Andrew Kelley - 7dRTS Game Reviews (2013 Jul 30)

7dRTS Game Reviews

We all have limited time. This is a guide to help you decide which 7dRTS games to play, and which you might unfortunately have to skip if you don't have time to play them all. It is only one person's opinion.

I haven't played these yet

Power Grab XenoCombat Congregation Craft and Conquer TAvA TANKBOX 30XX War Shape Frisk Demon Front, A Hero-centric RTS System Command 3D Chess Attrition CaptureTheFlag - Mech Style Crime 1930 Total Knowledge Domination Guardian III: Corruption Microspace MountainKing o08 SpaceRTS

Definitely check these out

Chess

Play Chess, but without taking turns. Frenetic and very fun. Plays in your browser.

Holo Wars

This game nails it. It's a perfect example of a simple Real Time Strategy game. It gives beginner friendly non-obtrusive help at the beginning to hint what the controls are and what you should do to get started. The graphics and music are fantastic.

Pillagers!

Yes this one is mine and I'm biased. But I do think it is worth your time. It has smooth physics, sophisticated AI, and fantastic music and sound effects created by Michael Weber. It blurs the line between RTS and shmup.

The Great Story of DOTS

Beautifully executed. Gameplay is the right level of difficulty, the tutorial in the beginning is perfect, and it explores a different way of commanding using hand drawn lines of attack. Plays in your browser.

The great story of DOTS

Super Simple Switching Strategist

This Flash game is tastefully minimal. Gameplay is very simple, yet requires strategy to win. It presents 4 stages of increasing difficulty where you must flip switches that decide what units you will create and where they will go.

Age of Rice

Short and sweet, this game pulls off a simple real time strategy game that is fun to play. Plays in your browser and requires only a few minutes of your time.

Sons of a Dark Age

This Flash game is similar to Super Simple Switching Strategist except more frenetic, and more dependent upon your ability to click fast enough. Still, this solid production is worth the 10 minutes of your time it takes to beat.

Worth looking into if you have enough time

Lode Storm (Windows)
This game is a little too hard, but with repeated tries it is possible to win. You have to try to gain control of unit-producing nodes. It has a nice retro feel to it.
Metal Universe
Minimal Flash game. Still, feels like a real-time strategy game. Contains about 5 minutes of fun.
Manifest Destiny (Windows)
Holy shit look at that title screen. This game has some intriguing mechanics but in the end is a bit tedius to play because it requires you to hold down the right mouse button for upwards of 2 minutes at a time, waiting for your armies to increase in number.
Schaak!
This is fascinating - a huge chess board filled with pieces equipped with their own AI. Unfortunately it's local multiplayer - no network, no computer opponent. It's a fun simulation to play with.
Troll Defense
This game is way too hard, but it'll give you a chuckle. Tower defense where meme faces try to get into your website.
Rock, Paper, Geometry!
Although very short, it does feel like a game. You control shapes by giving them "impulses" in the physics engine. You must cause the correct shape on your team to collide with the correct shape on the enemy team.
Mini Wars (Windows)
Short game. Decently balanced. A bit lacking in gameplay depth. The graphics are very green.
Knights & Arrows
The graphics and visual effects are stunning. Unfortunately, the gameplay is extremely frustrating due to your units not automatically defending themselves. Still, it's worth it to ooh and aah at the custom shader.
Newspaperts
Playable. It has some RTS elements to it but they all involve clicking the mouse as fast as you can.
City Fall
It's not quite game status yet but has some impressive 3D graphics. Supposedly when a building is destroyed there is an epic explosion. Controls are tricky to use and AI seems glitchy.
Bunnies on Board
The rules of the game are confusing and arbitrary but if you take the time to learn them it can be fun. Plays in your browser.

Not quite playable yet

I did not get these to work

System
Linux 3.8.0-27-generic #40-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 9 00:17:05 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
User agent
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Ubuntu Chromium/28.0.1500.71 Chrome/28.0.1500.71 Safari/537.3
wine
Version 1.4.1. No mono or .NET framework.
unity web player
Nope.

No Linux or web version

Thanks for reading my blog post.

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