It Stares Back

I randomly found this little gem while browsing but boy am I glad that I did.
Let me start with the gameplay.
It Stares Back is a rather streamlined strategy experience, providing you four types and two types of buildings. Tactics wise there is not much to write home about as it usually consists out of mashing your ball of units into the enemy blobs of (actual blob) units. The units themselves cost nothing but instead become available again once they die after a short 'cooldown'.
The maps are designed quite well and enviromental hazards force you to make smart movements otherwise your poor grunts get eaten up by terrain before you get a chance to smash them into some blobs.
Now for the rest.
The very first thing the game will do is throw some absolutely amazing cutscenes at you. The voice acting is stellar and the music is goddamn spot on. While the experience is rather short, I played through the prologue in about 2 hours which included several retries on that one goddamn level, for the price it goes by right now, it is thoroughly pleasing entertainment nonetheless.
I would like to describe just how amazing the visuals are but honestly, watch the trailers, that will tell you all you need to know.
The only thing I would consider to be a perhaps fairly significant flaw in the gameplay is that when you reach certain trigger locations, the game will spawn a load of enemies right under your feet with little to no warning that this will happen. However aside from sudden surprises like that, it was still very enjoyable.
For this price, you definitely aren't going wrong.

It's hard to review a $6 RTS because I don't want to use expensive classics for comparison, that being said, I think the game is very creative and shows some promise. According to the EA notes, the game is going to have some degree of RPG elements for the hero, which as far as I can tell is still missing from the game. Right now the biggest problem is the lack of decision making, the game simply does not provide enough variety to make tactical choices - mostly you just spam your way to victory. Even if I completely hated the gameplay and its mechanics, the story in this game is very captivating and could potentially justify a full playthrough. All of the characters are very interesting, and the voice acting is much better than you would expect from such a cheap title. Not to mention that I have never seen a game with this kind of art style, I think it looks very cool, and its weird soundtrack does a good job complementing the world.
The gameplay does not compare to a traditional RTS, it has more in common with simplified strategy games that mostly focus on territory control. It also has a unique emphasis on the fog of war, the entire game is kinda designed around lighting your way through the darkness. There are only a few types of buildings and a couple of different units, definitely not enough to create a proper RTS experience. The UI lacks a lot of basic tooltips, such as not having pop-up descriptions for the things on the screen, while the tutorial does not do a great job explaining some of the mechanics. Additionally, the game could use some of the generic commands that we associate with the genre, such as control groups and 'attack-move'. However, I think the UI has a good foundation for improvement, and frankly it just has a really nice aesthetic, such as the animated character faces that remind me of the first Starcraft.
Pros:
+ captivating narrative & decent voice acting
+ unique art style, strange and yet beautiful soundtrack
+ the gameplay features some unique mechanics
Cons:
Lack of UI polish - there are many things missing from the interface. I would like to see delayed description for anything that you can hover over on the panel, basic unit commands, and shortcuts. Sometimes it's not very clear why you can't build more units and why your buildings have stopped warping (I know why it happens now, but it took me awhile to figure out).
Lack of Gameplay Depth - I guess they are still working on the RPG elements described in the EA notes. It's unclear what kind of things it will bring to the table, but for now, I have to say that gameplay gets pretty repetitive. Personally, I would recommend adding more buildings and maybe some active skills for the hero (warcraft 3 style).
Could use Skirmish mode - I kind of expect a skirmish mode in my RTS games, choosing a map and how many opponents you want to fight. Right now you can only play the campaign.
Overall EA thoughts: (july/6/2019)
I am tempted to discourage people from buying it, just so you can hopefully play the game when the RPG elements are introduced. It has a foundation for a nice RTS, but if you buy it now, you might have to rely on the narrative and atmosphere as the primary source of entertainment. The gameplay is very basic and does not offer a lot of decision making, but I can see it being a lot more enjoyable with a few extra features.
For more Hidden-Gems:

It's rather easy to overlook this fascinating indie chalked full of personality, killer artistry, and fantastic lore construction... so don't. Check it out now.
A'ight so "It Stares Back" was actually one of the major reviews we already had written up and ready to go last month before my Grand System Fuck Up burned down all the work finished or in-progress along with the cached AppData backups to go with it. My own damn fault.
I'll save you a few thousand words and say just check out the video on this one to get a real sense of the unique appeal. It's already rather hard to really articulate what makes "It Stares Back" so mesmerizing and charming anyway... or, at least in anyway that the footage doesn't accomplish in a fraction of the time.... so just get a vibe for the wild story, crazy imagery, and odd gameplay.
Ideally they'll end up putting out a demo of the first level anyway so you don't have to take my word for it, but until then you can see for yourself, here:
Running the video in fullscreen helps create a more accurate vibe, but given the compression you still only getting an impression of that alluring high-color otherworldly experience to be found in a 4K wide-eyed portal. Perhaps I'm emphasizing this so heavily because there's something about the general gameplay screenshots which, even now, look unappealing to me. Especially on my first impression, that faded neon brightness just conveys an unpleasing palate design and hints that it won't work. Yet, the moment I load the game up in front of me, it all just clicks again. Like a lot of this game, its hard to appropriately describe the appeal but when you're looking right at it, it all just works.
The bottom line is "It Stares Back" has a fuck-ton of personality, and the name alone sets the stage. There's this original structure like an RTS that has me hesitating to actually call it one, as it's certainly bound to create the wrong impression. Call it a non-RTS RTS I guess. Those gameplay aspects, the shifting of your units and hero, they're honestly all overshadowed by the sharp aesthetic of vivid characters and its unconventional universe. The voice acting and killer artistry are just phenomenal. The pure richness of personality and story here really elevates this game into something equally weird and wonderful that's easily worth the six dollar base cost here. I can only hope the game finds the audience it deserves.
This weird neon future nihilism of "It Stares Back" intertwined with its sweet Siren song has got me steering towards the rocks, and damn glad to do so.
You can check out "It Stares Back" on Steam now
And find more recommendations on our curator page, Weird Wonderful Game Watch.

This game is the definition of a hidden gem. I mean, how dares it be this good and this cheap?
It's got the absolute best sound design, it's tremendously immersive and the guy with the funny head has some great voice acting.
It really gets going when the music changes for the last parts of missions.
The gameplay itself is great fun, combining the most relevant aspects of macromanagement from RTS with the larger-scale map.
Unlike most strategy games, it features assymetric factions. Yours has buildings, resource collecting, training troops, etc, while the enemies are tons of little slimes scattered around the map, with some conditions to attack your base. Your "hero" unit is the only one that can attack their "buildings" to stop enemies from spawning.
Unit combat is simplified and works very well. Attack move is always on, units kill and die very quickly and it's very easy to control different unit types and move them around, often to protect your hero guy while he deactivates the enemy buildings.
All in all is a solid and intuitive system, with little emphasis on the HUD showing you lots of things.
There are many terrain hazzards that need to be carefully considered, but no terrain collisions, so units are always going in a straight line where you tell them to. This is a pretty clever way to remove pathfinding in its entirety, which is the most buggy aspects of RTS.
The story in the campaign is very absurd. Everyone talks in a funny way which fits the theme enormously. I really love the characters' interactions in between missions and I'm looking forward for more campaign content in the future, as it took me about 4 hours to finish it in this state.
Not to mention the fantastic visuals, that while sometimes have too much going on with the several screen effects and stuff. In one of the missions I noticed a strange periodic blur on the screen that made it a bit disorientating, but at least it didn't last long.
At first, I didn't even notice it was in early access. Absolutely 0 bugs so far.
This one is a solid 9/10, could only get better with more content!

At first, a strange introduction... an unfathomable series of cryptic monologues, esoteric figures, lovecraftian horrors and subliminal lore. And then, from an abstract hexagonal tapestry emerges the Gameplay. A simple, raw yet effective, real-time strategy game. Very fluid, not too fast, not too slow, 5 to 10 minutes of clever levels, very easy to handle.
Some dialogues and beautiful artworks show you a bizarre world, mixing tech and magic, electrical wiring lexicon with medieval horror...
That's it, you ask ? Well, at first I believed that. Neat gameplay, fantastic visuals, promising story, an impeccable Voice Over, but quite dull after skimming all the surface.
And then the Prologue ends. Enough with the surface. And then you DIVE. AND THEN YOU LOOK UNDER THE SURFACE. AND YOU SEE IT. AND IT STARES BACK.
HOW WRONG YOU WERE ! The Prologue ends. The game shows you what it wants to become. And it's glorious, deep and promising. It shows you how abysmal its campaign aims to be. It even lets you play a complete chapter, as the game is not ready yet, which introduces new mechanics, a tech tree, new obsessions, and Eldrift, this proud and lonely mustachio ronin.
"It Stares Back" aims NOT to be a good, easy to grasp, but forgetable strategy game. No, it wants to be an demanding one, deep, intricate and flourishing, and which will imprint its mark deep into your brain. It's an experience in itself.
The game is highly esoteric, you will not have the answers to all those interrogations that will come. It reminds me of the manga BLAME! by Tsutomu Nihei : you don't understand what's happening, you are overwhelmed by the immensity of what lays before you, but you enjoy it, and moreover, you are fascinated by it.
Only after overtaking the abstractness and the strangeness of its realms, will you enjoy this game. Give it some time, and appreciate how smooth its tactical elements are. Care to look how effective its gameplay can be. Stare at this beautiful game forming before your eyes. And be vigilant, as it stares back...

I'm going to be honest - I don't really like these 'simplistic' RTS titles as a rule and so I bought this purely for it's aesthetic and my-oh-my is it worth the asking price for that alone.
If you like the videos - you'll likely enjoy the game too - I'm glad things like this exist and happy to support the developers!

I had the opportunity to run through the available prologue of this game, and dang, it's pretty awesome! I'd describe it as "Command and Conquer by way of your motherboard having a fever dream". The art is top notch, the gameplay is interesting, and everything has a sort of horror zen feeling to it, if that makes sense.
I'm really looking forward to seeing more, and definitely recommend it.