At table level
WARTILE is a video game, but it does everything to resemble its hypothetical physical counterpart : after the brief tutorial mission, the onscreen menu shows all the parts of a gaming table on a virtual desk, much more tidy and well willing of what we scattered around playing Warhammeret similia.
At the center there is a map showing the missions that are handled by advancing in the campaign and which I will discuss later on by analyzing the game mechanics. At the top of the monitor are the miniatures owned by the player and are strategically selected based on the map to be addressed. Directly from this menu, or by going back to the initial screen, you can also access the perhaps most important and dynamic pre-mission section, that is, the hub where you personalize your characters, acting both aesthetically and for that which relates to gaming statistics. During the battles, exploring long and wide the environments, we encounter numerous loot, mainly in the form of elms, shields, axes, swords and all the armament that distinguished the little reassuring Vikings of the Middle Ages. All objects found fall into the menus where little above where, through a convenient drag & drop system, they can be assigned to the characters you have, which for now are few, very few. At the time of launch in Early Access,WARTILE offers only three different Viking classes, which do not leave much room for tactical variations to be applied on the field, as well as armament, shields, helmets and armor seem to be too small for now the taste of playing with the aesthetics of the miniatures, is a party of most diversified characters and thus able to deal more easily with the various missions. The hidden bunnies along the hexes that make up the maps do not contain only new objects, but gold as well – the vikings munching mica’s play – to spend in the menu to buy other miniatures with which to repel their own team ‘assault. WARTILEis an atypical RTS, I have already said, and confirms the statement here that all the mechanics typical of the trading card game appear on the scene, with a special section devoted to the composition of the deck with which it will come in the field, a deck not too much often – at least for now – but that is well differentiated according to the character.
A few pawns
Investing your savings on WARTILEin anticipated access, as was predictable, means having a title with still limited content, the cards are not so many, the characters will only increase over the next few months, as currently the only mode of play is the single campaign , not even in its entirety. These gaps are not the only ones on which the team will have to intervene: in the opening, they quickly moved on to the initial mission that acts as a tutorial, which unfortunately runs too fast and does not go down to the full details and in all the facets of the game, analyzing only what is happening in battle, but that leaves everything around, from the composition of the deck to the management of the characters, passing through the statistics related to the latter.Gaming interfaces are not complicated to understand, but some more warning would not have failed : the statistics are not numerical, but appear in the form of very simple graphs to read and, for example, when changing a shield, the bar of defense instantly mute. There are also perks that enhance the ability and character of the figurines, but in this case there was no alert or pop-up that would explain at least for the first time what to do, indeed, there was really no voice who said of the existence of these “power-ups”. In short, just arrived on Valve’s digital store, despite the long time spent in pre-alpha, WARTILEit is still a game away from its final form, even when it comes under the magnifying glass the combat system and the real-time battles emerge from other defects of youth, but if they forgive them in, Playwood Project’s product appears in all its innovation and you discover the work I would call artisan and embellish the details of the game world.
