Like a game of DnD gone terribly right, Tenderfoot Tactics has more goblins in it than you can wave an outlandishly large stick at. And not just your sneaky typical goblins; archers, warriors, wizards and more lie within.
Tenderfoot Tactics is best described as somewhat of an RPG. You are set free in a strange foggy forest to explore and fight other groups of goblins inhabiting the woods. Approaching a rival band and entering their detection circle, they will give chase, running slightly slower than you, giving you the option to escape — unless you’re like me and run headlong into another group, showing off your excellent tactical skills.
When you enter combat with another goblin troupe, the game transitions into isometric turn based combat, with all the units on the field sorting into from what I can tell is a random turn order. Each turn consisting of a move and action taken in either order, you must maneuver about the battlefield, engage the enemy and either chase them off or get beaten down into the mud. And there is a lot of mud.
You see in Tenderfoot Tactics, you are not only fighting with weapons, but also through the environment. Throwing a grenade will make a hole in the ground, calling a rainstorm down will cause the ground to become muddy, grass to grow and the water will pool in the hole. A variety of elemental attacks are available, my favourite being a fire arrow igniting the battle field, although I am still learning how to hurt the enemy more than myself with that attack.
Combat is involved but clean with the randomness not being if a shot will h it or how much damage it will do, but how it will affect the battlefield. The actions are wild, with one of the more eclectic ones being an insult you can hurl at an enemy, to deal a small amount of damage and more importantly knocking the enemy down the turn order a bit. This can then turn the tide of battle, allowing a friend to take out a powerful enemy before they get the chance to release their magical sword attack flame death blaze 9000. The combat is an interesting egg, focusing very much on the position and facing of your troops, as well as their effect on the battlefield, instead of damage percentages and hit chances.
As you send your brave goblin warriors into battle, they gain experience, allowing you to equip them with new abilities and evolve them. Equipping new abilities are simple enough, giving you new weapons and abilities to use, as well as upgrading your current abilities to be more powerful. Evolving is much more interesting, changing the class of your goblins into a wide variety of goblin warriors; ranging from archers to powerful knights and advanced magical users, all ready to absolutely mess up a battlefield. Laid out in a sorta tree, more classes appear, unlocked by gaining levels in other classes and so forth until you have an immense gang of goblins running about causing trouble. Other upgrades can be found in the world, gained after beating a particularly hardy band of enemies or just by rescuing a goblin you found out in the woods to bolster your numbers a little more.
While currently the game mostly consists of exploring a foggy forest, there are promises of a grand story with goblin cities under attack by the ever present fog. I am interested in finding out more about this story in future updates.
Currently in an early alpha state, there is a planned release somewhere around the tipping point of 2019/2020 for Tenderfoot Tactics. When it does release it will do so for PC, Mac and Linux.
This game looks dope. I will definitely wishlist