Indie Game Review
Cassel Games is the company behind the game called Ratropolis. They responded to our #FF post for a review of their game and here it is! If you would like more info about the game itself, please reach out to them (links below).
Ratropolis is a unique game, to say the least. It combines city building, tower defense & card gameplay with cute rat-citizens known as Ratizens! When I first started playing, I thought the learning curve would be HUGE. Lo and behold, it took my city burning down twice to learn the ropes, only twice! I’m sure there are plenty of you that will perform way better than I have. Let’s dive deeper!
Ratropolis, the ancient metropolis…
The city known as Ratropolis granted safety and prosperity to ratkind. But an experiment gone awry wreaked havoc on the Ratizens, and the great city was lost. Now it is your duty to bring your people back to greatness, by creating your own settlement, defending it against the endless hordes & expanding your territory. The stakes are high, can you do it?
The Basics.
The map has a left-to-right, 2D layout. You can move using the drag effect on your mouse or pressing A & D, simple! You start out with cards at the bottom center of your screen, press Space to redraw, there is a redraw timer that tells you when you can draw more, or you can pay a hefty sum of gold and redraw instantly. To put your cards into play, simply click and drag them onto your town hall or appropriate building, depending on the card.
Now comes the strategy part of the game, you have to manage your city’s events, maintain your population, keep your gold up & maintain a standing army all at the same time! The game is fast-paced, you won’t feel rushed, but time is working against you because the waves of enemies are never too far away.
Gameplay.
I am genuinely blown away by the level of detail placed in this game. There are events that take place! If you make a questionable decision during one of these, it will come back to hurt you later! This made me care about the choices I made when I was presented with options. I won’t spoil any of these events, take a look at the pictures for more info on them or play the game yourself!
I got very excited every time I came across a new card. I still haven’t run out of new ones, there are a lot of them! If you think that you’re going to get bored with the cards in this game, think again. Every time a familiar card came into view, I would let out a sigh of relief knowing it was going to help me. Every time a new card came by, I would pause the game to check out all that it has to offer.
Art.
The character design of the normal ratizens is of a good standard, nothing flashy. However, when I unlocked new military units, I couldn’t help but zoom into every new unit and check out all of their awesome features. When I took a look at the enemy units for the first time, I was genuinely concerned for my ratizens, those beasts are scary!
When I took a look at each of the different maps, I was getting mesmerized by the water! The water, while simplistic, looked amazing! The buildings themselves look right at home, nothing out of place. The map designs and the backgrounds gave it all a nice, finished look.
The design of the cards themselves are of a high standard, everything looks fun when you see it on the card! The design is never hard to read & I always know what is going on without having to strain myself. A very welcoming sight!
Audio!
In my opinion, one of the shining features of this game is the audio! The music changes depending on which map you’re on (the desert is my favorite!). Every button, card movement & action have a corresponding audio cue that never feels out of place, it all fits together so nicely! Besides all that, the rats! Whenever I place a military unit down they give a battlecry! Whenever I lost someone to the horde, they let out a whimper that made me feel the loss. Whoever did the audio for this game deserves a raise!
Final Thoughts.
When I first ran Ratropolis, I approached the game with no expectations, I was ready for anything bad to happen. But from the second the story started on boot-up, over to when I lost my first city. I was hooked. This game has depth, a story I would love to see developed further, & super fun mechanics! If there was anything I would like to see added by the developers, it would be better troop management, because of the 2 fronts you have to fight on. Other than that, this will be a game I come back to very often.
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