This took me completely by surprise and is apparently now available for early access for $10 on Steam, with a projected release date of end of March.
Turn based, hex-based ground combat set in the SotS universe. Supposedly plays like Panzer General with the addition of battle cards to be played. The only thing holding me back is that I still don’t trust Kerberos’ assessment of the state of the game, otherwise I’d be on this like stink on a monkey.
Who will take one for the team?
I usually buy this kind of stuff, but I do got that other one, battle world kronos, but it didn’t catch my fancy, it was just too dry.
Obviously I have no impulse control, and want a SOTS 3 …so I bought it, I will give impressions later.
I don’t blame you. For what it’s worth their last independent project,The Pit, was executed well and released in good shape.
Ambition got the better of them in SOTS 2, but its a lesson learned, and they will be better off for it. However I do admire ambition, if you release a ‘safe’ game like Battleworld Kronos, you might be happy with the shine, and the non-buggy nature, but it’s also a dry, somewhat boring game, its way too clinical and looses immersion.
I agree. I’d rather someone be too ambitious and fail than crank out another cookie cutter or clone.
Ambition is to be admired. Deliberately releasing an Alpha build of a game and calling it ready is not. No need to rehash it here, but it will take more than one rogue-like for them to regain my trust.
Thanks for braving the waters. Looking forward to reading your impressions later.
This is Ground Pounders the turn based game they had on Kickstarter but did not make it? I remember backing it and canceling after trying the demo. I do not remember the reason.
I supported Battle Kronos too and do not like it, I think it is set to be just a tad too hard and does not live up to other games of its type from the past such as Massive Assault which I enjoyed quite a bit.
Quick googling also shows an Indiegogo campaign. I guess it went there after KS. Difference with Indiegogo is they get whatever is backed whether it hits target or not, so the game obviously had some cash injection and here we are.
I tried the demo of this game months ago (maybe from the KS page?). Bored to tears - please make SotS: The Pit 2 please. :)
I backed it and got a steam key yesterday. Totally needs a better tutorial (if it has one, I missed it), as I had no idea what I was doing, but I was digging it. Really great potential here I think.
This seems typical for Kerberos games (though I haven’t tried The Pit yet, and I assume that one is fairly intuitive).
I didn’t even realize they were making this, but a sci-fi, hex-based TBS sounds great to me. I’ll have to keep an open mind and see what the reviews say. SotS1 is still one of my favorite 4x games, so there are clearly some people there with some good ideas.
People are still buying/funding Kerberos games? Between SotS1 and 2 they dug themselves a rather epic grave, and despite them being one of few companies catering to the sci-fi niche I usually like I’d be perfectly happy filling that grave in on top of them. I never tried The Pit, but its reviews didn’t sound glorious enough to me to give those guys any more money.
I wouldn’t call it glorious, but it was a fun game for the price.
It seems like you read the wrong reviews.
I’ve played plenty of rogue-likes, with multiple wins in DCSS. The Pit stacks up positively with other great rogue-likes, but above and beyond its awesomeness it did something special that really made it a standout for me. You can play the game entirely with an XBOX 360 controller(pulling the RIGHT TRIGGER to fire off a laser bolt almost makes it feel like I’m playing a pseudo-shooter type of game, hehe) and just the pure comfort factor of sitting back in my chair and playing it makes it one of my all-time favorite rogue-likes.
The Pit bares some visual resemblance to Dredmore, the actual game play is quite different and I never really enjoyed Dredmore beyond the awesome humor.
Even though I like almost everything Kerberos has done (Including Fort Zombie, as broken as it is. Played through it a hell of a lot more than I did State of Decay. Only one I’m not wild about is SotS2 since I largely just felt like SotS1 was better (After the “All-clear” patch and expansion at least)) I’m not too interested in this. Even though I like me some turn based strategy I was never really big on Panzer General/Fantasy General. I’ll have to wait and look at some gameplay video of it to make up my mind, but I definitely would’ve been more interested in a Fort Zombie 2/The Pit 2.
I decided to be a guinea pig and buy the game.
After watching some videos and reading the manual I played through the first campaign mission.
Do NOT buy this game right now on PC. Besides the fact that it is still in Beta, this game feels 100% touch screen oriented. There is a million pop up menus that require constantly clicking to get anything done at all. The UI in Groundpounders is just painful, it makes Vic Davis’s Armageddon Empires UI look like a masterpiece.(luv ya Vic ;)
They tried to do way too much again, the same mistake they made in SotS2. EX: on their ugly little hex based map they are trying to show underground units, ground units, flying units, and units that are riding transports. These units could potentially all be on the same hex. Ahhh, that’s all well and good, but when things are so hideous to look at you have trouble identifying one unit from another your ability to form a competent strategy starts to go out the window.
BEST PART OF THE GAME: The combat system seems solid. I like how the units can support each other with combined arms, also they did a good job implementing a supply line system similar to Unity of Command but with a Logistics unit that can move around and increase the distance of the supply chain. You’re completely boned if you run out of supply same as in Unity of Command.
Even though I like the combat system, it is not nearly enough to make up for the eyesore graphics or the abysmal UI.
They said the game will be completed in 6-8 weeks. They have a lot of work to do to make this into even a remotely tolerable PC game. I’ll post periodically to update people who are interested but are waiting to see how things pan out.
Fort Zombie was Kerberos? Man, their record is way worse than I even remembered!
Sorry, but considering I don’t have a 360 controller and I loved Dredmor, your pitch there basically does the opposite of sell me on The Pit. :P
EDIT: While I was checking to see which game Fort Zombie was, you went and let us all know not to buy this! Thank you for your sacrifice!
That’s a shame. There is a demo on Steam. I can’t imagine it would be long to download it.
Huh - I had exactly the same reaction to BW Chronus.