Titanium Court

Got Titanium Throne and have been enjoying it. The core gameplay loop has two phases. the first is a match three where you get resources and manipulate a playing field to be layed out the way you want it for the second phases, which is something of an auto battler. Using the resources in the first phase you schedule a series of spells or summons and then the scene plays out without your input as enemies spawn or units collect resources. This rundown doesn't do the game justice though, because the brilliance of it is in the presentation. The premise is you find yourself at faerie court, and want to go home, but according to the court you are their queen and need to lead them to victory in war. What's the war about? Who knows. There is a mind bending juxtaposition of the hyper modern (foodball and baseball references are everywhere, everyone looks like a yuppie from the 2000s) and the classical fantasy (the faerie court is just how I like it: changeable, absurd, and imbued with a confident logic that none the less makes very little sense.) The castle you're stuck in ups and walks around, moving itself from engagement to engagement. The writing is top notch, full of whimsy, mischief, and fourth-wall-breaking gags. As an example, I had played the demo a few months ago, just bought the game recently, and when I came back the game was like, "Oh cool, you bought the game, great! Well here you are in your old save. Would you like a refresher on how the game is played?" And I was like, "Sure, thanks," and the game went, "Ok, so just delete this save and start from the beginning. That'll be a better refreshing than anything!" And then it throws you into the boss fight that the demo had stopped right before. 

This might sound malicious but the gameplay is simple on its face and the demo was not that long. There is still a lot of depth to actually playing the game, as the units you chose or the "job" you pick will significantly change what terrain benefits or hurts you, and there are a many sub objectives and a variety of challenges. I'm not very far in at all but there's often something brand new showing up in a level and a lot of fun banter to go with it.

And then there's the inter-gameloop segments. Much like the home bases in Hades, there's stuff to do in between runs that change with some frequency. A lot of times those elements come with their own very easy match three minigames which add a little interactability to what is otherwise a somewhat linear plot. I have so far tried and failed to get a single straight answer out of Puck, tried to help a cat get to the top of a shelf via a stacking puzzle (that you fuck up if you match three), gotten lost on a labyrinth, and chugged a Loving Baseball potion, which everyone was excited about because they didn't know what baseball was and wanted to find out what it was like loving something you had no exposure to. They also are very dismissive of idea that cars exist.

Looking at the recent patch notes, it looks like there is a lot of content that I haven't seen yet, so I'm excited.

With a puzzle type of game play, a lot of stuff to discover, and entertaining writing, I definitely recommend this game.