Ironcast
Inspired by Victorian era science fiction writers such as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, Ironcast is set in an exciting alternative history; a time when refined men and women in top hats and bonnets commanded gigantic walking war machines, laying waste to the enemies of the British Empire! Take control of a 7 meter tall walking vehicle called an Ironcast and face off against an invading force of enemy Ironcast in order to defend 1880's Victorian England. Battles are fought by generating resource nodes which in turn drive the Ironcast's various weapons and systems. You must choose how to spend these nodes wisely, either offensively in order to cripple and destroy your opponents, or defensively, if they suspect a barrage of incoming weapons fire is due.
Steam User 7
Ironcast is a game that needs to be approached with a specific idea in mind. You must accept things will often be outside of your control, and skill alone will not always constitute a won round. It’s a core tenet of stoic philosophy - you're at the whim of random number generation deciding whether or not you get to act this turn or not. If you can accept that, you'll come to know Ironcast as the best Match-3 game on the market, that's not another dating sim or smut.
The premise of Ironcast is simple: complete as many objectives as you can in preparation for the big boss fight. The objectives don't necessarily involve combat, or killing your opponent. Some involve diplomacy - as in, choosing the right dialogue options - others are about preserving gear to use as your own, or collecting specific gems, or surviving an enemy attack.
The gem board is naturally where most action happens. Both combat and movement involve collecting resources within a 3-turn span before the enemy gets to play their own. There is an exception to this rule: getting an extra turn after defeating an enemy, when fighting multiple ones is possible. The board is bezeled in fashionable Victorian-esque decorations, and the Steampunk mechs are placed opposite of eachother waiting to act their moves out accordingly.
Ammo gems (purple) let you fire your weapons, two of which can be carried at a time. The weapons should preferably serve two different purposes, i.e. one to take down shields, another to damage exposed enemy subsystems. The weapon variety is fairly poor, however the types that do exist get the job done. It is often better to soften up a shielded target with a laser or a missile, then pepper it with machine gun fire or flak.
The weapon tiers vary solely based on stats, and scale linearly as the game progresses. This means you cannot get worse weapons than the tier you've last obtained, but also can’t get better ones, or sell ones you don't need. The ammunition type also does not correlate to the kind of damage it can do - energy weapons are not especially effective against shields, and projectile weapons are not especially useful against hull, like FTL led you to believe.
Energy gems (orange) power your defensive countermeasures. By default, Ironcast need to be fueled or powered each turn to keep them moving or shielded. There are 3 tiers to each measure, giving exponentially better evasion or damage reduction. Shields are surprisingly capable, however in the lategame it is usually better to spec into evasion, as it has a chance to completely negate damage rather than soften it.
Repair gems (green) allow repairs of specific subsystems, which is a nice segue into talking about how health works. Each Ironcast has its drive, its shield, and its two weapon modules. Each part can be targeted to deactivate its accompanying function, as well as damage the overall HP of the mech. Once overall HP reaches 0, the mech dies. Other than two abilities, there is no active healing in the game, it has to be done in the hangar between each op.
Therein lies the biggest source of player agency in the game - choosing what systems to target on enemy mechs, or repair on their own. It's also where it’s most evident the AI cheats - it will be able to repair damaged systems no matter what, and then activate them immediately, sometimes leading to a stalemate; that said, if you manage to get the AI to repair, it will likely not attack (to simulate a limited resource board), and so the cheating is not blatantly obvious.
Coolant gems (blue) allow to use other resources and modules, as each action (bar repairs) consumes coolant in addition to its main gem. Running out of coolant means your Ironcast will be overheating, and taking incremental damage to its systems and hull. You might have enough ammo or energy to power up, but can you afford the cooling? It's a nice additional layer of resource management and decision-making to top the basic system play off.
To account for the restriction, the coolant pool is the largest for each Ironcast, and there are plenty of means to regain coolant that aren’t collecting the resource from the board. This allows for certain flexibility while balancing the ammo and energy systems so that players have to choose between playing defensively or offensively against different types of opponents.
Finally, scrap gems (yellow) do not have an immediate effect on the battlefield, but serve as looted currency that allows to potentially purchase new gear. It’s also used to repair the mech in the hangar, or improve resource quotas. The implementation of the currency system is restrictive, probably for balancing reasons; without collecting scrap, you will not be able to purchase a single weapon, or worse, be forced to spend all money on repairs without progress.
There are also unique gems that do not belong to any one pool. Overload gems (white) empower your next action, like firing an extra shot from a weapon, or gaining extra evasion from activating the drive. Without those, systems have a default overload chance of 5%. They can also act as a bridge between two nodes of the same resource. Link gems allow to create multi-colored chains, and are where most turn efficiency and optimization comes from.
You can attempt to keep Link or Overload nodes to prepare for a big chain, however those take precious space away from more useful resources, and so another aspect of decision-making is introduced into the game. Should you keep the gems for later, or clear the board now to make space? Moments where you get to make these decisions are where the game truly shines.
The AI you fight is well-balanced, in the sense it lets you play the game instead of immediately obliterating you. It is given leniency so that it doesn’t target each subsystem until it is destroyed, like the player is likely to do. It manages to spread damage evenly among subsystems and gives you a fighting chance as you are not immediately immobilized or de-shielded, then annihilated without a way out of the situation.
Another source of player agency comes from Ironcast abilities. The abilities are the safety net of the player from losing runs to RNG, which is what makes the AI "cheating" acceptable. Using them does not cost a turn or resources, and is where skill and game knowledge come into play - as choosing the right Passives and Actives are crucial for reaching the endgame.
The Passives range from less resource consumption, to better damage or gun accuracy, to an increased chance of certain gems appearing. Frankly, some effects are marginal, but they still grant tangible means with which to progress your gear. Actives make or break runs, and getting one ability can change the tide of battle. Since the AI cannot use skills or abilities, its mechs get much more health, and stronger weaponry, eventually rivaling those of bosses.
Each player Ironcast starts with one unique Active, and can gain more upon leveling up. These abilities can change gems to other gems, collect all type of gem on the board, or siphon resources from the enemy cargo hold. The most useful abilities are often ones that enable you to fire an extra shot at no cost, or to ignore shields, or to have shots not miss for a turn.
They're a contributing factor to the replayability of the game, otherwise weakened by the same missions appearing in every run, a limited selection of mechs, and limited guns to use against them. Admittedly, a disappointing amount of content for a Roguelite, however a completionist would certainly get their money’s worth.
Not many games embrace RNG the way Ironcast does, giving you just enough control over the battlefield to make the experience tolerable. RNG can work in your favor, or in favor of the AI, it's truly one chaotic ordeal - where a 5% chance to overload can decide whether an hour-long run lives or dies. An enjoyable one at that, too, provided you embrace the consequences.
Steam User 4
This game makes me profoundly sad. The presentation is superb, the theme is fantastic, and the story itself is excellent. In terms of story pacing, it's a masterpiece, with incredible execution on the "you thought this was going to be the final boss?" genre. In terms of game pacing, it's a horrific mess, and it truly does upset me every time I find a game that would only take a few minor tweaks to be functionally perfect. I overall enjoyed the game through to the actual ending, and on that basis I'm satisfied with recommending it; perhaps my mistake was in choosing to 100% the achievements, specifically the slog that just requires you to grind XP from playing the game. The extra time put in for that really highlights the flaws with the game's mechanics, and while many reviews make similar complaints, there's one thing I want to expand on that I don't think anyone else has.
Let's talk about Pokemon games though, just for a minute. In the oldest Pokemon games, the simplest Pokemon games in terms of mechanics, the enemy AI was similarly quite simple. For the most part the AI would just use a random move, with only a few extra conditions thrown in (don't use a status effect move if the enemy has a status, for example), and the most "advanced" AIs would prioritize super-effective moves, which could often be exploited to cheese them. But as years went by, the mechanics of the game became more complex, therefore the strategies became more complex, therefore the AIs themselves became much more complex. AIs would consider more and more things with every generation, early examples wouldn't even swap Pokemon until you KO'd them, but it's a regular thing for them to do now if they're in a bad matchup.
The reason I tell this story is because Ironcast has fundamentally extremely simple mechanics, but the AI is quite intelligent - the AI is too advanced for the game. The clearest example of what I mean here is the way enemies choose what weapons to shoot you with: if you have shields higher than one of their weapons' damage per shot, they won't fire it. For example, if you have 30 shields and their weapon does 22 damage, they won't waste ammo shooting at you. But then they'll merrily shoot you with their 100+ damage weapon instead, dealing a substantial 70. If you instead had 20 shields, suddenly that first weapon can still do damage to you, and there's a chance they'll fire it instead, and maybe deal about 10 damage after all their shots. This doesn't lead to advanced tactics like a modern Pokemon game would, it means that your best chances of survival could be to play less effectively just because the AI is more advanced than the game's systems can handle. Another aspect of this is that the enemies have virtually zero sense of self-preservation - if you destroy all of the enemy's subsystems, you might think that should mean you are pretty safe for the next turn, except the AI will ALWAYS repair their weapon systems before anything else, and then they'll blast you with them. At least if you left one of their defensive systems on, they might use their resources activating it instead of using their resources to shoot you with a weapon.
I genuinely believe this game would be dramatically more fun if the AI's priorities were actually just random, instead of reacting to what you did. The result of the current situation is that you're just always getting shot with huge single-shot weapons that your shields will never save you from and your Dodge will never be high enough to compensate for. Many other complaints people make are very accurate as well: the enemy scaling in particular is ludicrous, with enemies appearing fully-kitted out with Mk3 systems long before you've even had the opportunity to get one for yourself (To add insult to injury, right before the game starts throwing Mk3 systems at you, you receive a mission to acquire "advanced tech" from an enemy - you're forced to play in a particular way to get it, and you're given a Mk2 system, just in time to be completely outclassed). The meta-progression is fine for this kind of game, but the actual unlocks are completely absurd, with the typical one being a 2% increase in this or that - I can imagine how disheartening it is to be struggling against the game for so long that you keep accruing levelups, but the unlocks are so pathetic that they're not exactly encouraging you to keep trying. And the game stutters like crazy, no matter how good your system is.
And lastly, the DLC to this game is functionally pay to win - just looking at the screenshots, the Windsor pack is objectively the best character and mech choice in the game, except it's not in the game. I wish I could recommend this game wholeheartedly, and our timeline is only a few degrees of separation away from one where I can, but instead my conclusion is only "If you think you'll enjoy it, you probably will, but it's a safe pass if you're not sure."
Steam User 2
Why is this game so fun lol its pretty hard too but surprisingly a very good time very glad i tried it!
Steam User 1
Superb game. Wasn't expecting much from a free random key giveaway but I can say I truly hit the jackpot. Very fun and certainly another great little game to bolster my enthusiasm towards match-3 games made with real passion. I would pay for it even though I didn't, and may end up doing so, I want to gift this to some of my friends.
Steam User 1
Fun little rogue lite match 3 game. Very steampunkish and has a lot of cool upgrades and unlocks.
Steam User 1
TIPS TO START ON THE RIGHT FOOT :)
- Early on you'll want to focus more on shields than your evasion, Even when the enemy comes with high damage energy weapons having high shields will mitigate a good percentage of that damage. Also taking out said high damage weapon is a good way to render the enemy unable to do damage to you.
- Drawing out the fight as long as you can so you can get extra matchs from the board, more matches leads to more scrap and XP which means you will have more abilities+more health to take on the final boss. That said be sure you have the situation under control before you attempt this otherwise the extra damage you take (and thus have to repair) will undermine the point of drawing out the fight!
- Conversely you want to have a high Evasion stat as get closer to end game as it'll be near impossible to mitigate every little bit of damage. By the time you reach this point you'll hopefully have both a good shield AND a good drive system so you should be using both in tandem anyway.
- The game is much more luck based than any other Rogue-like out there, there will be times where you simply cannot win due to how your gems fall or your enemy simply got good luck and hit you through your 40% evade chance while you coulden't get a hit in because the bastard is able to keep both his shield and evasion maxed for 6 turns straight. Try not to get to frustrated although it'll probably happen.
- The best general use pilots are the first (Powell) and last (Kylock) as they let you manipulate how much energy you need to active your shields and drive systems.The best general use Ironcast is actually the first one (Dunraven) if you want to think of it in the Faster Than Light sense you start with the Kestral thinking "wow i want to use these other ships, they look cool!" but then after using them you find out "oh wait, the Kestrel is probably one of the best ships in the game!" Kylock in particular can be a beast if you get the ability that lets you change nodes to energy then use that to max out your evasion early on in a fight for super cheap.
- Whenever possible, your first turn should accomplish the following, in descending order of importance: Bring up at least two levels of shield, get an overdrive, fill up your ammo, fill up your energy, fill up your repair.
- Whether or not you make that massive 10+ symbol match should depend on how confident you are that you can win in the next turn or two without the wasted resources. If you can, the extra XP is great. If not, you're probably better splitting it into two matches.
- Try to keep your shield at maximum at all times. Just about every mission gives you plenty of time to play defensively, which will save you a lot of scrap in the long run.
- Sometimes, waiting to fire for a turn to let your opponent's shields lower a bit is the right move. Especially if their shield's in overdrive.
- Don't bother wasting energy on your drive until you're getting at least 10% dodge chance per level.
- Scrap should always be used first to repair first, then only after build parts.
- Don't waste scrap on building a part unless it's either rare or at least two ranks above your current. The exception is for even halfway decent Dense Shields, which are worth their weight in gold.
- Survival missions are never worth it.
- Passive perks that reduce resource usage or give you more are almost always the best option. I'm especially fond of the "1 free coolant per turn" one.
- Active perks are much more about personal play style, but Ammo Leech is never a bad choice.
- Rapid fire weapons have way higher average damage, but single shot weapons are necessary to punch through shields. Always have one of each, ideally in whatever type (energy or projectile) that your character is best with.
- Don't forget that you can target specific areas by clicking the little crosshair on the right. Generally, your targeting order should be something like Shields > Single shot weapon(s) > Armor > Drive > Other.
- As an exception to the above, when fighting a boss, aim for shields and their highest average damage weapon. Don't bother shooting at anything else.
- Salvage missions always give you a free part or HP boost if you succeed, at the cost of limiting your targeting and weapon choices.
- The second ironcast has a very good ability, especially paired with the first pilot, and together they're a very good choice for a new player.
ENJOY THIS GREAT GAME!