Last month, iqSoup released a battle demo for their cowboy steampunk game Age of Grit. Yes, that is indeed the greatest sentenced every written. I played it the other day for another video, and I came away impressed, once I figured out which side of the screen my ship was on.
In the demo, you take control of an airship with an array of weapons, engines, and stat boosters. There are four different scenarios to choose from, and each comes with its own ship with its own assortment of gear, health, and enemies to fight. One ship has nothing but heavy guns and a small engine that you can dodge with, while another is all about stat boosting, dodging, and attack in quick, deadly bursts.
Combat is turn based, and it plays out exactly how you’d imagine. You choose what action you want to perform during your turn, limited by a set of action points, and your chance of success is affected by a random number generator. Your opponent will then attack and kill you, because if you’re like me, you’ll think your ship is the one on the right of the screen. It’s not.
This was just a battle demo, meaning there are no story elements, world overview, characters or anything that you can expect in the final game. It serves only to showcase the battles.
With that limited scope in mind, I had a good time with Age of Grit. The art and music do a great job building the steampunk atmosphere while adding just a hint of the old west. Once I got a hold of the combat, I was downing enemy ships with ease, finding the right balance of dodging, stat boosting, and attacking.
There was nothing wildly unique about what I played. If you particularly loathe RNG’s you’re going to be in for a bad time with Age of Grit. Not only can you randomly miss your opponent, but you can be struck with other problems like engine malfunction and your guns will jam.
If you’re willing to look past the RNG elements, or if you like them, you’re going to have a good time with the Age of Grit battle demo. But you don’t have to take my word for it, it’s publicly available on the game’s Kickstarter page. Try it for yourself and see what you think. You can even pre-order the game through Kickstarter if you want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voslVRxZUJ0
