W00t, after playing this for an hour, I can give my review.
Ok, you start off with some probes in little square box with some beacons, 1 of every player's colour. To challenge a player, you simply walk onto their beacon and it will instantly teleport you to one of the 4 arenas. Everybody has 3 lives, every time you lose, you lose a life. The arenas themselves are pretty bland, its all square terrain with a mineral patch on either side.
However, when you get to the actual fighting, this is mad fun. The amount of strategies you can actually use is ridiculous, contrary to what one might think when they are new to the game. The strategies go into even the tiniest details. Some questions you ask yourself the second you start a match.
Should I mine 8 minerals, then build a nexus and drop it off, then go build cannons?
Should I build a nexus then start mining?
Should I just go terrorize the other player and kill his nexus so neither one of us can mine?
Should I mine 8 minerals then build a pylon and cannons?
Should I mine 8 minerals, wait for my opponent to build pylon and cannons, kill his cannons, then build my own cannons?
Should I mine 16 minerals, wait for my opponent to build pylon and cannons, kill his cannons, build 2 cannons, let my opponent kill the 2 cannons to buy time, then build cannons on the side of the map blocked off by pylons so my opponent can't kill them?
And way more.
My personal favorite strategy (vs noobs) is to build a nexus, mine 16 minerals, then build a pylon and 2 cannons and save the other 8 minerals for later. Every choice you make changes the outcome of the game due to the fact everything has very low hp and you have no time to mine more than 8 or 16 minerals. Eventually when you play with pros, it will get to the point where games can last 20 minutes because you are constantly running around killing each other's nexus's and cannons. In the end, quick thinking and clicking speed gets you victory.
The terrain is crap, which I thought you could have made much more interesting by spending a bit more time.
There is absolutely no instructions on how to challenge players, though it's easy to figure out.
The challenging players thing is kind of bugged, sometimes only you have to challenge them to start a fight, while in other cases, you both have to be on each other's beacon, challenging each other. The former makes the game much worse because somebody can keep challenging you so that you don't have a chance to fight other players, or this could just simply get you off guard. And starting a match when you aren't ready is the worst thing that could happen.
The gameplay is good if you are like me and like games where you and your opponent are on the same level, and it's all about skill and smarts, not about knowing which unit is most rigged or something stupid like that.
One major issue is that if you build a pylon in the middle of the strip of land , and cover each side with a cannon, and put your probe in the middle, it is impossible to kill you unless you suck. Even though your opponent controls the rest of the arena and can gather a thousand minerals, they can never build cannons close enough to kill either your cannons, pylon, or probe. The only alternative is to rush with hallucinated drones and probe, but your opponent simply has to target the probe with cannons and you lose. I suggest putting in the option of building a gateway for say 10 minerals, and the option of building a zealot (without speed) that has 1hp 1dmg, for say 20 minerals. This way if your opponent has bunkered up, and you have mining advantage, you can just mass zealots and win, since the win is rightfully yours anyway, if your opponent is just camping in a corner and has nowhere to run, but you cannot touch them.
The zealots will only ever be used in this unique case, because they are otherwise too expensive to buy in a normal match.
Overall , Gameplay is relatively good. Terrain is epic failure. Triggers have holes.
None.
