Defend the Highlands – Preview

Despite being a finished game, Kilted Camel has kept Defend the Highlands in Early Access to maximise its potential with help from the Steam Community. Never has a title about defeating the English, Irish and Welsh been so fun, especially when you’re shooting porridge out of a canon- hence why we simply had to have a go.

Defend the Highlands is a title that combines Tower Defence, Real Time Strategy and, well, Scotland. You play as the Scottish, with your starter-hero pub owner Alfredo in charge of your merry band of men. The challenge? Protect your homeland against invading Irishmen, Englishmen and Welshmen with canons and barricades. Now, one might think that this sounds like it could be a historical battle, but don’t be fooled- it’s much more fun than that!

Humour is definitely where this title excels, as you and your assailants are borne out of every stereotype possible. Teapot-hurling Englishmen, potato-chucking Irishmen that shout “potatoes!” with an embarrassingly comical accent and Welshmen riding sheep into battle are all but a few of the adversaries that you face. But how might you defend against such terrible foes?

In Defend the Highlands, you first start in Alfredo’s pub, where a tutorial helps you to learn the controls (which can be altered when booting up the game). This is where the game introduces you to one of its vital mechanics: oat farming. The oats are essential for making porridge, which is what your men are paid with. Keep a Scotsman on your oatfields at all times to ensure that you have enough porridge to feed your men, or they’ll leave. Of course, some men may indeed part company, but you can always call more to your side if you have one member of the ‘troop’ playing the bagpipes (of course this means a nice ol’ blast of ‘Scotland the Brave’- other tunes are available). You just need to be able to balance oat farming, bagpipe playing and actually beating your enemies.

How you do this is through careful placing of your Scotsmen, either behind existing obstacles so they can hide and throw bottles; behind your own barricades or firing turnips, cheese or porridge through various weaponry. To place barricades, porridge cannons and so on, you need to have money- which you gain from beating up your opponents. Once you have bought your objects, you can use the scroll on your mouse to rotate the object to put it in the exact location you want. To set your Scotsman’s position, you need to left click on him, and then right click on the spot you wish to put him. This certainly makes for interesting gameplay as it means that unlike other defence titles, you need to man your turrets, so you need to plan accordingly. This is definitely where the strategy element is vital!

There are 20 levels in Defend the Highlands, and each one is vastly different. As aforementioned, the first is Alfredo’s pub- the tutorial level. Other areas include Loch Ness, the local village and Stirling Castle, amongst others, calling upon your tactical knowledge by way of the use of hills and hillocks. Situating your Scotsmen in the wrong place can mean that they will get killed very quickly, so keep an eye on the landscape.

After each completed level (shown by the bar in the top right-hand corner changing from the Union Flag to the Scottish flag), you get skill points that you can spend upon a number of things- from improving your accuracy to buying machine guns to massacre the antagonists. Whatever you choose to do, there are lots of options to customise the way in which you fight. Who knows, maybe you might even get William Wallace to fight with you later on!

There is also an option for a skirmish option, where you can customise the difficulty. If you’re feeling confident, you can raise the level of your enemies whilst keeping yours down low, but it is completely up to you how you play- just remember that strategy is key.

One small issue that players might have is concerning the graphics. You can turn them on low, medium or high, but close up, the characters particularly appear a little outdated. However, when a game is this amusing and interesting to play, the graphics don’t matter too much. The only thing that might start to annoy someone is the music at the start of the game when it keeps looping, but hey, this title holds itself well with every other aspect, and you always have the option to turn the music level down.

Conclusion

Who can resist a bit of stereotypical fun where it concerns throwing food items at enemies? Kilted Camel has certainly delivered an entertaining title in Defend the Highlands that can be played again and again, particularly for the comedy factor, as well as the whole strategy element. Although still in Early Access, it won’t be long before this great game is fully available as all that is left is some fine tweaking. Accessible on PC, Mac and Linux, this something that will bring joy to all (especially Scots).

Robinaddi

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