If you’ve previously experienced Bossa Studio’s Surgeon Simulator 2013, you can probably get a good idea of what exactly to expect with I am Bread. Crazy difficult controls, sandbox-lite style gameplay, and somewhat open ended objectives that can be completed in many different ways.

One way in which I am Bread departs from its predecessor is obviously in the setting. Gone are the surgical scrubs, dangerous hypodermic needles filled with psychoactive drugs, and a helplessly unlucky patient. Instead, players literally take control of a slice of bread on a journey to become a slice of toast.

Much like Surgeon Simulator 2013, I am Bread’s control scheme may take some getting used to. Even players who’ve put in a lot of hours in the virtual ER may find I am Bread’s controls to be seriously difficult. Where Surgeon Simulator 2013’s controls made some sense, as far as keys being mapped to move the same fingers in-game goes, I am Bread maps the 1234 keys to each corner of the slice, with QWER mapped to latch onto objects for the bread to hold.

For PC players, I am Bread represents an example of a game whose control scheme might be worse on a keyboard / mouse than with a console controller. Using an Xbox One controller may be the weapon of choice for players that wish to embark on this bread-based journey. Regardless of your chosen peripheral though, I am Bread is going to be a seriously challenging game. Because let’s face it, if this was an easy game it probably wouldn’t be much fun.

Toasting some bread sounds pretty simple, surely many of our American readers do just that every morning before work. In I am Bread though, making toast is a bit more difficult. Players begin their bread-journey safely tucked inside of a full loaf of the good stuff, slowly emerging from the nest with a mission to get toasted. A cleanliness meter quickly degrades if your bread becomes soiled from inedible objects that you’ve accidentally broken, or when it touches the ground. The 10 second rule is very much in full effect here. Players will be challenged both with reaching the toaster, and making it there in a somewhat edible state.

Since I am Bread is extremely open-ended, players can employ almost any tactic they want to make it across the room and into that glorious bread heating kitchen appliance. Some players may choose to fling themselves onto a skateboard by which to slowly skate across the room, while others may scale the walls as a bread-based daredevil in hopes of making it there with maximum cleanliness. Regardless of what path you choose to get toasted, dangers along the way will pose a serious threat to you achieving your goal of becoming a warm piece of toast.

If reading this comes off sounding as crazy as it is typing it, please understand that I am Bread is even crazier than this. While I’m certain that somewhere in the world somebody has probably walked into their kitchen, in a state of moderate to high intoxication, only to find a slice of bread wielding a knife trying to turn itself into toast, this is probably the first time those of us sound of mind can experience such a thing.

It’s in this insanity though that I am Bread is completely at home. There’s so much to explore, crash into, and accidentally discover, that I am Bread is one of those games that really doesn’t reveal itself to most players until many hours into doing basically the same thing over and over.

There’s really no way to quantify this experience as good, bad, or somewhere in between you see, as the overall game is going to be really based on what you make of it. Will you become a knife-wielding bread-based skateboarder? Or maybe flying in circles from the kitchen’s ceiling fan is more your style. Regardless of how you choose to play I am Bread, you’re probably going to go through a lot of emotions as you explore this deep bread simulation.

With I am Bread still in its Early Access phase on Steam, there’s plenty more to come with this unique game, which dare I say may be the world’s preeminent bread simulator. Bossa Studios is hard at work with future updates, what exactly they’ll entail though remains a mystery.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with Prismata recently. Since we’re dealing with a game still in an early playable alpha stage, I was cautiously optimistic that Prismata was playable enough for me to enjoy myself and get a good feeling for the game. I’m very happy to report that Prismata is not only playable, but also a lot of fun.

Since learning new card games in general can be pretty difficult, I was pleased to see that Prismata’s alpha already has a robust series of tutorials that get new players up to speed. I’d like to think of myself as more of an experience-based learner, so after skipping around through 3 of the deeper tutorial missions, I opted to just start diving into real games versus the AI and living opponents. Regardless of how you learn, or at what pace, Prismata’s early learning curve isn’t as harsh as one might expect. This is especially true for players with prior card or strategy game experience.

Players that have some experience with Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering will find some similarities in Prismata, though I suspect they’ll find just as many things that set this game far apart from the competition. Most notably, deck building is entirely removed. In its place, players have access to a standard deck of cards, along with a randomized assortment that will differ from game to game. Each player has access to the same standard and randomized cards during a match, thus doing away with situations like one player owning considerably more powerful cards than their opponent. By removing the emphasis on building overpowered decks, Lunarch Studios has put a real focus on adaptive strategy. Choosing the right strategy is largely dependant on observing what your opponent plays, and making strategic choices based upon that information.

The combat and economy aspects of Prismata play much more like a RTS game, but in more of a turn-based sense. Each turn, players go through a more streamlined set of phases compared to something like Magic: The Gathering. Players harvest gold from drone units, which they may then use to build new units with various abilities. Depending on the strategy a player chooses, new units may generate other resources or act as combatants during the attack or defend phases.

While both players will be using gold as their primary resource, they’ll also have access to 4 additional resources by which to build new units. Despite having access to the same cards, it’s possible for players to focus their resource generation differently than their opponent. Because the matches are so situationaly adaptive, players will need to keep a close watch on what resources their opponent is pushing towards, as that could be a good indication of the cards they are aiming to play later in the match.

Combat through both turns is played at a significantly quicker pace than traditional card game fans might be accustomed. While that may sound a bit offputting to some, I encourage you to try the Prismata Offline Demo out for yourself before casting judgement. Combat is fast, fluid, and still remains engaging. Quite frankly, this turn-based RTS-style card game makes a lot of sense once you’ve got a few games under your belt.

As a Magic: The Gathering player since back in the Ice Age days, and an avid RTS fan that got my start with games such as Warcraft 2 and Command & Conquer, I came into this hoping that my prior experience with both genres might give me a leg up on the competition. Learning to play Prismata went pretty quickly for me, although I suspect I’ve got quite a bit more to learn when it comes to many of the advanced strategies in the game. Thankfully, Prismata is similar enough to appeal to fans of either genre, while still being unique enough to require players invest some time to really learn the intricacies of the game.

Even for a Magic: The Gathering veteran of nearly 20 years, Prismata impressed me a lot more than I thought it would. Instead of waiting for what can feel like minutes for a slow player to complete a turn, players move through the phases at a much livelier pace. It’s a wonder why more developers haven’t made an attempt at quickening the experience of traditional card games, as it really makes the overall game more accessible to players that prefer action-oriented gameplay. With such an enjoyable experience in its alpha phase, I can only hope that Prismata continues down this design path during development. Newcomers to the card game genre might just really enjoy what Prismata brings to the table.

The first thing that you must know about This War of Mine is that it isn’t based on any specific real-life war. Instead, the team put in many hours researching various wars in throughout history. Rather than diving into the political debate regarding any specific conflict, 11 bit chose to remain conflict agnostic, and instead tell the human side of war.

Everything began about 2 years ago. Grzegorz Miechowski (founder/managing director of 11 bit) brought an article titled “One Year in Hell” to the office, which was an interview with a man who had survived the siege of a city in Bosnia in the early 90s. That was a thrilling and absolutely moving piece, and a spark that instantly ignited the team to make this game. From then, we’ve done (and are still doing, actually) extensive research on many modern conflicts, looking for memoirs and stories from regular people, civilians. Many of those small stories have been forged into events in the game. Examples are the well-documented siege of Sarajevo during the Yugoslavian war in early 90s; “Robinsons of Warsaw,” which relates to people who survived in the ruins of Warsaw during and after the Uprising of ’44; the great siege of Leningrad; as well as Kosovo and modern Syria.

In addition to the historically-inspired stories, 11 bit studios called upon their own team members, friends, and family to populate the game’s world. Check out this video for a look at how they turned a programmer into a priest.

Additionally, the team has tried to faithfully create a very “human” game, and so have scanned themselves, photographed themselves, made 3D models of characters based on their own postures. The fictional characters in the game are based on them, their friends, wives, colleagues. Anton is based on Mirek, the security guard in 11 bit’s office, who happens to also be a very nice man that became a friend as the team worked on This War of Mine.

Diving into the gameplay is pretty straight forward. I gained control of 3 unique characters (Pavle, Katia, and Boris), all taking refuge from the conflict inside of a war-torn building. Time is quickly revealed to be a very important factor that players must manage throughout the game. Surviving, scavenging, and preparing for the unknown is your goal every single day.

Since daylight is the best time for open conflict between factions, civilians are safest within the confines of their home. Players use this precious time to do the various things that they must, in preparation of a night of scavenging. Early on, I decided the best use of my time would be spent harvesting my own surroundings for precious resources such as bandages, wood, and whatever food was left behind. As the daylight grew dim, I had Katia craft a bed so that at least one of them didn’t have to sleep on the floor.

As night turned to day, I selected Pavle to go out scavenging. Before the war, Pavle was a football (read: soccer) player. His speed on the field might translate into something useful in case things get hairy out in the city at night. As Pavle left for a night of uncertainty, I was left with a difficult decision on just the first night, what do with the others do whilst he was gone. After some thought, I chose to give Boris a relaxing night in the freshly built bed. The other, Katia, was tasked with a long night of keeping watch.

I was offered the choice of a few locations to scavenge for the evening. What exactly awaited me at the building you choose was mostly a mystery. Will there be a glorious stock of exactly what I needed? Or instead, could other, less-than-hospitable, scavengers already be there? As the days went on, I exhausted the resources available closest to me. I was clear that I needed to branch out further.

During one of the nights while Pavle was gone, bad guys broke in and beat up my other 2 characters. They were in pretty bad shape. I needed bandages, medicine, and food. Katia hadn’t eaten in 2 days, not by choice. I had to do something. I gave Pavle as much rest as I could during the day. No matter what, I was coming home with food and bandages for Katia, even if it meant doing something crazy.

That evening, I came upon a quiet house. It looked like this might be a place to get what I needed. As Pavle reached the unassuming home, I peaked through the keyhole for a small glimpse at what might be inside. To my surprise, and elderly man sat comfortably in his recliner. I told myself it didn’t matter. I broke into the house. Alarmed, he rushed towards me, though unable to do anything to stop what I was going to do. As I rummaged through his cabinets, the old man begged me to stop. I had grabbed the last of his food. My bags half full, it was time to head upstairs. His cries continued. “Take what you want, just don’t hurt us” he said. As I reached the upstairs bathroom, his concern became more focused on what I was really after. “Please don’t take our medicine, my wife is very ill”. His pleas were beginning to get to me, but I knew what I had to do. One of mine was sick. Katia would die if I didn’t bring back some medicine, his wife’s medicine.

As Pavle handed out the night’s score and explained what he’d done, it was clear things would never be the same. The food, medicine, and bandages had gotten Katia back on her feet, but at what cost? The guilt of what Pavle had done for her was too much. Katia and Boris were no longer sleeping through the night due to severe depression on account of Pavles actions. Without rest, they couldn’t do what was needed during the day. Any entry in Pavle’s journal reveals his guilt as well. In the quest to stay alive, he and his companions had lost their humanity.

Another night, another opportunity to scavenge. I took Pavle out again in hopes of getting ahead, maybe finding something of value to trade. Instead, as I opened that door, I found my fate in the form of armed Bandits. Pavle never returned home that morning. No food would be on the stove for breakfast, no wood to keep the fire burning. Katia and Boris would never find out exactly what happened to Pavle, he was just gone. Now there were just two of them. Maybe it was better that way, it would be easier with one less mouth to feed.

This War of Mine is easily one of the most powerful and thought provoking games I’ve ever played. Despite this only being a limited preview of the game, I stand here today sending out a simple message to you. Get this game.

This War of Mine is currently in development. The game is scheduled for release on November 14th, 2014 on Steam. Learn more about the game at ThisWarofMine.com

For your PC Master Race purchasing pleasure, click to add the game to your glorious Steam shopping cart. 

The game describes its combat style as isometric quick-twitch fighting, a style that feels in many ways to be a completely unique genre. While gameplay is set in an isometric view, Secret Ponchos feels lot closer to a game like Quake 3 Arena than it does to many of its isometric view brethren. Combat is fast-paced and highly tactical, with victory or defeat oftentimes being a single misclick away.

Before joining a match players must select their combatant, which currently sits at 5 playable characters. Each character feels entirely unique, with different fighting styles, abilities, and weapons. Players should be able to find a character that fits their playstyle within the current cast of characters. While some classes are better at long-range combat, others may excel at medium or up-close warfare. Regardless of what character you choose though, no one class is without weakness. Balance-wise, Secret Ponchos manages to keep each class unique without making one specific character entirely overpowered.

The maps available thus far make for some enjoyable battles. Plenty of obstacles grant precious cover from bullets as they fly by the heads of you and your teammates. The whole visual experience feels quite unique. It’s as if they’ve combined a bit of the the artstyle of the Gorillaz with some comic book flair, and then threw it all together in a gritty world reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption. Needless to say, it works really well in this isometric view.

The combat in Secret Ponchos is very fast-paced. Imagine a game of Counter-Strike, but with fast respawns and an isometric view. Taking and dealing damage requires quick reflexes and sound decision making skills. Should you rush in, dual six-shooters blazing? Or maybe taking cover behind a fence while you wait for your enemy to reload is the better option. Split second decisions mean the difference between landing a kill and needing to endure a short respawn timer. Combat damage is quite high, taking only a few shots can really turn the tide of any encounter.

Secret Ponchos is a game that rewards players that practice their skills. Since everything is fast, and the stakes are high, making being able to capitalize on the mistakes of your enemies will usually result in you winning a battle. Not many games come to mind when it comes to this style of combat and view, so honing your abilities both individually and as a team will be an important aspect of this game.

Despite this being a site that exclusively covers PC games, I do feel as if the greatest potential for Secret Ponchos may indeed rest on consoles. While the game’s combat and art is truly fantastic on PC, there’s really nothing else like it available for console. I can see a fast-paced arena-style shooter like this doing quite well, especially considering its ease of use with game controllers. PS4 fans should take note of this game when it’s finally released on the console, it’s not a game to miss. With Secret Ponchos still in its Early Access phase on Steam, there’s sure to be lots more coming in the future for this ambitious game, and we can’t wait to see what that might be.

SPACECOM tasks players with defending and expanding their territory, all while trying to defeat 5 other players in a duel to the death. SPACECOM features a short single player campaign that also functions as the tutorial. In addition, players may battle against AI opponents in Skirmish mode. The real meat of the game, though, is in SPACECOM‘s Multiplayer mode. Players face off against 5 other opponents, battling against all odds to rule the galaxy.

Rather than dumping all of their resources into creating a game with the most cutting edge graphics around, Flow Combine has stripped down the game to its bare components. The game is decidedly minimalist, though not much as something like rymdkapsel. The beauty in the minimalistic design is that by removing the pomp and flash, SPACECOM‘s focus on deep strategic gameplay is on full display at all times.

Flow Combine has taken a gameplay concept that has been quite popular on smartphones in recent years and expanded upon the basic idea, creating a simple yet highly strategic game. Initially, players start out with a few planets and ships. Each planet may be retrofitted with 3 possible upgrades that enhance its ability to withstand invasions. Planets are categorized as one of 4 different hub types. Some hubs act as mines that provide resources to your empire, others build or repair your fleet of spaceships.

By strategically capturing different planets players can expand their reach in the galaxy and create virtual choke points that block other players from invading deep into your territory. Players have access to 3 different types of ships. Battle, Invasion, and Siege units may used at the players discretion to both attack and defend. Battleships help to offer defense and initiate planetary attacks, Invasion ships act as a planetary strike force to capture the planet, and Siege ships can be utilized to destroy the planet and devalue its worth for your opponents.

How exactly to conquer the galaxy is entirely up to the player, although winning the game will require strategic thinking and a lot of multitasking. Despite not openly displaying damage numbers and other such calculations, SPACECOM still manages to have an air of simulation behind the gameplay. Instead of luck, players will need to depend on their thinking skills to succeed in this corner of space.

With its focus on high strategy, SPACECOM‘s gameplay was impressively addictive. With its launch just about a week away, players will need to wait a bit longer until they can get their hands on the game.

We had some time to sit down with an early build of Gryphon Knight Epic earlier this week, even at this stage of development, the game shows a lot of promise. Players take up the role of Sir Oliver, a knight armed with a crossbow who rides atop a mythical beast. Additional playable characters are planned as Kickstarter stretch goals or DLC later on, but at currently players are stuck with good ol’ Sir Oliver and his giant bird.

Gryphon Knight Epic feels like a mixture of R-Type and MegaMan in a medieval setting. Despite being in 2D, Gryphon Knight Epic doesn’t feel constrained by its environment. Players will need to utilize every inch of available screen space, as the danger comes from literally all directions. I constantly found myself moving around to avoid attacks, sometimes even needing to reverse directions to take out a particularly nasty enemy. Rather than simply moving forward, I eventually made it far enough in the level to then have to dig down underground and begin fighting enemies from underneath. After a bit more fighting, I managed to emerge out the other side of a mountain and into the reach of a boss fight in the form of a particularly mean treant.

It’s this sense of controlled exploration that I found to be particularly enjoyable. The environment and my direction of progress kept me guessing, which is everything you’d want in this type of game. Mean fish would jump from the water, spiders hung from trees, and giant plants would emerge from the ground in hopes of enjoying a quick bite to eat.  Carefully executing attacks and movements was crucial to my survival. For example, I couldn’t just go straight at the giant plant and score an easy kill. Dispatching of this particular enemy required that I time my attacks to be able to land a shot, otherwise the plant would shrivel up and evade me. In another area, dinosaur-like creatures would throw spears at me while hiding behind cover. This left me the choice of either destroying their cover first, or flying over them and reversing direction to land shots from behind. The flying aspect isn’t just a gimmick, it actually ties very nicely into the overall environment.

As players progress through the game, they’ll acquire upgrades in the form of new weapons, squires that fly along with you, and artifacts that grant new abilities such as dash. Defeating a boss actually gives you access to their particular weapon, a feature many players will fondly recall from the MegaMan series. Taking one look at the various boss encounters below, players will likely have a selection of powerful and interesting weapons.

At the end of the day, this isn’t just a completely linear old-fashioned game. Instead, Gryphon Knight Epic mixes a whimsical medieval setting with concepts both new and old. The result is a game that was challenging and enjoyable for all ages.

If you’d like to support Gryphon Knight Epic’s Kickstarter campaign, there’s still a bit of time left to do so. If you happen to miss out on that, you can always thumbs-up their Steam Greenlight campaign. The game’s release date has not yet been announced, but you can keep up with the latest developments at http://www.cyberrhinostudios.com/.

Cosmic DJ was released on May 16th and was developed by Gl33k and published by Devolver Digital. We had a chance to jam out with the game after its Early Access release, read on if you like to party.

Cosmic DJ could be described as a casual music experience, although players of all types might find something to enjoy with the game. Cosmic DJ  blends rhythm-based gameplay and easy song creation with an absolutely insane narrative that makes for a seriously unique experience.

I approached Cosmic DJ as a gamer whose total music game experience includes about an hour with Guitar Hero a few years back. From a completely inexperienced player’s perspective, Cosmic DJ was particularly easy to learn. The campaign that’s included gets you into the game and mixing beats very quickly. There are a few ways to create your tracks using the Tap/Grid Sequencer. Experienced music gamer players may enjoy the Tap Sequencer, although I found my fingers to be lacking in musical beat making. For me, the Grid Sequencer made things much easier.

The story in Cosmic DJ is pretty insane, but in this case, pretty insane is also pretty fantastic. Players assume the role of the Legendary Cosmic DJ on a quest to repair the broken “Jamtennas” and restore harmony to the galaxy. Throughout the missions available thus far, players will quickly find themselves creating catchy tunes thanks to the easy to learn music creation system.

After you’re done with the particularly entertaining campaign portion of the game, you can try your hand at making even more music in a free-form Quick Play Mode that allows you to choose a randomized set of instruments. I did find that the inability to choose my instruments was a bit limiting at times, although you’re allowed to re-randomize your instrument set until you find a combination that you like.

Overall, I enjoyed the hell out of my time with Cosmic DJ. I can’t imagine most audiophiles will find the music I personally created to be particularly enjoyable though. Regardless, I was able to make music and upload the audio file and in-game created album cover in a matter of minutes. Considering my total lack of experience with music creation, the simplicity of the entire experience makes Cosmic DJ a fantastic learning tool in addition to just being a fun game to play.

Feel free to jam out to my amateur beats in the SoundCloud.com embed at the top of the page.

Steam Cards: No | Steam Achievements: No | Version Reviewed: Steam Early Access Initial Release

I was able to find an open lobby quickly and was thankful to be grouped with a few veteran players that could sheperd my fellow new recruits and I through the mission. It wasn’t until first entering the mission that I got a true feel for what this game was all about. I knew this was an 8 player co-op game and had already gone through the prologue, but that knowledge didn’t mentally prepare me for the true scale of the game. The Red Solstice is way more epic than I had initially thought. With randomized objectives and events, combined with absolutely huge maps, The Red Solstice never feels underwhelming even when you’re teaming up with 7 of your buddies. My first co-op encounter was a roughly 40 minute long timed mission that had us battling through a gigantic map on the hunt for both primary and optional objectives. Our highest ranked player assumed the role of team captain and attempted to lead us through the dangerous city streets. Our squad of 8 was fortunate enough to have an additional high level player accompanying us on this mission, or at least it seemed fortunate at the time. Within minutes though, things got pretty serious for the squad. Our second-in-command was lying dead somewhere, having grown overconfident in his ability to wander off from the group for a moment. As many players will quickly discover, dying in The Red Solstice is forever. Working together and staying close is your best chance at making it out of there alive.

The Red Solstice is all about trying to find the right balance between the needs of the few and the needs of the many. Players are given limited ammo and supplies at the beginning of a mission, it’s up to the team to salvage and distribute the items that will soon be in short supply. There is always that possibility that a few greedy players will dash towards the lootable objects while the rest of your team fights back hordes of enemies. That might work out for them in the short term, but when the greedy few have all the ammo while the rest of the squad is running on empty, they may see the error in the ways. This limited ammo supply creates a good deal of suspense as you make your way through the map. “Almost out. Watch my shots. Hopefully there’s a locker in the next building.” I’d say to myself, as I watched my ammo count trickle down closer to zero. With everything being randomized, you can never depend on that next room to replenish your ammo, it’s all quite tense. Things got tougher and tougher as another one of our teammates would wander too far and be cut down. Eventually, due to the sum of our mistakes, we failed. In the end, it was down to just 2 of our original squad of 8. Our team leader and a single new recruit had both managed to live, though not together. Both had become separated in battle and found themselves too far away to be of any use to one another, and quickly running out of ammo. They both died no longer shooting, but simply running for their lives.

Not every mission will be a success, even if you put an hour into it, you can still gloriously fail. It’s the panicked sense of impending doom that shines most brightly. The next room may be your last. That equipment locker might not have enough ammo to last very long. Your Medic could get caught unprepared for an ambush. The Red Solstice is absolutely glorious, and is everything PC gaming is about.

Anomaly Defenders continues the storyline from the previous games in the Anomaly series.This time around, we get to experience things from an entirely new perspective. Instead of defending the humans from alien invaders, Anomaly Defenders puts you in control of the aliens who have been pushed back and must now defend their own planet.

My press build came with 24 action packed levels, though I’m unsure if there will be additional levels at launch. Initially, the levels start off on the easy side; seasoned tower defense players will likely be able to play through the first few missions on hard mode on the first try. As the story progresses though, things gets much more difficult. By level 6 the game begins to rise in difficulty by adding dangerous new elements for the player to endure such as Rocket Mechs and meteor showers. It’s in these deeper levels that Anomaly Defenders really begins to stand on its own as a traditional tower defense game.

In a departure from the previous Anomaly games, Anomaly Defenders does away with the singular wave of units in favor of the more traditional wave-based tower defense design. In addition, the maps are much smaller in size, which makes for a lot of fast-paced combat. It just wouldn’t be an Anomaly game if there wasn’t an element of danger mixed in with that strategy; in Anomaly Defenders, the waves shoot back at you. The humans have invaded your planet in response to your previously invading theirs, so it’s fitting that the attackers that you’re defending against will also be trying to destroy you. It adds so much excitement to the overall game, it really made me wonder why other tower defense games don’t employ this mechanic more often.

During each wave, the human forces do huge amounts of damage to your towers. Initially, you’ll have the ability to repair your turrets during battle using a secondary resource that you manually pick up after destroying those units. Progressing through the game awards technology points that allow you to spec down a variety of trees that unlock tower upgrades, new types of towers, and various abilities. Because the combat is so fast-paced, you’ll find yourself depending on your abilities to recover from particularly nasty waves quite often.

Initially, I felt as if the game might be too easy; As the game progressed though, the difficulty increased right along with it. 24 levels, each with 3 levels of difficulty, should be enough to satisfy the hunger of tower defense fans looking for a challenging game that might require repeating a level a few times. With the tower defense genre being most popular on mobile devices, many games end up being easy casual games or impossible because they’re behind a micro-transaction paywall; Anomaly Defenders is thankfully neither easy nor micro-transaction locked.

Veteran players of the series will find the gameplay to be both familiar and very different at the same time. A mixture of speed and strategy makes Anomaly Defenders a title that tower defense fans will definitely need to try out. Anomaly Defenders is set to release on May 29th on PC and mobile devices.

We opted to try our hand at the single player aspect of VoidExpanse, though it does feature a similar mutliplayer option that appears to support up to 64 players per server. The game drops you right into the action as the commander of a small spaceship somewhere in a galaxy. As more games are thankfully doing these days, VoidExpanse offered us a very limited tutorial consisting of a single popup screen showing our control keymap. Don’t expect a lengthy tutorial where you’re forced to learn each new feature in a boring and drawn out process.

Piloting the ship feels reminiscent playing Asteroids, which made the overall control scheme pretty easy to become accustomed to. You have 360 degree control of your ship using the standard ASWD keys, while aiming and firing of your weapon systems are handled by the mouse. For most players guiding your ship should feel very natural, though I’d be wary of trying to play the game using a laptop’s touchpad.

The single player campaign intertwines a procedurally generated galaxy with an intricate story pretty seamlessly. During your exploration you’ll come across space stations that offer you quests, repairs, fuel, and a hanger by which you will upgrade your ship. Questing is handled through text trees ala Fallout or Skyrim; RPG fans will need no introduction to the quest system here.

A rich customization system is where VoidExpanse really stood out for us. We began the game with the absolute most basic ship loadout. As we battled pirates, mined asteroids, and completed quests we gained access to a huge variety of parts to better equip our ship. Each ship has 8 components that make up its main structure and a number of additional slots for special devices and consumable items. Changing your ships hull for example allows for a variety of additional parts to be installed such as new devices, consumable items, and different weapon types. Additionally, a class-based skill system gives access to statistic upgrades to your ship or unlocks access to new parts and abilities.

If you like min/maxing your character in RPGs and wished FTL featured a more robust customization system, VoidExpanse is going to be a game you seriously need to check out. In the alpha build we played, we had access to a huge number of ship subsystem parts, weapons, and entirely new ship hulls. Since you’ll nearly always be looting new items, modifying your ship to function how you want is a seemingly never ending quest. A wide variety of ships with varying levels of weapon capabilities and maneuverability help to diversify the battlefield a great deal. We also happened across a scientist that was willing to craft items for our ship, though this feature wasn’t fully implemented yet in our early alpha build.

VoidExpanse is quickly shaping up to be an awesome looking title with its focus on diverse play styles such as mining, trading, piracy, and space combat. With fast-paced combat and huge customization options, multiplayer servers should allow for pretty intense space battles that are sure to appeal to fans of a number of genres. It will be interesting to see how the multiplayer aspect evolves as the game gets closer to a final release. In such an open world there’s sure to be some fun interactions waiting for players.

The game is currently available for sale on the AtomicTorch store with a early access standard edition coming in at $9.99. For an extra $2 you can get the gold edition which features some seriously awesome 1920 x 1080 wallpapers and cool concept art. All purchases also entitle you to a Steam key should the game eventually make it onto Steam. Currently the game is available for PC though builds are coming for Linux and Mac as well.