Convoy: A Tactical Roguelike

An interesting roguelike RPG in a madmaxey sci-fiworld. The tactical car combat is fluid and addictive. Pretty much everything is a sci-fi reference, which can be a burden. [Aug 2015]

Convoy is a great experience, very well designed and deep. The best part of it is that it doesn't hide behind retro graphics aiming for a retro feeling; it does feel like a true classic game.

Whether you end comes in 15 minutes or 2 hours, Convoy lets you tell your own story of hardship on the uncaring tarmac of this turbulent world.

Convoy had ambitions, that were not fulfilled by its narration nor by the game world elaboration, but the FTL-style gameplay is adapted perfectly.

Robust and addictive strategy game, connecting Mad Max universe with FTL: Faster Than Light mechanics. Hours can pass by without you realising.

Convoy has its heart in the right place and handles the whole post-apocalyptic tactical roguelike approach well, but it feels rough around the edges. Gameplay degenerates into a slog as you struggle to deal with the monotony of the myriad encounters that lurk around every map.

There is no tactics, no strategy, no diversity, and, unfortunately, almost no similarities with the brilliant FTL.

It's pretty fun, but not for a really long time, but it can still be fixed by the devs by adding more variation to the game. Combat is fun, exploration is quite okay too.

It's a rogue-like game that has some similarieties with FTL. The biggest problem, for me at least, is the wildly varying difficulty. One moment everything is fun and games, next you'll run into a batch of enemies that obliterates your convoy and ends the game. The healing mechanic where you have to visit garages (under the threat of running into another random batch of over-powered enemies) is a chore. There should be a way to at least partially repair your vehicles on the road (if there is, it's hidden from me and not easily accessible). Not an instant classic, but rather a start for a better sequel.

Don't listen to all the hypocrites treating FTL like some kind of masterpiece and Convoy like complete garbage. In fact, Convoy suffers from some of the similar issues to FTL (but to lesser extent, IMHO)- repetetivness and general lack of tactical depth.

I have trouble believing that any of the professional critics who reviewed this game played it for very long. Superficially, it's a cool little Mad Max game, built along similar lines to FTL. Once you've spent a couple of hours with it, the game dies under the weight of a wildly under sophisticated combat engine. Your main truck is just a fixture in the center of a highway that never curves or changes. Support vehicles can move around as satellites on a very basic grid. It's an auto combat game with no driving or maneuvering, only positioning within the confines of a hundred foot section of a seven lane road. As a result, the only thing you really do is choose which incoming vehicle to focus fire on, using a "variety" of weapons that don't actually do anything interesting enough to feel different. Sometimes a bad game can a good fit for a certain group of people, but, in this case, I'm not sure I could tell you who that group would be. People who find comfort in extreme repetition, perhaps. (Side note here for the tabletop people: If, like me, you are one of the Car Wars people... just move along. There is nothing to see here. You could buy five Hot Wheels and two six sided dice and come up with a far more entertaining game in 20 minutes.) I barely noticed myself playing 400 hours of FTL when it launched. I could not have made it to 4 hours with Convoy if you'd put a gun to my head. Profoundly disappointing.

I'm a Mad Max and FTL fan, so that puts me neatly in the target for Convoy. Unfortunately, the setting is about it's only attractive ingredient. The strategic and tactical elements are feeble and strangled by luck, and the writing leans too heavily on clichés and pop culture references. Avoid.