Pharmakon - Tactical Puzzle

Un petit jeu qui a beaucoup de potentiel. Peut plaire à ceux qui aiment n'avoir pas le droit à l'erreur, penser plusieurs coups à l'avance et défier l'aléatoire.

Esssentially a turn based puzzle game, Pharmakon asks you to maneuver enemy beasts around by attacking them which can cause them to damage each other in collisions or due to the area effect of each beasts death explosion. This is complicated by the rage mechanic which means you can only indirectly damage each beast twice before it attacks you anyway. The complexity is added to by the use of elemental damage, so each piece you can equip for a given shot will do more or less (or no) damage against a given target, and the positioning of the pieces you have within the shape of your drone - minus any spots damaged by beast attacks you haven't yet repaired, using points gained by scrapping pieces you have "spare". You also have a limited supply of calibration points to spend on special attacks, and there is a screen where you can experiment with which attacks are available, and their cost. It certainly is interesting (and innovative as far as I know), and can take a while to optimize your strategy, however while what element you start with and the pieces and enemies you meet are largely randomized (after the beginning), there probably isn't a huge amount of replayability as once you get the hang of things it becomes fairly easy. Another area that can be an issue is rearming - if you need to shoot a fire beast then an ice one, then another fire, you will be switching all the pieces out and in for each shot. This is fine when you are actively trying to puzzle out a way to fit together enough useful pieces to do the amount of damage you need, but often it will just be a lot of swapping back and forth of a basically fixed sets of pieces you are using for each damage type. Overall this was an interesting game that I would recommend if you don't mind the relatively slow pace of play and the probably limited playtime you are likely to put into it.