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Rather than take the commonly used approach of creating a sequel, Swedish developer Image & Form follow up their very enjoyable Steamworld Dig with a completely new game, although still based in the Steamworld universe
You have to feel for the poor cowbots. Those steam driven robots just want to be left in peace to farm moisture but they don’t appear to be getting their simple wish. Making their life complicated are the robot gangs preying on the weak and the diesel driven royalist robots abusing their power and bleeding the cowbots dry. And perhaps there is even something more sinister in the universe. In control of a band of pirate cowbots, it is up to you to stand up for the steam driven robots and shutdown the unruly types.
As pirates (robotic pirates), you will naturally do some plundering along the way but everything you plunder is from the bad robots so that makes it all ok, doesn’t it? The action is all set in space and you’ll be docking with a variety of spaceships, jumping aboard and looting anything that isn’t nailed down. Not surprisingly, since this isn’t a simple collect-em-up game, you’ll face some opposition to your presence.
The adventure into each spaceship comes with a set of objectives such as collecting all the swag or defeating all the enemy robots. On completion of a level (spaceship) you will be awarded stars for your efforts in a similar fashion to many mobile phone games. To get all stars you need to complete the level, complete all of the objectives and have all your crew survive. Points are also awarded to each character that completes the level and these points are used to level up. You can set the difficulty of each level and the point rewards for higher difficulties is naturally greater.
The game is presented in a side on view point and has quite detailed environments. Levels are randomly generated each time which means the survival of you and your crew comes down to your skill rather than the benefit of having memorised the level. The random nature also keeps things fresh.
Before you board the ship you will be given a chance to choose your crew. You’ll have anywhere between 1 and 4 characters in the crew for a given level. Each robot has different characteristics such as health, firepower and movement. You will also need to kit out your crew for what lies ahead. First up you’ll want a weapon. There are different classes to choose from and a variety of guns; some have laser sights, some have a bullet spread, some hit with more boom and some hit with more bang. You will also want to choose some additional items to use in the mission such as extra armour for those robots that don’t have as much health, or a health boost or even a grenade. You can equip a couple of these extras for each character. The final item to choose is the hat; purely cosmetic but an essential accessory for any pirate robot.
So what do you do when you have chosen your crew and boarded a spaceship? Well you’ll plunder and shoot anything that gets in your way. There is a bit of a story to put some meaning behind your missions and to add some sense of progress. The gameplay itself is turn based; each of your crew moves in turn and then when all your crew have made their moves, the enemy gets their turn. To aid the traversal through the spaceships there is an icon to show how far each character can move and path showing how the robot will get there. There are a few things to consider when making a move and there is a decent amount of strategy needed.
First up for consideration is the colour change in the possible path. There is a crucial colour change in the path as it goes from orange to blue. Orange indicates the areas you can move to and shoot whereas blue signifies a move only, no shooting once you get there.
Enemy robots and turrets will appear during the level. The enemies you face at the start may not be the only forces in your way as more can arrive later. As you make your progress known the threat level rises and reinforcements can arrive and turrets can pop out. You don’t often have to kill every robot you come across but they will get in the way if you leave them. And for this reason, you need to shoot. The aiming is manual so unless you have a laser sight it all comes down to your own judgement. The further you are away from the enemy then the harder it is to hit them.
The spaceships have multiple floors and blacked out areas hidden behind doors which will not become visible until you open the door. The multiple floors does mean you can apply a tactical approach rather than just having a queue of robots progressing along the same path. It does also mean a robot can become very isolated if they open a door and reveal a room with numerous enemies.
There are obstacles in each spaceship that can be used as cover. The cover is not permanent and like the robots, has a health bar. Taking cover behind an explosive barrel is incredibly risky for obvious reasons. As mentioned, the spaceships have multiple floors and there are 2 different types of floor. The 1st type can be shot through which means you can take out an enemy above or below but the enemy also has that benefit if you are standing on such a floor. The 2nd floor is impenetrable to bullets which can come in very handy for some ad-hoc cover.
The mini map on the lower screen of the 3DS is useful for showing the entire level. This lets you quickly see were you are, where the enemies are and most importantly where the swag is.
The swag you collect is revealed at the end of a mission. This can be much needed moisture to power your steam powered crew, new weapons, items to simply cash in on or new accessories. There is a limited space in the inventory so you will have some tough choices to make in order to make way for new items. There are a lot of different guns and each with different characteristics. You’ll want to keep the harder hitting ones over the weaker ones but sometimes that scope is handy. And sometimes the harder hitting guns also come with friendly fire which means any crew mate in the way will take a hit too.
As well as the spaceships to plunder there are some which are shops. This is useful for buying new weapons but most importantly, buying extra inventory space. You can also pick up some new crew members along in these shops.
Levels can be replayed at any point to help you build up the currency for the shops. Replaying levels also helps level up your robots and unlock extra abilities or a boost to their stats. If any of your robots get destroyed during a mission then they are rebuilt afterwards using this currency. This can be quite a costly charge but seems to reflect your bank balance so sometimes it is best to spend before it is taken from you.
The robots themselves all have a certain charm and character to them. The enemies less so but there is a nice variety of robots throughout.
There are plenty of levels, plenty of weapons, plenty of robots and a nice depth to the strategy. There is a bit of a difficulty spike after the first area of spaceships but keep levelling up and you’ll conquer the troublesome spots. Replaying levels never feels like a chore with the randomly generated levels and I find it all good fun to play that I wouldn’t mind playing the same level. I really enjoyed Steamworld Dig but this is even better; highly recommended.
9
You have to feel for the poor cowbots. Those steam driven robots just want to be left in peace to farm moisture but they don’t appear to be getting their simple wish. Making their life complicated are the robot gangs preying on the weak and the diesel driven royalist robots abusing their power and bleeding the cowbots dry. And perhaps there is even something more sinister in the universe. In control of a band of pirate cowbots, it is up to you to stand up for the steam driven robots and shutdown the unruly types.
As pirates (robotic pirates), you will naturally do some plundering along the way but everything you plunder is from the bad robots so that makes it all ok, doesn’t it? The action is all set in space and you’ll be docking with a variety of spaceships, jumping aboard and looting anything that isn’t nailed down. Not surprisingly, since this isn’t a simple collect-em-up game, you’ll face some opposition to your presence.
The adventure into each spaceship comes with a set of objectives such as collecting all the swag or defeating all the enemy robots. On completion of a level (spaceship) you will be awarded stars for your efforts in a similar fashion to many mobile phone games. To get all stars you need to complete the level, complete all of the objectives and have all your crew survive. Points are also awarded to each character that completes the level and these points are used to level up. You can set the difficulty of each level and the point rewards for higher difficulties is naturally greater.
The game is presented in a side on view point and has quite detailed environments. Levels are randomly generated each time which means the survival of you and your crew comes down to your skill rather than the benefit of having memorised the level. The random nature also keeps things fresh.
Before you board the ship you will be given a chance to choose your crew. You’ll have anywhere between 1 and 4 characters in the crew for a given level. Each robot has different characteristics such as health, firepower and movement. You will also need to kit out your crew for what lies ahead. First up you’ll want a weapon. There are different classes to choose from and a variety of guns; some have laser sights, some have a bullet spread, some hit with more boom and some hit with more bang. You will also want to choose some additional items to use in the mission such as extra armour for those robots that don’t have as much health, or a health boost or even a grenade. You can equip a couple of these extras for each character. The final item to choose is the hat; purely cosmetic but an essential accessory for any pirate robot.
So what do you do when you have chosen your crew and boarded a spaceship? Well you’ll plunder and shoot anything that gets in your way. There is a bit of a story to put some meaning behind your missions and to add some sense of progress. The gameplay itself is turn based; each of your crew moves in turn and then when all your crew have made their moves, the enemy gets their turn. To aid the traversal through the spaceships there is an icon to show how far each character can move and path showing how the robot will get there. There are a few things to consider when making a move and there is a decent amount of strategy needed.
First up for consideration is the colour change in the possible path. There is a crucial colour change in the path as it goes from orange to blue. Orange indicates the areas you can move to and shoot whereas blue signifies a move only, no shooting once you get there.
Enemy robots and turrets will appear during the level. The enemies you face at the start may not be the only forces in your way as more can arrive later. As you make your progress known the threat level rises and reinforcements can arrive and turrets can pop out. You don’t often have to kill every robot you come across but they will get in the way if you leave them. And for this reason, you need to shoot. The aiming is manual so unless you have a laser sight it all comes down to your own judgement. The further you are away from the enemy then the harder it is to hit them.
The spaceships have multiple floors and blacked out areas hidden behind doors which will not become visible until you open the door. The multiple floors does mean you can apply a tactical approach rather than just having a queue of robots progressing along the same path. It does also mean a robot can become very isolated if they open a door and reveal a room with numerous enemies.
There are obstacles in each spaceship that can be used as cover. The cover is not permanent and like the robots, has a health bar. Taking cover behind an explosive barrel is incredibly risky for obvious reasons. As mentioned, the spaceships have multiple floors and there are 2 different types of floor. The 1st type can be shot through which means you can take out an enemy above or below but the enemy also has that benefit if you are standing on such a floor. The 2nd floor is impenetrable to bullets which can come in very handy for some ad-hoc cover.
The mini map on the lower screen of the 3DS is useful for showing the entire level. This lets you quickly see were you are, where the enemies are and most importantly where the swag is.
The swag you collect is revealed at the end of a mission. This can be much needed moisture to power your steam powered crew, new weapons, items to simply cash in on or new accessories. There is a limited space in the inventory so you will have some tough choices to make in order to make way for new items. There are a lot of different guns and each with different characteristics. You’ll want to keep the harder hitting ones over the weaker ones but sometimes that scope is handy. And sometimes the harder hitting guns also come with friendly fire which means any crew mate in the way will take a hit too.
As well as the spaceships to plunder there are some which are shops. This is useful for buying new weapons but most importantly, buying extra inventory space. You can also pick up some new crew members along in these shops.
Levels can be replayed at any point to help you build up the currency for the shops. Replaying levels also helps level up your robots and unlock extra abilities or a boost to their stats. If any of your robots get destroyed during a mission then they are rebuilt afterwards using this currency. This can be quite a costly charge but seems to reflect your bank balance so sometimes it is best to spend before it is taken from you.
The robots themselves all have a certain charm and character to them. The enemies less so but there is a nice variety of robots throughout.
There are plenty of levels, plenty of weapons, plenty of robots and a nice depth to the strategy. There is a bit of a difficulty spike after the first area of spaceships but keep levelling up and you’ll conquer the troublesome spots. Replaying levels never feels like a chore with the randomly generated levels and I find it all good fun to play that I wouldn’t mind playing the same level. I really enjoyed Steamworld Dig but this is even better; highly recommended.
9
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Rather than take the commonly used approach of creating a sequel, Swedish developer Image & Form follow up their very enjoyable Steamworld Dig with a completely new game, although still based in the Steamworld universe
You have to feel for the poor cowbots. Those steam driven robots just want to be left in peace to farm moisture but they don’t appear to be getting their simple wish. Making their life complicated are the robot gangs preying on the weak and the diesel driven royalist robots abusing their power and bleeding the cowbots dry. And perhaps there is even something more sinister in the universe. In control of a band of pirate cowbots, it is up to you to stand up for the steam driven robots and shutdown the unruly types.
As pirates (robotic pirates), you will naturally do some plundering along the way but everything you plunder is from the bad robots so that makes it all ok, doesn’t it? The action is all set in space and you’ll be docking with a variety of spaceships, jumping aboard and looting anything that isn’t nailed down. Not surprisingly, since this isn’t a simple collect-em-up game, you’ll face some opposition to your presence.
The adventure into each spaceship comes with a set of objectives such as collecting all the swag or defeating all the enemy robots. On completion of a level (spaceship) you will be awarded stars for your efforts in a similar fashion to many mobile phone games. To get all stars you need to complete the level, complete all of the objectives and have all your crew survive. Points are also awarded to each character that completes the level and these points are used to level up. You can set the difficulty of each level and the point rewards for higher difficulties is naturally greater.
The game is presented in a side on view point and has quite detailed environments. Levels are randomly generated each time which means the survival of you and your crew comes down to your skill rather than the benefit of having memorised the level. The random nature also keeps things fresh.
Before you board the ship you will be given a chance to choose your crew. You’ll have anywhere between 1 and 4 characters in the crew for a given level. Each robot has different characteristics such as health, firepower and movement. You will also need to kit out your crew for what lies ahead. First up you’ll want a weapon. There are different classes to choose from and a variety of guns; some have laser sights, some have a bullet spread, some hit with more boom and some hit with more bang. You will also want to choose some additional items to use in the mission such as extra armour for those robots that don’t have as much health, or a health boost or even a grenade. You can equip a couple of these extras for each character. The final item to choose is the hat; purely cosmetic but an essential accessory for any pirate robot.
So what do you do when you have chosen your crew and boarded a spaceship? Well you’ll plunder and shoot anything that gets in your way. There is a bit of a story to put some meaning behind your missions and to add some sense of progress. The gameplay itself is turn based; each of your crew moves in turn and then when all your crew have made their moves, the enemy gets their turn. To aid the traversal through the spaceships there is an icon to show how far each character can move and path showing how the robot will get there. There are a few things to consider when making a move and there is a decent amount of strategy needed.
First up for consideration is the colour change in the possible path. There is a crucial colour change in the path as it goes from orange to blue. Orange indicates the areas you can move to and shoot whereas blue signifies a move only, no shooting once you get there.
Enemy robots and turrets will appear during the level. The enemies you face at the start may not be the only forces in your way as more can arrive later. As you make your progress known the threat level rises and reinforcements can arrive and turrets can pop out. You don’t often have to kill every robot you come across but they will get in the way if you leave them. And for this reason, you need to shoot. The aiming is manual so unless you have a laser sight it all comes down to your own judgement. The further you are away from the enemy then the harder it is to hit them.
The spaceships have multiple floors and blacked out areas hidden behind doors which will not become visible until you open the door. The multiple floors does mean you can apply a tactical approach rather than just having a queue of robots progressing along the same path. It does also mean a robot can become very isolated if they open a door and reveal a room with numerous enemies.
There are obstacles in each spaceship that can be used as cover. The cover is not permanent and like the robots, has a health bar. Taking cover behind an explosive barrel is incredibly risky for obvious reasons. As mentioned, the spaceships have multiple floors and there are 2 different types of floor. The 1st type can be shot through which means you can take out an enemy above or below but the enemy also has that benefit if you are standing on such a floor. The 2nd floor is impenetrable to bullets which can come in very handy for some ad-hoc cover.
The mini map on the lower screen of the 3DS is useful for showing the entire level. This lets you quickly see were you are, where the enemies are and most importantly where the swag is.
The swag you collect is revealed at the end of a mission. This can be much needed moisture to power your steam powered crew, new weapons, items to simply cash in on or new accessories. There is a limited space in the inventory so you will have some tough choices to make in order to make way for new items. There are a lot of different guns and each with different characteristics. You’ll want to keep the harder hitting ones over the weaker ones but sometimes that scope is handy. And sometimes the harder hitting guns also come with friendly fire which means any crew mate in the way will take a hit too.
As well as the spaceships to plunder there are some which are shops. This is useful for buying new weapons but most importantly, buying extra inventory space. You can also pick up some new crew members along in these shops.
Levels can be replayed at any point to help you build up the currency for the shops. Replaying levels also helps level up your robots and unlock extra abilities or a boost to their stats. If any of your robots get destroyed during a mission then they are rebuilt afterwards using this currency. This can be quite a costly charge but seems to reflect your bank balance so sometimes it is best to spend before it is taken from you.
The robots themselves all have a certain charm and character to them. The enemies less so but there is a nice variety of robots throughout.
There are plenty of levels, plenty of weapons, plenty of robots and a nice depth to the strategy. There is a bit of a difficulty spike after the first area of spaceships but keep levelling up and you’ll conquer the troublesome spots. Replaying levels never feels like a chore with the randomly generated levels and I find it all good fun to play that I wouldn’t mind playing the same level. I really enjoyed Steamworld Dig but this is even better; highly recommended.
9
You have to feel for the poor cowbots. Those steam driven robots just want to be left in peace to farm moisture but they don’t appear to be getting their simple wish. Making their life complicated are the robot gangs preying on the weak and the diesel driven royalist robots abusing their power and bleeding the cowbots dry. And perhaps there is even something more sinister in the universe. In control of a band of pirate cowbots, it is up to you to stand up for the steam driven robots and shutdown the unruly types.
As pirates (robotic pirates), you will naturally do some plundering along the way but everything you plunder is from the bad robots so that makes it all ok, doesn’t it? The action is all set in space and you’ll be docking with a variety of spaceships, jumping aboard and looting anything that isn’t nailed down. Not surprisingly, since this isn’t a simple collect-em-up game, you’ll face some opposition to your presence.
The adventure into each spaceship comes with a set of objectives such as collecting all the swag or defeating all the enemy robots. On completion of a level (spaceship) you will be awarded stars for your efforts in a similar fashion to many mobile phone games. To get all stars you need to complete the level, complete all of the objectives and have all your crew survive. Points are also awarded to each character that completes the level and these points are used to level up. You can set the difficulty of each level and the point rewards for higher difficulties is naturally greater.
The game is presented in a side on view point and has quite detailed environments. Levels are randomly generated each time which means the survival of you and your crew comes down to your skill rather than the benefit of having memorised the level. The random nature also keeps things fresh.
Before you board the ship you will be given a chance to choose your crew. You’ll have anywhere between 1 and 4 characters in the crew for a given level. Each robot has different characteristics such as health, firepower and movement. You will also need to kit out your crew for what lies ahead. First up you’ll want a weapon. There are different classes to choose from and a variety of guns; some have laser sights, some have a bullet spread, some hit with more boom and some hit with more bang. You will also want to choose some additional items to use in the mission such as extra armour for those robots that don’t have as much health, or a health boost or even a grenade. You can equip a couple of these extras for each character. The final item to choose is the hat; purely cosmetic but an essential accessory for any pirate robot.
So what do you do when you have chosen your crew and boarded a spaceship? Well you’ll plunder and shoot anything that gets in your way. There is a bit of a story to put some meaning behind your missions and to add some sense of progress. The gameplay itself is turn based; each of your crew moves in turn and then when all your crew have made their moves, the enemy gets their turn. To aid the traversal through the spaceships there is an icon to show how far each character can move and path showing how the robot will get there. There are a few things to consider when making a move and there is a decent amount of strategy needed.
First up for consideration is the colour change in the possible path. There is a crucial colour change in the path as it goes from orange to blue. Orange indicates the areas you can move to and shoot whereas blue signifies a move only, no shooting once you get there.
Enemy robots and turrets will appear during the level. The enemies you face at the start may not be the only forces in your way as more can arrive later. As you make your progress known the threat level rises and reinforcements can arrive and turrets can pop out. You don’t often have to kill every robot you come across but they will get in the way if you leave them. And for this reason, you need to shoot. The aiming is manual so unless you have a laser sight it all comes down to your own judgement. The further you are away from the enemy then the harder it is to hit them.
The spaceships have multiple floors and blacked out areas hidden behind doors which will not become visible until you open the door. The multiple floors does mean you can apply a tactical approach rather than just having a queue of robots progressing along the same path. It does also mean a robot can become very isolated if they open a door and reveal a room with numerous enemies.
There are obstacles in each spaceship that can be used as cover. The cover is not permanent and like the robots, has a health bar. Taking cover behind an explosive barrel is incredibly risky for obvious reasons. As mentioned, the spaceships have multiple floors and there are 2 different types of floor. The 1st type can be shot through which means you can take out an enemy above or below but the enemy also has that benefit if you are standing on such a floor. The 2nd floor is impenetrable to bullets which can come in very handy for some ad-hoc cover.
The mini map on the lower screen of the 3DS is useful for showing the entire level. This lets you quickly see were you are, where the enemies are and most importantly where the swag is.
The swag you collect is revealed at the end of a mission. This can be much needed moisture to power your steam powered crew, new weapons, items to simply cash in on or new accessories. There is a limited space in the inventory so you will have some tough choices to make in order to make way for new items. There are a lot of different guns and each with different characteristics. You’ll want to keep the harder hitting ones over the weaker ones but sometimes that scope is handy. And sometimes the harder hitting guns also come with friendly fire which means any crew mate in the way will take a hit too.
As well as the spaceships to plunder there are some which are shops. This is useful for buying new weapons but most importantly, buying extra inventory space. You can also pick up some new crew members along in these shops.
Levels can be replayed at any point to help you build up the currency for the shops. Replaying levels also helps level up your robots and unlock extra abilities or a boost to their stats. If any of your robots get destroyed during a mission then they are rebuilt afterwards using this currency. This can be quite a costly charge but seems to reflect your bank balance so sometimes it is best to spend before it is taken from you.
The robots themselves all have a certain charm and character to them. The enemies less so but there is a nice variety of robots throughout.
There are plenty of levels, plenty of weapons, plenty of robots and a nice depth to the strategy. There is a bit of a difficulty spike after the first area of spaceships but keep levelling up and you’ll conquer the troublesome spots. Replaying levels never feels like a chore with the randomly generated levels and I find it all good fun to play that I wouldn’t mind playing the same level. I really enjoyed Steamworld Dig but this is even better; highly recommended.
9