Tomb of Tyrants is a neat mix of tile matching puzzler with tower defense. However, you’re not protecting towers but a dungeon. Oh, and you also happen to be an evil tyrant! At the start of a game you are simply one floor underground. In order to create more levels between you (and the heroes poised to take you down) there is a desperate need for resources. Resources are gathered by matching at least 4 of the same-colored tiles. Unlike some other matching games you can only drag each row horizontally. This adds a new sort of challenge to matching as you can’t simply rearrange everything willy nilly.
Of course, there’s still a variety of ways to help yourself out. Each row is not a solid piece, meaning that a block will fall to a lower row provided there’s empty spaces beneath it. This allows for a way to rearrange tiles when needed. After a while you’ll also collect new items which can change tile colors or blow them up entirely, rewarding you with their resources. In all there’s a good deal of strategy required to survive. Given the quick pace of Tomb of Tyrants it can become very challenging. Even if you stop to think about tile placement the heroes won’t! Do your best to always keep moving and matching.
As of right now the biggest obstacle to getting good is due to this speedy pace. I, for one, want to pause and read all about the possible rooms and enemies I can build but there’s no time to lollygag like this. Even in the demo you’re only given the basic steps without really going into what different items do or what icons mean. You’ve got to figure most out on your own on the fly. Because of this you’ll have to basically throw a few matches if you want to really dig into what different rooms provide and also remember (or write down) what the different “skill trees” are. The rooms you build early on affect what you can build later although this isn’t obvious at the start. Finally, it’s tricky to keep an eye on how far heroes are advancing while actually playing.
The concept of Tomb of Tyrants is silly and wonderful. Building an increasing deep dungeon lined with traps and monsters is awesome. As is the degree of strategy infused in tile matching to make it all the more purposeful instead of mindless as is typical. With that said, the pace is unrelenting and may be too challenging for some. My best suggestion is to keep at it, playing a match or two daily. You’ll unlock more goodies as you go and pick up some new strategic concepts along the way. This is definitely one of those games that opens up the more you play.
