We are the Dwarves

Starting kind of interesting but quickly shows broken gameplay. Dwarves stop actions without reason, they do not start some actions either, e.g. starting shield or hush when you need it. Yes, I do know the conditions. Taking out enemies is just tedious, you do not know, why they are doing what, you try to hit them. There is little tactical possibility. If you have two dwarves, it gets a little better. I stopped in the first sneaking mission. Sneaking is overall limited. I see, where I have to go, but I cannot reach it, because it is surrounded by enemies. If you take one out, sooner or later, the others find the body and go straight to your hiding spot to "discover" you and killing you is just a ranged one-shot. Got it for a discount, still not worth the money.

This game actually serves as a diamond in the rough. Most other Whale Rock games tend to be shovelware garbage. We are the Dwarves however, shows a considerable amount of effort was put in the development. The game graphically is nice to look at. It's a fantasy setting flung into the future. You'll be fighting tribal monsters and giant spiders, using shotguns, wearing spacesuits as dwarves. Gamplay is good, but not properly explained. The systems aren't a problem, but the game doesn't tell you how to interact with them. It's a real time strategy game where you manage what your dwarves do to get to the end of the map. Each character is unique in both mechanics and aesthetic. Enemies have an interesting detection system based on multiple senses, allowing for ways to manipulate them to your advantage. The sound is perfectly fine, however you will notice that the voices are a bit odd. Most likely, a text to speech bot was used. I never found it to be an annoying voice. Narratively this game is pretty good. The game has cutscenes with dialogue that makes it easy to follow along with, a journal that allows you to both refresh yourself on how certain elements of the game work as well as give you lore to read, and in game lines that do both. Maybe not a high bar for most games, but considering most other things Whale Rock Games put out fail to reach it this is refreshing. It's not perfect but it is a fun experience. If you want a strategic little game, this is a good choice.

But it is absolutely brutal to play. I died like 30 times in the first five minutes and was not having any fun. It's just frustrating. There's no learning curve. It's just punishment. It's entirely possible there's a good game in here, but good luck finding it. I LOVE Dwarves and I consider myself a pretty dedicated gamer, but...aren't we supposed to be having fun, not just dying repeatedly with no explanation? I also got bugged in the first scene and couldn't even continue without restarting the entire map.

DOA, will not launch no error message in Win 11 (probably an OPenGL thing)

P;ease note this will not load on any ov my windows 11 machines.