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Guards is a colorful 3D TBS and I have to say it’s one of the better ones I played in quite some time. I enjoyed the seemingly simple combat system which encourages pacience and while it does involve some grinding eventually, I never felt bored or compelled to stop because of its increasing difficulty. I welcomed it with open arms, but perhaps for some newer players to this genre, this might represent a hindrance. The art style in Guards is reminiscent of cel shading and I enjoyed the ragdoll-like appearance of characters and units within the game. The presence of items and hero skills, does spice things up and offers plenty of strategic variety on its own. The soundtrack was pleasant enough, though nothing out of the ordinary. Still, the game looks and plays great for most strategy fans out there who don’t mind some degree of repetitiveness. Guards received recently a hefty patch and I for one never encountered any glitches or bugs. Any recently released indie title which already gets patched to this level, deserves praise since we’re getting more and more used today, seeing big-budget games fail miserably from a stable gameplay perspective. So Battlecruiser Games made a stallar job at providing and updating a very well polished game, their first project released on Steam. The price tag is fully justified.

Redactem isn’t your typical 2D pixelated platformer. It features both gravitational and temporal manipulation which is quite impressive, given the game’s asking price and the fact that it’s the developer’s first foray onto Steam. The title has just enough gameplay diversity to keep it interesting and I was also pleased with the sound department. Definitely not a limited and dreary selection of sounds in Redactem. The puzzles weren’t much of a challenge once you get the hang of it and I can only hope the game shall receive further support, with perhaps some more levels and some well deserved Trading Cards. Time will tell but so far I’m content with it and I assure you that it warrants a purchase and not just to support the dev team. It’s actually fun, for a change!