Tabletop Gods - VR Gameplay HTC Vive
11Let me start off by saying that I did enjoy the core RTS game. While the game is still in Early Access, there may just be too many issues with everything around that core experience for me.
The RTS combat and the potential for strategy that I see with the heart of the game is promising. The mechanics and tools at your disposal are fairly simple. Budget and place defenses before a round. Summon troops during a round. The thought and strategy between the how, when and where then become the driving force.
Much like chess, anyone can learn the simple mechanics but only those with a mind for strategy can effectively use those tools. Having a high skill cap for a game like this is definitely a plus.
The single player campaign was also a pleasant surprise. I did not expect that to be an option. This somewhat eases the growing pains of developing a population around the game and provides value for your money if one never develops.
This makes the following issues even more disappointing.There is a lot of room for polish here.
Locomotion is at the top of the list. The current implementation is not for the faint of stomach. Anyone but the most veteran VR legged players are likely to feel quite a bit of discomfort in Tabletop Gods. If you're fairly susceptible to sim sickness, stay away! There are other RTS games out there like Skyworld that have a very similar setup that manage to let you interact with the table in a very comfortable way. The devs should look at those games and try to implement those mechanics where you manipulate the table rather than spin your body around the merry go round of nausea.
This hasn't even gotten into the play space oriented locomotion when not actively in a match. That's still a baffling design decision to me.
Nearly tied for the top spot is not surprisingly population. On an average weekday night there was no one on. The only person we found abandoned the match without speaking to us. I honestly don't know if VOIP is in the game and it doesn't really matter. The end result is that there was a single player in the hours worth of gameplay and that didn't lead to a multiplayer game. Unfortunately SteamSpy confirms a consistent lack of population in the game.
The above two issues are the primary motivators for my decision however there are a whole slew of other polish issues such as a lack of any collision detection. No outer bounds to your temple area. Design decisions where players can pull you out of an AI match with no commitment to starting a PvP match.
While this is a Early Access game, it's been in EA for 3 months and has received many updates in that time so there's a good chance some of these issues will be addressed. Along with a few other nitpicky things. I can see these all having the potential to be worked out in Early Access
There's potential here but the lack of population and several design decisions make this a not recommended for me at the moment. This could change if the issues are ironed out and population picks up when the game releases out of EA but until then, I can't really say this is worth the $19.99 price tag.
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§ https://store.steampowered.com/app/858860/Tabletop_Gods/
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