great. Despite being “released” - and I use the term loosely - this week, the game’s title screen welcomes new players with a Hallowe’en-themed skin, seemingly a three-month-old hangover from its time in early access. That the developers didn’t even put the effort into removing this (nor changing the game’s “You beat the final boss of Early Access " message) speaks volumes about their treatment of Few Nights More. The timing of its release, one day after None Shall Intrude’s, also doesn’t inspire confidence.
None Shall Intrude - ★☆☆☆☆
None Shall Intrude is a roguelite card battler where you play as a dragon who manipulates the elements to take down waves of enemies.
There are a significant number of parallels between it and Few Nights More. Both are published by Grab the Games, both are developed by Aeterna Ludi, and both were released within a day of one another. IndieLoupe knew that the games shared a publisher when we picked them up for review, but I have to admit that we only noticed further down the line that they were also created by the same developer. If a developer dropping two games one day after the other rings alarm bells for you, there might well be a good reason for that…
Talented - ★★✮☆☆
Do you know what I like? Skill trees. My lasting memory of playing Final Fantasy X over twenty years ago is not so much Blitzball, or Chocobos, or even Tidus’ unsettling laughter, but the Sphere Grid. I’m not going to pretend my pre-teen mind had any idea what I was doing with it, but it was fun. I likely spent more time exploring it than the actual game, and ever since then, I’ve been a sucker for a good skill tree.
Therefore Talented from TurtleFox Games should be right up my street…