Developer: Ghost Fish Games
Publisher: Other Ocean Group
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Tabletop Gods – Review
Tabletop Gods is a strategic game where you’ll need to protect your structures, and try to destroy the structures of the enemy by placing troops and defenses or using powerful spells. This game seems simple but is a lot more complex the you would expect on first glance. Tabletop Gods is available for PC, but also playable in VR. It’s cross-platform, so you’ll be able to play with your friends, no matter which equipment they own.
Story
One day, the elder god disappeared, and now all the other gods of the heavens try to take her place as the most powerful god. However, since a war in the heavens might turn out quite messy for the gods, they decided to have a tournament in the form of battling factions upon a tabletop. You are one of these gods, and you’ll lead your mortal followers into war, in the hope to achieve victory against the other gods.
The story is being told by a short animation at the very beginning of the game, which is fully narrated. Within the game, there isn’t much story, it’s just the battles.
Graphics
The graphics have a cool cartoony, slightly retro look to them. The troops you can deploy have retro-looking blocky models. They look like cartoon characters, with exaggerated features and poses, and a funny and colorful look to them. They are well-animated too! The maps are detailed and colorful, and also have the cartoony atmosphere. The graphic effects of spells are really cool! The playing area looks like it is actually placed on a table, and you can move around it. You can also zoom in to view the battles up close, but usually you’ll want to keep a nice zoomed out position, to be able to keep an eye on all your troops and towers.
Sound
The music of the title screen is quite relaxed and ethereal, while the music during battles is a pretty cool hard-rock / metal track. The most noticeable thing about the sound of this game is the narrator! He bellows out the name of the troops or spells you are selecting in a truly epic voice. He also notifies you about mana costs and everything important that happens within the game. The battling units and spells also have really cool sound effects.
Gameplay
Tabletop Gods is a strategic tower defense / offense game, where you need to protect your structures on the map, and assault the structures of your enemy, by placing autonomous troops in the areas you control.
The controls of the game are pretty simple and intuitive. You just select the troops you want, and place them anywhere on the map in the areas which surround your structures, or which contain destroyed structures. All units have a certain mana cost, which is displayed at the image of the troop, together with the number of that type of troop which are still available to place. If you don’t have enough mana, the narrator will notify you, but you’ll also see it because the mana amount is clearly displayed at your mouse cursor, and the mana cost of the troop will show up in red instead of white.
There are several different factions: human, undead, demons and mercenaries. All have different play styles, but most have stationary units, walking basic fighting units, heavy units, and special units. You’ll be able to read all about the different kinds of troops in the menu, which is really useful to acquaint yourself with the faction and think about tactics, instead of just going for it and see what the troop does. Troops will also level up as you use them, and leveled units are considerably more powerful, so it pays off to pick some fights you can actually win.
The objective of a battle is either to destroy the enemy’s structures, or find their king (by destroying structures), and there are a few more battle modes. A battle consists of three rounds, and you must try to achieve as many objectives as you can within these rounds to get the maximum number of stars for that level. Each round of the battle starts with a preparing phase, where you can place towers and traps to assault enemy troops during the battle, and to protect your own structures. You only have a limited amount of any type of defenses, and the defenses also cost mana, which won’t regenerate during the planning phase. Once the battle starts, you’ll be able to deploy troops. In the battle phase you’ll regenerate mana constantly, and you’ll gain a bunch of extra mana when one of your structures is destroyed so you can get your revenge. Mana regeneration also increases as the battle rages on, which makes the end of the round just that much more intense!
The maps are well designed and contain multiple routes to the structures you’ll need to destroy, and several choke points. With the limited troops you can deploy, the leveling of troops, the mana regeneration and the strategic maps, this game is considerably more difficult than what you would expect at first glance, despite being pretty simple to learn.
You can play both multiplayer or single player, and single player mode has a campaign mode in which difficulty will increase as you clear levels, and several challenges you can try to achieve to gain stars. You’ll also be able to play separate maps, where you can customize your map type, enemy faction, etc. In multiplayer you’ll be able to play both quick matches against another player, or arenas which can contain up to eight players.
Conclusion
The story of this game is pretty simple, but it fits the style of the game. The graphics and animations look pretty nice, and the music and narration is great. The gameplay is easy to learn but hard to master; the game is pretty intuitive, but without in-depth knowledge of your type of troops and the way you could deploy them most effectively, you won’t be able to win the battle later in the game. Overall Tabletop Gods is a decent release, but it didn’t immediately blow our socks off.
Tabletop Gods - Review,
No Comments