http://store.steampowered.com/app/558100/



Three races? Check
Race specific power abilities? Check
Mining buildings for money with cooldowns? Check

So this game is quite literally Desert Strike, just heavily loaded with the typical free to play elements you would expect and actually seems quite decent.

Very cool. I always wondered why more custom map favourite didn't make it as standalone games like dota did. I guess not many of them were as complex. Nice find!

MOBAs, Tower Defenses, and now this, not really surprising.
If you have a cool map done and stand a chance in hell of making a game out of it, you should go for it while there's still time, otherwise it will get the professional treatment from someone who typically pretends the source material doesn't even exist.

To be fair though, TDs all kind of exploded at once and as Element TD apparently flopped on it's mobile release, that fad is done. The one that introduced barracks as a tower did pretty well at first though. Claiming that specific genre as a personal creation would be farfetched. Desert Strike in essence was Nude's though and while it has evolved quite aways from his initial creation, it has kept his core concepts intact all this time.

No idea how long Red Tides has been around though as this is apparently a localization.

Yeah, it's clear that this game copied a lot of game play elements - interestingly enough including unit AI and look from sc2 - from Desert Strike. But it also introduced their own mechanics (targetable special abilities) and evolved it one step further. In my original* your base buildings are part of the game play. The Queen and later versions kept the concept of buildings spawning units (probably to avoid remaking the spawning triggers) but eliminated game play implications, simplifying it. And the stand alone game, having to remake everything anyway, made it more user friendly, by just having slots where you set type and amount of spawn.

*) The concept of tug of war is nothing new. Desert Strike itself was a remake of Castle Fight in sc which was a remake of Castle Fight in wc3, which is a variation of the tug of war genre.

Having said that I don't think it's fair to say Desert Strike defined a new genre like Dota did. It's one of the more successful members of a genre, so gameplay-wise people will obviously take a closer look at it when making their own. However admittedly it's hilarious how similar the unit types to the sc/sc2 Desert Strike are. They seemed really afraid of using own ideas.

Well the SC units are pretty archetypal already anyway. I haven't looked at any of the video though, I guess the main point is the 3 races - but again SC I'd petty archetypal there as well - a human race + 2 aliens, with one being organic and the other being robotic.

But anyway, why spend a fair amount of money on a game as a small studio and take unnecessary risks?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 24 2016, 7:54 am by Lanthanide.

No. What I mean is not archetypes that accidently feel like sc units. At least for a good number it's intentionally copied and changed visually to not fear copyright problems. Play it and you'll understand. There's lings, banelings, lurkers, firebats, ghosts, banshees, goliaths, vultures, siege tanks, BCs, chargelots with stun, observer, sentries. There's many more units, but I skipped those because they *could* be accidential archetypes. E.g. All-round infantry (Marine), anti-ground infantry (marauder), anti-air aircraft (valkyrie), etc.

It's pretty fun too until you realize the leveling and store system makes it so you can buy yourself into ladder.
And there's one thing I'm really missing: Casters. I'm assuming they avoided having to make proper AI for them. Problem is this makes the gameplay pretty flat after the new-ness wore off.

They even have the Protoss Colossus, capable of being attacked by anti-air even though it is a ground unit. There are many units like this and basically, every unit from StarCraft 2's Desert Strike is here. They might have some of their abilities split up between the variations of each unit, but they are there somewhere.

There are many caster types in the game as well and they are split up between two categories: You tell them when to cast them, a little icon appears on your HUD that tells them to use it, but only appears when they are in range to use them AND tells you how many of them will use their abilities. Ones that are not in range will not be affected by ordering the ones that are in range to use their abilities. Those types do not have any mana and just have a unique cool down for the spell that is independent on each unit, not a global one. Then there are some that have mana and will cast their spells as they see fit. Much shorter cool downs compared to the ones that you manually cast, but they also rely on mana for their abilities.

Then there are several types that have attacks you could basically call spells or their attack is a weird variation of a spell, such as Medics/Medivacs, units that buff allies when in range of enemies (and nothing else), etc.

Though I do agree, units being tied into the leveling system and being unlockable in general is definitely an issue. Expect of a free to play standalone though.

yeah but where are the utility spells? Disruption web, stasis, ensnare, lockdown, etc.? Also the iconic PSI storm or plague

Psistorm, Ensnare, Plague, and disruption web were all moved to attacks. Things like stuns, silence (many units have a secondary spell/attack that becomes disabled), slows, and lifesteal are a bit more prevalent in this.

That's why I said I'm missing casters. There's only fighting units with abilities or attacks modifiers (yes, there are exceptions like the medic). Also AOEs are much smaller.