Video games like Dungeon Keeper and Evil Genius solid you because the villain repelling heroes as they break in your defences like waves on the shore. Grove Keeper is completely different. You play a noble god of the forest defending bushes from old-timey woodcutters and hunters who’ve come to chop down Outdated Man Willow and shoot all of the wildlife. Happily, you possibly can construct a military of legendary creatures together with satyrs and half-naked giants who rend and stomp loggers with abandon. Perhaps you’re a bit villain-adjacent.
The demo I performed at PAX Australia gave me a house tree and a single hut to guard, however let me develop extra bushes every night time to supply the assets I wanted to summon defenders. Willows are costly and finicky about being planted close to water, whereas the spruce do not give a rattling the place they develop, however produce much less of the magic juice I must solid spells and summon goblins and vodyanoy.
As soon as I am carried out with an evening’s planting and summoning I press the button to start the day, and waves of people with axes and bows begin marching in. In addition to simply deciding on a blob of monsters and right-clicking on them, I’ve entry to a handful of spells. Meteors crush enemies, runes heal my guys, and kelpies come out of the water to demolish items crossing the river, or would if I remembered to make use of them greater than as soon as.
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On the finish of every day, as the ultimate human falls, Grove Keeper zooms in from a godlike birdseye view to offer you an up-close shot of some poor sucker being gored by a satyr or kicked into the sky by a large. They ragdoll deliciously, and land on their heads typically sufficient to make me cackle like an fool. Grove Keeper could also be a tactical sport of population-limit balancing and useful resource administration, nevertheless it understands the explanation we like Skyrim’s giants is as a result of they’ll launch you into orbit.
On the finish of every day I used to be provided a few choices for a power-up. Did I need to increase the inhabitants restrict, or enhance my injury? Achieve some free magic factors, or enhance manufacturing? It is simply sufficient strategic decision-making to make you suppose, even whether it is largely a sport of clicking your blobs on the enemy and watching these rattling people get what they deserve. The jerks.
Grove Keeper is presently in growth at indie studio Steep Summit, and you’ll test it out on Steam.
