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Genre: Indie, Strategy
Developer: Tim Conkling
Publisher: Versus Evil
Release Date: Jul 11, 2017
Review by K3W3L
Edited and Posted by KnightAvenger
Despite the impending demise of the once all-conquering Adobe Flash, it appears that there are still a few games going strong on the (somewhat) related Adobe AIR platform, and Antihero is one such game. Mostly the work of solo developer Tim Conkling (with other aspects like art and music handled by other freelancers), Antihero is another game to come from publisher Versus Evil’s huge catalog of typically strategy-focused indies.
Having been in development for the better part of four years, the game was finally released in 2017 for the PC and Mac, with iOS and Android versions to follow eventually. The game is a turn-based strategy game that evokes the feel of a digital board game. The audio-visual design helps in that regard-a graphical design evoking a cheery, cute, and cartoony feel without getting too overwhelming-and it feels like a high-quality and polished product.
Game play is particularly strong. You start off with a Master Thief, adept at burgling and scouting any kind of venue that is within his scouting range, in order to gain the game’s two important currencies: gold and lanterns. Lanterns are used to upgrade your guild in order to unlock more strategical options and more units to buy…which is where gold comes into play. You have to scout buildings with the Master Thief before you can send Urchins to infiltrate them and produce lanterns/gold; you have to scout roads with enemies before you can attack them with the master thief or a gang, and so on and so forth. The upgrades in the guild are locked depending on which upgrades were previously purchased, so it never becomes overwhelming; yet, the upgrade path splits means that there is enough strategical depth in the game for you to explore its various options: get more minions faster or get more powerful offensively with your Master Thief or gang; it’s entirely up to the player.
Now, as we all know, strategy games are not my forte, so I heavily prize those that implement good tutorials and are easy to understand. Thankfully, Antihero nails that aspect with an intuitive and interactive tutorial in the form of the campaign. The campaign consists of 10 missions, pitting you against consistently tougher and tougher AI opponents and also gradually teaches you how to use all the mechanics in the game, but they also do leave you enough room for experimentation and self-learning since you have to win most of the missions on your own. Although I wish it had been longer, the campaign is strong, well-designed, and even features difficulty options to let the neophytes like me find my feet more easily.
As a result of the short campaign, the bulk of Antihero’s game play is intended to come from multi-player. Before you can jump in, you just need to sign up for an Antihero server account using your email. It features two options: live online matches or asynchronous casual matches. Live online matches are your typical online fare where you and a second player take turns making your moves. There’s a time limit in order to prevent people from taking too long, but this isn’t apparent at first and I initially thought there was none. Unfortunately, as Antihero is a relatively new game, the player base can feel small at times and it can take a while to find matches if you are not coordinating with other players.
If you don’t have the time to devote to online matches, asynchronous matches are your friend; you challenge other people to matches and then wait for email notifications to tell you to take your turn (which I believe are enabled by default). I couldn’t determine if these have a time limit or not. I attempted one of these, but, after three or four days passed with no response, my opponent either resigned or ran out of time. Even still, if you don’t feel like playing with online opponents, you can choose to skirmish/practice with the AI or even play hot seat with another person. VERY welcome additions.
I’ve mostly been lavishing all sorts of praise on the various aspects, so let’s take a look at the negatives now. First…no trading cards. YES, I realize this is a minor con, but come on. Almost every game released on Steam nowadays features trading cards in order to give their developers an extra revenue stream. Antihero features enough stylish artwork for use on trading cards, backgrounds, and emotes.
Next is achievement design. To be fair, a lot of them can be easily cheesed by playing hot seat with another player. However, some of them require online matches. The worst offenders are the matches that require a HIGH (specifically, 10, 100, and 500) number of online wins. Although they can be done both live or asynchronously, getting them all is a huge and tedious grind for achievement completionists, and this is a problem exacerbated by the relatively sparse online player base; expect NOT to get 100% on this game during your lifetime.
Last, while not exactly a con, what worries me about this game is the announcement of the upcoming mobile versions. In one of my previous reviews featured on TDM for a game called Dog Sled Saga, I debated on the differences between the PC and mobile versions and their respective pricing points. I hope Tim and the Versus Evil staff are internally debating this very rigorously. Do they want to gate off some content behind a paywall and make this F2P? Do they want to make it a single purchase to play? What about the actual price point-make this on par with the desktop version or price it cheaper as is usually done for mobile games? There are so many angles to approach this, and I hope they take the time to get these aspects sorted out right, so that any early adopters who obtained the desktop versions first may not be possibly alienated. Incidentally, this game does evoke feelings of a mobile port at times, but, as is the case with Dog Sled Saga, its execution is technically exquisite enough for me to overlook this, mostly.
Pros:
- Striking audio-visual design
- Strategical and thoughtful turn-based game play
- Easy to pick up and learn
- Highly polished
- Strong campaign with variable difficulty options
- Synchronous AND asynchronous online multi-player options
Cons:
- No trading cards (minor con)
- Upcoming mobile ports a huge concern regarding platform and content differences; game feels like a mobile port at times
- Campaign mode could be longer
- Some achievements are grindy
- Hard to find matches online
K3W3L gives Antihero a Drastik Measure 8.3 out of 10 (83).
It feels weird for me to give a game a high rating and yet report that it comes with a huge caveat. Antihero is well-done, solid tactical fun and well-made, but the upcoming mobile ports and their features/price points are what worry me the most. If there weren’t plans for mobile ports, this might have been an instant recommendation at the price of $14.99 on Steam, but, for now, I highly advise waiting for the mobile ports to release so you can compare price points and the implemented features.
