by Andrew Fink

Created on: June 13, 2008   Last Updated: June 23, 2008

Game Review: Battle of Tiles
Developer: Bimboosoft
Overall rating: 4/5

The Lowdown: Offering a mix of tactics style strategy with a top-down adventuring feel, Battle of Tiles offers solid (if slightly repetitive) gameplay, that is surprisingly innovative in its simplicity. While it may not offer more than ten hours of play, at $4.95, it's still a great bargain.

Gameplay (4/5): In Battle of Tiles, you take on the role of commanding a small army as you march across terrain, battling enemies as you come upon them. All movement goes from left to right, and you can't retreat. The key is to organize your men on the field such that you can attack enemies without losing your pieces. The tiles' actions are all automatic, so you can't decide which enemies to attack or heal. This in itself can give the game a repetitive feel, and somewhat limits the strategy involved. That said, there are other aspects that make up for this repetition, in particular, the ability to recruit enemy tiles to your side, allowing you to increase the size (and power) of your army. Of course, the diversity of tiles is a bit lacking, in the sense that all melee characters seemed to do the same thing, but it is still a clever idea.

Graphics (4/5): While not astounding in quality (which I would not expect in a game such as this) the graphics themselves are not poor enough to detract from the gameplay. There was no difficulty finding my way around the screen, or deciphering what a tile was at a glance. But even given the limited graphics, the developer added many small touches that I would not have expected, such as unique attack animations, and cracks in a tile to symbolize how much damage it has taken. The graphics may not be astounding, but you can tell the developers took some time to make it visually pleasing.

Sound (2/5): The primary detraction here was the music, which was overly repetitive, and quickly wore on my nerves. The sound effects themselves were decent, but also a little jarring. Overall, the sounds in this game just weren't pleasant by any means, so I would suggest muting it if you're buying it.

Innovation (3/5): For such a simple concept, I can tell quite a bit of thought went into the game and its mechanics. It delivers a satisfactory tactics gameplay that is not nearly as complicated as some, and just as satisfying in the short term. That said, I think there could have been more attempts to distinguish the tiles techniques from one another, and break up some of the repetition of "moving your tiles right." It is a solid game, but a few steps below anything spectacular.

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