And an attempt to add some light on the game, unbiased by kickstarter drama or past good or bad experiences with the parent company. Based on my impressions while playing it during this week. Massive Chalice is mostly an X-COM like game: You develop your base and deploy squads in turn-based missions. In many ways it's a simplified clone of Enemy Unknown 2012: a very similar waypoint system, analogous mission arrangement (AKA: random missions, you have to choose as you cannot respond to all of them). You have in effect three classes of characters: Melee, ranged, and AOE-glasscannon, plus some subclasses for each of these classes. There are limited ways to "tune" your heroes by breeding for certain traits, and by some research options which allow you to carry special items into battle (like in EU2012 and medikits). Combat itself is likely the game's biggest flaw (which is pretty damning, as it SHOULD be the core of the game). While it apes EU2012 waypoint system, there's just so little to do, the scenarios are so bland, and the enemies feel so much like sitting ducks that it's more a regular every-so-many-years ingame tedium that something that hooks you. Overall, I think it's not a *terrible* game, but there are better options out there which do what this one does but better. Five years ago it'd have had scant competition and it might have been a better choice. Nowadays I'd recommend going for OpenXCOM or Xenonauts if you're looking for a game of this sort.
In all honesty, playing this game feels too much like doing a chore in a particularily obsolete DOS system. The concept is good, but the interface is terrible. Most of the time you cannot tell what's going on in the screen. ALL of the time it strains you even to gleam the most basic information. I'd recommend avoiding unless you have some zx-spectrum spreadsheet fetish.
