Nanuleu

First impression: nice-looking short and difficult casual strategy game. It doesn't play as nice as it looks. The basic strategy type is not new -- I've played flash games where you had to balance mining asteroids for resources with building defense installations while keeping them connected. But [i]NANULEU[/i] only has 7 levels total (each level only has 1 difficulty) and a frustrating difficulty curve. [i]Creeper World[/i] is much more fun to play, or even [i]BattleTime[/i]; these games have more levels and will last you longer. Needs more levels.

NOTE: This game was given to me by the developer for review purposes. This did not influence my review in any way. [h1]========================================================== ---------------------------------------OVERVIEW------------------------------------- ==========================================================[/h1] Nanuleu is a casual strategy / tower defense game of trees and warriors that has been out for some time on mobile devices, but is now available on PC. In Nanuleu, you fight for the side of light on seven stages across three different difficulty levels against an invading enemy, by planting trees to fend off the darkness, and eventually sending out your own warrior force to repel the invaders. [h1]========================================================== ----------------------------------------QUALITY------------------------------------- ==========================================================[/h1] Graphics - Graphics in Nanuleu are simple and tidy. Each level is made up of squares which can be used to grow stylised trees of different functions. Friendly and enemy warriors are small sprites with basic animations. The interface is basic, too, but functional and smooth, and suitable to the minimalist overall style of the game. The game is played from a fixed isometric viewpoint and features essentially no graphics options, beyond screen resolution and window/full-screen options, and the typical Unity single detail setting from 'fastest' to 'fantastic'. Sound - Sounds are minimal and relaxing, with quiet tones alerting you when events require your attention and light sound effects in response to your actions, or the slow battle being played out. Music is subdued and minimalistic as well. It sounds nice and for some reason it reminds me of Monument Valley. I can't imagine anyone finding it annoying or off putting, but you might prefer to play your own chillout tracks to suit the mood of the game instead. Gameplay - You begin Nanuleu by selecting the one available mission. This takes you to a semi-randomly created map and introduces you to the basic game concepts as you play the mission. This first mission is easy; as long as you've paid attention in the tutorial, you should have no trouble. Upon finishing the mission you're given a score and proceed to the next -- again, there's only one choice. But here things become much harder. Each mission starts you off on a small map with coloured squares that make up the world. Squares are either empty or have one of a number of resource symbols on them: water, minerals, or life. You start with a certain number of points of each of these resources, which are used to create roots, which expand your area of influence, or trees of a number of types. At the beginning only water and mineral trees are available to plant, but you'll quickly have protector, life, and, later, war trees as well. I didn't encounter any more than this during play, and the nature of the interface suggests that this is the limit of your planting abilities. Water trees can be planted only on water icons, and each one increases the rate of your water resource generation. Similarly, mineral trees can only be planted on mineral icons, and increase that resource generation rate. Life trees are treated similarly, but the life resource icon is much less common, with only a few on each map. Each tree you plant uses one life resource and a certain number of water and mineral resources. Roots are automatically planted to connect new trees to the existing root network, so the farther away you plant a tree from your existing growth, the more it will cost in water and minerals. Protector trees are planted to protect your territory, and act as the base defense tower of the game. Any enemy coming within the tree's predefined attack radius will be targeted by the tree, which shoots out a little bolt at it. War trees can only be planted after you've planted the requisite number of life trees beforehand. These act as a barracks, growing little warrior units that move towards the closest enemy units or trees/towers and attack them. While you're planting your trees and collecting resources, a progress bar near the top of the screen gradually fills up. When it is complete, an enemy tree is planted at one of a number of pre-set positions on the map. The longer you take to reach the point at which you can grow your own warriors, the more enemies will be spawning to attack you. The core mechanic of the game, then, is simple: balance resource tree planting with protection until you can grow war trees and fight back. The game includes some more fine-grained tactics, but these aren't described in the tutorial at all. For example, planting a life tree wipes out all enemy units currently on the map, which can be very helpful, and trees take damage when roots that connect them to the rest of the root network are destroyed, which would have been nice to know. Also, each level includes four stone altars that are also enemy targets, but I don't know if these hold any particular significance, other than contributing Achievement goals. Controls are simple, as you'd expect for a port from a mobile game. If you have a touchscreen then the game should support it, otherwise the mouse is used exclusively, and only one button is required for everything except zooming in and out (which uses the mouse wheel). Before I finish up, I'd like to offer a warning: Nanuleu is hard! I'm generally pretty good at tower defense and RTS games, but for a long time I just couldn't get the hang of Nanuleu. The first level was a cakewalk and took less than 10 minutes. The second level took me about 90 minutes to finally work out the one strategy that worked, and that same strategy kept working for the next level, and was looking pretty good for the level after that, too, until I got bored and turned it off. [h1]========================================================== -------------------------------------PROS & CONS------------------------------------ ==========================================================[/h1] Pros: + Nice minimalist graphic and sound styles + Steam achievements. Cons: - Minimal tutorial; no discussion of roots, light and dark control, or anything but the most basic tactics. - Very difficult unless you use the one strategy that works, which seems to be the same for every level. - Minimalist gameplay: very repetitive, even with only seven levels to beat. - Poor grammar that otherwise ruined a very polished presentation ("The enemies are multiply rapidly.") [h1]========================================================== --------------------------------------CONCLUSION----------------------------------- ==========================================================[/h1] I'm on the fence about Nanuleu; it's another game that makes me wish Steam's review system had a 'maybe' option for recommendations. While Nanuleu has a lovely minimalist art and music style, its minimalist approach to gameplay is not quite as endearing. If you're an achievement hunter who enjoys a challenge, it's probably for you. Personally, though, once I got the hang of it, I realised it wasn't really for me. [h1]5/10[/h1]