Through it’s Kickstarter Campaign, the team at CookieByte Entertainment looks to spice things up in the turn-based strategy genre with their first game, Fort Triumph. Still in it’s early access phase, let’s take a look at how this project that’s just hit one year since it’s Kickstarter campaign got…well, kickstarted. Just keep in mind, this is still in early access so once it hits the full 1.0 release things may change and I will definitely follow up with a review when that time comes.
The game starts you off choosing between a prologue chapter, or jumping right into the game’s main campaign. Either way, the two stories tie together, with the prologue serving as a bit more back story and a good tutorial for the games mechanics. There’s a specific tutorial as well which you can opt out of, but the prologue can give you a bit more time to really learn the ropes of this turn-based strategy game.
As far as story goes, there is and isn’t one at the same time. Overall, you learn of a series of “breaks” within the world. Your group of adventurers set out into that world, hoping to set things right one quest at a time. Ultimately, your goal is to save the world. However, as far as I could tell there’s no real “Main Quest” line to differentiate from side quests, you just pick them up, along with bits of information and follow the bread crumbs.
Quests themselves can be a lot of fun. The game’s engine will randomly generate these each time the quest is loaded, not just when the game itself is. So you can bow out of a quest and re-enter it, and find an entirely new layout of the map itself as well as the locations of enemies and treasures.
Your party starts off with four members, and the ranks can shrink as well as grow. Some quests will see you searching for specific people who will be off on their own quests. After finding and/or saving them, these people can join your party either temporarily or permanently. The characters in your party will mix and match with all the usual elements that you’d come across in an RPG such as this. Knights with strong up close melee attacks, mages and archers who can sling damage from a distance.
Each character can also only utilize a minimum two “moves” per turn, with abilities learned through leveling up adding extras. If you’re looking to attack and move in the same turn, the distance you can travel is severely less. There’s also defensive abilities as well, so instead of outright attacking you can prepare for what might come. Either armor yourself up to take less damage if and when you’re attacked, or activate Overwatch on an enemy who knows the move (generally this will be attached to your distance attackers) and hit any enemies if they move in your line of sight.
What sets Fort Triumph apart from most other games in the turn-based tactics area, is that everything is available as a weapon. I don’t mean this in the sense that there’s an unlimited supply of weapons. Instead, the entire world around you can be used to your advantage…or against you to your disadvantage. Trees and buildings supply cover, but can be burned down to leave you naked in the open. Small rocks and crates can also be used as cover, but these can be kicked at an enemy to get in a few swift points. Literally, the entire map is alive with weapons, all you have to do is find the best way to use them.
As things stand right now, Fort Triumph is shaping into one hell of a game. Despite it being only in Early Access right now, it looks super crisp and runs really smooth. Quests are a lot of fun and I really love the randomly generated engine in this game. It keeps you from “learning” the area if you get stuck and need to repeat a quest, but it also might swing things in your direction.
There are some “issues” with the game, but don’t put too much weight on these as they could very well change and get fixed before the 1.0 build comes. Some of the ones I ran into and that crossed my mind were :
- Customization settings are limited for tweaking. Visual settings are restricted to a simple drop-down list, and the keyboard bindings have no choice for being altered.
- Perma-death is a thing. While it’s enjoyable for the sake of difficulty within a quest, I saw no way of being able to revive my fallen comrades in or out of battle. No way to go somewhere after the quest was done to return them to the land of the living, and I never encountered any sort of spell or potion I could use on them on the battlefield to bring them back either.
- Camera manipulation in the game is strictly limited to the keyboard. It’s not horrible, as the keyboard provides you with plenty of options for this, and you’re able to tweak the camera in small enough increments, but it would be nice to have a little bit more exact control over it.
These aren’t ground-breaking issues, and Fort Triumph is beyond playable, but it would be nice to see these things addressed as the game continues to be honed. It’s available for purchase in Early Access on Steam, so don’t miss a chance to play this amazing game. If you’re a Switch owner and have played Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle you will really enjoy this game as it plays and feels exactly the same.
