Into the Breach

I tried Into the Breach at release, and was disappointed. I found it too casual, and quite limited in terms of gameplay... I was so wrong :) Later I tried again, and still did not get it. But the third time I plunged deeper into the missions. And then I started to discover that the interesting elements of strategy are meant to unfold slowly, at a regular pace, rewarding the gamer who invests time. Into the Breach is a delicately crafted turn-based strategy game, with actual rogue-lite elements. You can feel all the dedication and intelligence from its developers, in the way it is subtly balanced and detailed. My only wish would be varying map sizes. And, why not, a narrative story with a better explained background. Perhaps sometimes in and expansion? (Note: I can't understand how sometimes this game is compared to FTL. They may be from the same developers, but I fail to see any other similarity between them.)

What an amazing game. Underneath the simple graphics and gameplay there's some incredible depth. The telegraphed attacks mechanic is genius. Planning so that enemies end up hitting each other and watching it all unfold is insanely satisfying.

This is an amazing game - not grand strategy, but fun puzzle/tactical strategy. Hurry up and make Into the Breach 2!

I can wholeheartedly recommend this game. The buzz about it being a strategy/tactics revelation is correct. It's not expensive, so please just go ahead, buy it and see for yourself. I don't wanna spoil. I do however find that the game is a little too small, in a way. Of course there's lots of achievements and replayability and stuff to unlock, but I've already won the game on the second attempt. Granted, I haven't seen everything (didn't do the fourth island yet), but I believe I've seen the core. FTL was different in that regard. It was more sprawling, and it was - in my opinion - much harder, probably because it featured more randomization. I only played Into the Breach on "Normal", but winning FTL for the first time on that difficulty took me about 30 hours, and I still remember that moment fondly even now. Here, it was sort of anticlimactic, because I expected it to be near-impossible judging from the reviews. I find that when you stop and think before your turn, it's actually quite manageable - and I really am far from a grognard or chess grandmaster. So, don't worry everyone, try this year's masterpiece!

I've only spent an hour with this game so far. In that small time frame the game has proven itself to be a succesful addition to and a very interesting take on the strategy genre. Rather than focusing solely on damage, stats, or abilities, the game offers a small and simple tool set to complete each mission. Weapons deal some damage of course, but their main use lies in their ability to push things around. Enemies can be rearranged with this mechanic so that they damage each other, prevent their allies from spawning, or in some cases can even instant kill them if they are shoved into water or collide with enough things to kill them. The 3 starting mechs have a really interesting take on the way they use these mechanics. The melee mech knocks enemies back 1 tile and does 2 damage, which in the early game is a good setup for 1 hit KO against other objects. The tank can shoot half way across the map in a straight line and knocks back 1 tile. The artillery is so far the most interesting, with the most potential for interesting emergent gameplay. It's shot can travel across the whole map in a straight line. The shot itself deals 1 damage, but will also cause 1 knockback on each of the four adjacent tiles. It creates a lot of "Oh snap!" moments where you can for example aim beside a target to line up shots for your other mechs. Or if one of your own guys gets surrounded, you could also shoot your mech with artillery and use the adjacent knockback to help it mitigate some damage. It's a simple concept, but there are a surprising number of ways it can be applied in combat, and is a fresh take on the turn based tactics genre. The time travelling mechanic is also a nice way of alleviating some of the pain of losing in a roguelike. When you lose, you can choose 1 of your pilots to travel to another timeline and he will carry over his stats, so not all progress is lost. And PS: this game has been working fine on my Mac via wineskin port, if you don't have windows like me.