One would be forgiven for assuming that Image & Form would capitalize on the success of Steamworld Dig by pushing out a by the numbers sequel. And in fairness to Dig, that wouldn’t have been a bad thing. It’s a great game. However, the canny geniuses over at Image & Form have decided to keep their universe in place and scrap pretty much everything else from the first game. Where as Dig was a sidescrolling exploration and mining game that took place on a 2d plane, Heist is a 2d, sidescrolling turnbased tactical RPG. Taking inspiration from XCOM, Fire Emblem and then throwing a wicked twist into it with slick controls, simplified but by no means simple mechanics, customizable difficulty and Image & Forms by now trademark top notch visual design and humor, this is a game you should grab as soon as possible.

You take control of Piper, captain of a smuggling ship. Shes joined by her pilot Wonky and Seabrass, her shotgun toting sidekick. Other party members can, of course be recruited but I’ll touch on that in a moment. At the beginning of the game, a charming, genuinely funny and well voice acted movie plays out in 1930’s British Public Service Announcement style. Think Fallout here, complete with cheesy voiceover, period perfect music and grainy almost sepia toned imagery. It describes the Scrappers who are moving into moving in on the territory where Piper operates, as well as the Royals army and even hints at some fiendish alien threats. You are then dumped straight into a rescue mission and it’s away you go into the games roughly 12 hour campaign. Oh, by the way, everyone is a robot. And speaks in gibberish. It’s stylish and adorable.

Gameplay is simple, intuitive and fun, but hides plenty of depth. Gone are fiddly AP points. Instead, Steamworld heist has a simple color-coding. You know how far you can move when you stop being able to move your cursor. Run to far, and you can only regain your breath after the sprint. Juggle your movement right and you can move to cover and fire. or fire and move to cover. Or throw a grenade, punch someone with a spiked set of brass knuckles, use a repair kit….theres a lot of diveristy here. Thankfully, Image & Form have made some very smart design decisions. Your menu of combat choices never feels overwhelming. Instead, it feels precisely metered and finely tuned, gradually ramping up the options available to you to keep combat fresh without drowning the player in buttons and icons. As characters level up, they gain access to new abilities that further tweak combat. Seabrass for example gains the ability to deal massive damage to an enemy after he’s already been damaged. Sally on the otherhand gains an ability that allows her to fire an extra shot after she kills an enemy. This allows you to effectively use Seabrass and Sally as a one two sucker punch to devastate enemies.

The environment also plays a big part in Heist’s gameplay. Certain floors can be shot through, most cover is destructible, explosive barrels litter the decks and you have to keep an eye out for turrets and reinforcements that can be deployed after a certain number of turns. This gives the game a way to ramp up the difficulty throughout a level without feeling cheap. And then there are the ricochets. Most weapons can be angled to bounce around a simply ludicrous number of times. This can allow you to pull of insane trick shots to nail that enemy crouching behind a barrel. Some scoped weapons include a laser sight to aid in this process, and thats when you notice that you also have to allow for the breathing of your robotic party members. The enemies themselves take great advantage of this mechanic as well, especially one particularly epic boss.

One of the only nitpicks I have with the otherwise excellent combat has to do with screenspace. Sometimes it can be hard to see enemies, forcing you to use the 3DS’s analog stick to move the camera over, potentially taking your character and their weapon out of the frame. This is a complaint I imagine will be largely addressed on larger screens, but is something to bear in mind on the handheld. I rarely found it to be to much of a problem though.

I’ve mentioned smart design a few times, and it doesn’t end at combat. Image & Form have wisely allowed players to customize the difficulty of the game before each mission. Since the higher difficulty levels can punish failure by relieving you of a portion of your total supply of water, the game’s currency, while lower ones do not, this becomes a great way to get past a tough spot and make some progress. Inventory systems are streamlined and easy to manage and even shopping is a pleasure thanks to the cast of characters that pack the bars dotted around the game’s map. These bars also contain recruitable party members. New members can be recruited once you have enough reputation, represented by stars. There are three stars available in each mission, awarded for clearing the objectives, not having party members die and picking up the Epic Swag in each level. Epic Swag is usually a cool new gun or piece of equipment and is worth grabbing on it’s own, even without the incentive of that extra star. Reputation also grants access to new areas of the map as well as a few difficult missions. Its a nice way to gate progress without being to unfair and the flow it establishes soon becomes familiar.

I haven’t touched much on sound and graphics and both are fantastic. Colors pop, character and ship designs are charming reflecting the combined Steampunk and Wild West sensibilities of the Steamworld universe. The music is good in levels, but the bar music really stands out and I found myself listening to it while writing this review. Your party members and enemies speak in an amusing gibberish, clanks and ricocheting shots are all great. The 3d effect on the 3ds is also rather striking, adding a bit of pop and clarity to the game without being distracting. In short, the presentation of the game is everything I’ve come to expect from Image & Form.

Finally, a few little notes on the game. There is a New Game+ mode which doesn’t do anything overly dramatic, but is a nice edition. And then there are the hats. Many enemies wear hats that you can shoot of of their heads with well placed shots. They don’t actually do anything aside from giving you an extra customization option for your party members. And there are 100 of them. In addition, there were a a few times where I didn’t feel totally connected to the story or world. its not that they aren’t good, its just that the larger galaxy narrative didn’t pull me in like the smaller drama of Steamworld Dig did.

All that being said, Steamworld Heist is a fantastic game. Polished, funny and combining the systems and ideas of great tactics RPGs like XCOM and Fire Emblem  (and others) into a package that has it’s own twists and amazing editions, I can safely recommend picking this one up on your console of choice.

Score: 9/10

Available On: 3DS, *PC/Max/Linux, *PS4, *Wii U, *Xbox One, *Vita

• Due to Image & Form’s small size, Steamworld Heist’s launch will be staggered to ensure they can maintain consistent quality. As of time of writing, not all dates are finalized. Updates to follow.

Following on from the announcement of their big #MillionReasonsToPlay contest, Bethesda have also said that they’re going to be making their MMO game The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited free to play over this next weekend.

The free “weekend” will last from Thursday, December 10th 8:01am GMT until Monday, December 14th 8:00am GMT. That’s about four days worth of free play time for people interested. The free time will be allowed on both the PC and Xbox One versions of the game, but the Playstation 4 version isn’t mentioned. So if you owned a PS4 and wanted to try out the free time, you might be out of luck this time around. Sorry.

It’s also been confirmed that if you take part in the free “weekend” and also meet the qualifying terms for their big #MillionReasonsToPlay competition, you will be eligible to win the big million dollar grand prize (or presumably the runner up Crown prizes as well). That’s not bad.

For more details about the free weekend you can go here, or if you’re curious about the million dollars the details can be found in my previous article or on the official page set up by Bethesda.

Hearthstone has just received its latest patch that brings with it a few fixes as well as adds in the data for the next few cardbacks that will be made available.

Added to the game are the cardbacks for placing higher than Rank 20 in December ’15, Jan ’16 and Feb ’16 as well as a Winter Veil one that is achieved by “celebrating Winter Veil in Hearthstone”; however you actually do that although it probably has something to do with the special Winter Veil effects that will be available in game from December 9th. Give it a try and see.

As well 4.1.0 adds the League of Explorers boards to the board rotation available for matches played in the Arena and Play modes (although they do seem to have already been available if you challenged a friend to a game) and makes Savage Roar “much less savage to the ears” which makes me think they’ve turned the volume down on its sound effect a little bit. Unearthed Raptor was also causing client freezes when played as well, and that too has been fixed taming this living fossil.

As well various UI and other issues have been fixed, including some that had something to do with the AI. So expect less completely silly plays in Single Player Adventure mode from now on. Some mobile-specific bugs were also fixed, including one for the iOS version that crashed the game when crafting Legendary cards. Finally, you can use your Arcane Dust to make that Dr. Boom you’ve been eyeing up for months!

So this weekend just been (December 5th and 6th 2015) saw us holding an open tournament for fans of the station in the virtual card game of Hearthstone, with each match being decided by a best of 3 round. Eight players entered but ultimately one person emerged victorious with the grand prize.

Round 1 – Saturday, December 5th

The tournament kicked off at 4:30pm BST with the opening match between MikeMatrix and Lartin, Mike already known for his skills. The match saw both players using Paladin decks, proven to be a popular Hero choice as the tournament went on and despite Lartin putting up a hell of a fight MikeMatrix eventually emerged as the victor in the first match and moved onto the semi finals.

The next match-up saw CreeperGirl and Agtheo matched up against each other, with Agtheo being a newer addition to the community. Agtheo also brought along a strong Paladin deck and Creeper brought the first Priest of the tournament. Unfortunately despite strong resistance Creeper eventually lost to Agtheo 2-0 and so Agtheo went on to face Mike in the first semi of Sunday.

The third match of the first round was Zeoste vs Threepwood, a match-up that proved to be well matched. Both players were strong contenders for victory, with matches swinging back and forth in each player’s favour. Eventually though Zeoste managed to emerge victorious in both matches played and advanced to the semis.

The forth and final match-up of the day saw Izziekakarot (brother of our very own Crimsonshade!) pit against Krauzer168 for the last spot the next day. Once again both players fought their matches fiercely with Secrets, Nerubian Eggs and much more being played as they tried to win out against the other player. In the end though Izzie won and advanced to face Zeoste in the other semi of Round 2.

Round 2 – Sunday, December 6th

Round 2 was the day of deciders, the deciding of who of our remaining four would place forth; third; second and ultimately; first place in the Winter Open Tournament.

Semi-final 1 was between Zeoste and Izziekakarot for a place in the final round. Both again fought fiercely but despite Zeoste taking the first round, a combination of good card draw and a lucky 2-cost minion drop from Izzie’s Piloted Shredder (in the form of an Armorsmith) ensured the Izziekakarot advanced to take the first place in the final match that would be played at the end of the day.

The other semi-final saw one of the most anticipated match-ups of the day – MikeMatrix vs Agtheo. Both players had proven their skills the day before and it could have gone either way. Agtheo used his Dragon Priest deck in both matches though and bad luck and bad card draw meant that in the end Mike had no answer and so Agtheo filled the other spot in the final.

Before the final though, the third place decider had to take place (which I persisted in referring to as the “Bronze match”). Zeoste faced MikeMatrix in battle and in the end it was quickly over. The first match played as your expected game, but Mike chose to use his Legends deck in the second round and once again bad card draw made it hard for him to get anything on the field quick enough to defend himself. Zeoste therefore took third place in the tournament.

And so we reached the end of the tournament, the ultimate match-up in the final – Izziekakarot vs Agtheo!

In a game that was closer than any previous match-up seen so far both players presented strong showings, with Agtheo’s Dragon Priest almost out of luck when it took a while for the Dragons to emerge for the combinations. In the end though the Dragons came and proved both times the stronger deck, allowing Agtheo to scoop the top prize in the tournament of his choice of either an Expansion or 15 Card Packs. Izzie of course still came second and took the second place prize of either a Hero or 7 Card Packs.

Our victor had this to say about the tournament:

 

Before I go into my write up for the Sanitarium.FM open winter tournament I want to say a big ‘thanks’ to two groups of people, firstly to the tournament organisers at Sanitarium.FM without whom there would be no tournament and secondly to my Hearthstone clanmates from team ‘Fat Old Men’ Duram and TastyTadpole without whose help building and testing decks I certainly would not have done as well as I did.

 

The tournament itself was a pleasure to play in, a small, intimate affair made up of the close knit Sanitarium.fm community. This was, I believe the first open tournament organised for Hearthstone by the SFM team, and while there were some teething technical issues relating to commentator call quality and stream fps these were dealt with as the tournament proceeded…

 

Likewise, the tournament itself included players over a wide variety of skill levels and some of the results reflected this, with 2-0 shutouts occurring in all but one case but all players seemed to have a good time and take this with good heart and politeness within matches reigned supreme with very little BM in evidence.

 

I had selected 5 decks as my ‘core’ to practice with: Secret Paladin and Demonlock Zoo were both Tier 1 decks that I was already pretty familiar with having used them to ladder over the past few months and have pretty strong match-ups against a lot of things. Control ‘Wallet’ Warrior was there to use as a counter in case I lost a match against Freeze Mage, Oil Rogue or other control style deck and suspected my opponent would keep the deck rather than switching. Likewise Dragon Priest was taken to deal with Aggro decks (specifically Zoolock) due to it’s large number of high value taunt cards and a Mid Range Druid based around board control and the Force of Nature / Savage Roar combo was taken to round things out.

 

I knew that the previous (presumably non open) tournament winner MikeMatrix would be my semi-final opponent if I made through the opening round so making sure I was in a good position to take the win from him was certainly on my radar, especially as he was the only other player to have scouted me during my ranked play and got a good look at my Zoolock deck in action, and was clearly ‘the man to beat’. My first opponent CreeperGirl was a bit of an unknown quantity… I elected to open with Secret Paladin, it’s a deck am quite familiar with and has many strong match-ups. I was met with an eclectic hybrid Mage deck which unfortunately lacked the focus to deal with the value a ‘Mystery Shopper’ deck based around your friend and mine, ‘Dr. 6’ the Mysterious Challenger. I elected to switch at this point to Zoolock as I knew it was a deck that had already been scouted and wanted to obfuscate somewhat what my game plan was. I was met with another hybrid deck, this time a priest and again tried and tested nature of playing good value minions on curve won out. I found out later that this was CreeperGirl’s first tournament and subsequently felt a little bad for bringing the Tier 1’s against a less experienced player but ultimately that’s the nature of the game when it’s a tournament with a prize up for grabs.

 

On that subject it is worth mentioning that the prize pool (Expansion or equivalent value in packs for 1st, and Hero or equivalent value in packs for 2nd) is extremely generous for a tournament of this size and thanks once again to the SFM team for putting it up. Hopefully subsequent tournaments will have an even bigger turnout due to the success of this one.

 

The semi finals and final took place on the day after the round one matches concluded which allowed for some additional testing beforehand. I knew I didn’t want to open with either of the decks I had played previously against Mike to increase the ‘surprise’ factor and opted to play Dragon Priest as it had strong match-ups against the kind of mid range or tempo decks Mike might play if we wanted to counter what he had seen from me already, as well as the recent ‘Eggnog’ style Druid deck I had seen him use against his first round I he chose to stick with it.

 

The final was up against Izziekakarot, a player who I had seen playing Paladin, Shaman and Warlock earlier in the tournament. I stuck with Dragon Priest again as I was feeling somewhat confident with it and the decks I had seen Izzie play already were pretty good match-ups and their style in general seemed to be leaning slightly towards a more aggro leaning with the exception of the more mid range paladin which… was of course what they opened with. The equality / consecration combo is something to really watch out for with Dragon Priest as it can ruin your carefully set up board for the low low cost of two cards and six mana so this was something I knew I had to play around. An early equality to board clear via minion trade was painful but at least I now knew there was only one left in the deck.

 

I played quite aggressively with a dropped Brann Bronzebeard (the recent League of Explorers Legendary who doubles battlecries) getting a lot of extra health for my twilight whelps which would prove to almost be my undoing later in the game. Izzie traded well and this match had a lot of back and forth, ultimately leading to me playing Chromaggus onto a relatively clear board with no other dragons in hand to maintain tempo. Unfortunately the only thing I would go on to draw for the next 5 or so draws were combo cards that needed dragons which meant I had to play a lot of sub optimal cards just to make sure I had some kind of board presence. Ultimately I was able to stabilise with some clutch board clears with Light Bomb and get Ysera out (who would subsequently die to a Quartermaster play of pure beauty onto four Silver Hand Recruits) but would end up drawing my whole deck and taking fatigue damage before a board reinvigorated with Dream cards from Ysera was able to push through for a hard fought victory.

 

One thing that also strikes me from having looked at the replays over the course of the tournament was the amount of times I had opponents sitting with a Big Game Hunter in hand waiting to use it. One of the tweaks made to the deck was the removal of Chillmaw as a late game dragon from the ‘standard’ list and using Chromaggus as a replacement. This had the added bonus of meaning there were minions with a base attack of 7 or high meaning no natural targets for Big Game Hunter (buffs notwithstanding) making it, if not a ‘dead card’ at least a very inefficient one which I am also sure helped me along the route to winning as Dragon Priest was the deck I ended up using for 2/3 of my games.

 

In conclusion I had a great time at the tournament was pretty happy with my play (although there were a litany of missplays followed by my ‘oops’ emote particularly around incorrectly worked out damage / healing maths), and wish the folks at Sanitarium.FM the very best of luck with any future ones put on (of which I shall naturally attempt to join and defend my ‘crown’).

Over all we wish to thank all of our players who took part this weekend, you gave us some wonderful Hearthstone to watch and commentate upon, and made our first big open Hearthstone tournament a success in many ways!

Keep your eyes peeled for news of the next tournament on our social media, and remember to join us for our radio shows for news of other events that take place!

Welcome to your weekly update on gaming Kickstarters.

Starting off with the bad news, two of the previously covered Kickstarters have had their funding cancelled. IRL and GOTY the card game have both had their funding cancelled this week. While there is no update on why IRL was cancelled, chances are that the maker was afraid such a concept could be a hard sell to backers. GOTY though was cancelled because the team didn’t see themselves reaching their goal in time. They have said they will try against next year though, placing their campaign in a time of year in which it might be more likely to meet its target, and I can’t wait to see it come back.

Tunnels & Traps and Apocalypse Hotel are also in trouble, with little time remaining on their campaigns with a bit to make up still. Go check them out and back if they take your fancy – they need the support you can offer! Blacksea Odyssey also has a mere 5 days to go on its campaign but has only a $1.5k gap to make up in that time, which is a bit more doable. Feel free to go support it as well if you can.

In happier news though, after many weeks of campaign and with 4 days to go, Pankapu has just reached its $40k goal. Well deserved too, the game looks beautiful and I can’t wait to see it as a full game. Well done to Too Kind Studio and good luck!

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Canvas

The first game I’m showcasing today is one that I’m showing off because I like the idea behind it.

Canvas is a game about a girl. A girl along in a totally blank and empty white world. The only thing that has any power is the girl’s thoughts and as she interacts with more things, she can create more of the world around her starting from the simple and leading up to the more complex. The game’s graphics aren’t brilliant to be honest, but it’s certainly worth a look at if you’re into different things.

Canvas is running for a further 28 days and it has made £5 of its £5,000 goal so far.

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Smiling Bear: Attack

This is an entrant into game making through the children’s game market and is quite sweet actually.

You play as the titular Smiling Bear, who only has one mission in life – cheer up those who are sad through the use of pink hearts. It’s a child-friendly shooter game which the developer created with his children, hoping to get them interested in the creative process and to just have some fun with them. He is now sharing it with the world and is fundraising for the licensing cost which isn’t very high at all.

If you fancy helping out, Smiling Bear is asking for $250 and has already made $130 of that with 29 more days to go.

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First Contact: X-Corps Tabletop RPG

Filling the weekly ‘card game/tabletop game’ slot for the Round-up is this RPG that focuses on an Earth fighting a hostile alien force in the near future.

Play as either a member of the X-Corps defending Earth or an ordinary person trying to live through a life disrupted by the invasion, which while not a big full-scale one consists of big targeted attacks on important cities and populated places. Some places have even fallen into anarchy and chaos by the time the game gets going. There will be a setting book provided with all the details needed to play the game.

First Contact has made €4,111 of its €10,000 goal with 33 days to go.

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Wanda – A Beautiful Apocalypse

Finishing this week, we have a cute little game about two robots trying to find hope and friendship on a ruined planet. Aww.

Aiming to make an ‘end-of-the-world’ setting game filled with a more positive and innocent outlook, the campaign page for Wanda says “Witness the story unfold, solve mini-puzzles and join this little adventure. Experience a whole new perspective of a ruined wasteland through a charming art-style reminiscent of a children’s book and delightful soundtracks.” I’m all for a game that makes you happy, even when the world’s gone to pieces.

Wanda is asking for $2,000 AUD and has 29 days to go, having made $981 so far.