MSD's GOTY Indecision Blowout: Jen and Zan Change The World
I don't think I can truly commit to a 'Game of the Year' so instead I'm just highlighting stuff I really enjoyed that I haven't really seen praised elsewhere.
๐ฎ check out the whole series here ๐ฎ
Tactical Breach Wizards
If like, gun to my head I had to list my top ten games of all time I guarantee several of them would be grid based tactics games. I don't know if it's because I grew up with original X-COM or because Final Fantasy Tactics og hit at the right moment in my life but I just can't get enough of these?? I find myself replaying Overland every few months, I'm currently running through Jeanne d'Arc for the first time and loving my life - and the addition of Into the Breach for iOS has been a huge boon to my itch scratching.
This is all to say when the Tactical Breach Wizards demo showed up on one of the many steam fests earlier this year I was instantly sold. Tactical grid based game? Clean art style? Has a fondness for wizards and magic in a modern, anachronistic setting? Count me in. One could argue this falls more under "puzzle" than "tactics" since there are technically 'correct' solutions to each room (and bonus objectives if you want to make it harder) but I think the delineation doesn't necessary bother me.
The game opens with a flashback scene where you play as Navy Seer (yea, lol) Zan. This tutorial section sets the tone for the game; you're often outgunned and need to smartly think how to get from room to room - but thanks to time magic you have the ability to not only see what will happen when your decisions before you commit to them, but you also get to rewind back a few steps if you don't like your outcome.
After the flashback, you character swap to Private Investigator Witch Jen who is (at best) not doing great from a business sense and has stumbled ass-first into a situation much bigger than them. Oh and also Steve the Traffic Warlock is here.
Man, fuck that guy.
I don't know if it's because the tongue in cheek nature of the setting set my expectations lower or what but the first 10 or so minutes of the game can give the impression that the setting itself was a bit of a joke and I didn't have high hopes for 'story' - but it immediately gets deeper and by the end of the first area (that encompasses the demo) I was immediately invested in what was going to happen next. The setting is incredibly detailed; imagine the impact of magic in a modern world with a geopolitical mess of PMCs running amok, religious fanaticism and y'know, casual necromancy. (Oh and the druid mafia is also a problem)
The bulk of the gameplay is the tactical grid based combat sections, each mission usually having several rooms with different starting points you can 'breach' - and again while there are 'correct' solutions, you can try for the bonus objectives (every mission has usually at least one per character) to change up how you might approach the situation.
Completing a series of rooms ends the mission and takes you to THE MAP - because again, we're primarily playing as a private investigator who is trying to investigate the larger mystery - and I ask you, what investigation is complete without red string and conjecture!! None worth a damn!
And as much as I had so much fun with these missions and the impact of your decisions, I think it's telling that so many of my screenshots of my playthrough are of dialog and story moments.
Again, I don't want to go too in-depth with spoilers but I absolutely love this crew of idiots so much. They all reek of "disaster millennial" (or I guess disaster gen X for Zan) in the best possible way. I think that the writing may rub some people the wrong way but it felt precision strike for me personally. You can tell (complimentary) that this was mainly written during the heights of pre-musk twitter.
Oh and worth mentioning even though I've barely had enough time to mess with it - the game shipped with a goddamn LEVEL EDITOR and full Steam Workshop support to publish your own levels and try other's challenges. I thought I was a sicko but if I truly were I'd be investing more in this motherfucker right here.
Now again, with this series I'm mainly highlighting what really clicked with me this yer but if I was doing a traditional ranking, I think Tactical Breach Wizards would be my game of the year.