Convoy, a self-proclaimed rogue like tactical game riding an ever growing wave of nostalgia, for the dying 2D action adventure games; the developers of this game got its inspiration from Mad Max and Faster than Light taking a chunk out of both games for the vehicle like combat and gameplay. First impressions of this game were quite good, it seems like one I would personally enjoy if a lot if the features were fleshed out a bit more. But obviously that’s the whole concept of an early alpha that development will come. Previews can be tricky, because you’re not reviewing the game and you can’t comment properly on some of things that the games do wrong because development isn’t finished or even close to being finished. So for previews I like to ask myself, what can the game bring to the table? Well I’m not sure it will resuscitate the 2D action adventure but, it’s definitely a game that will prosper under the Indie light.
To start, even as an early alpha you are instantly given choices. You can pick which Convoy you would like and what attack you would like on your Convoy and it does this well. Once you’ve picked your vehicles and ventured into the unknown you are given an ultimate goal. You need to find four items which bare some relevance to actual story and gameplay. These items are spread across a huge 2D map, filled with bandits and evil corporations like the ones you find in Bond movies and real life. So I am fired into the combat like an unaware cannonball as I desperately try to figure out what the hell I am doing. Once I figured out the combat the game began to flow a lot more fluidly, I met bandits and once I knew what I was doing I managed to win on numerous occasions. I do have to comment on the difficulty curve somewhat, because there isn’t one. You start on Mount Everest and don’t move. You stay there, the whole game. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a game that has difficulty and that doesn’t hold the players hand but it feels like Convoy not only doesn’t hold your hand; it mauls you, cuts your hands off and then leaves you for dead. But I digress, moving back onto the subject of combat. I can taste a hint of strategy and tactics in this game, especially with combat, because you only have two combat units and sometimes there are three bandits or henchmen and you have find a way to keep your convoy from being too heavily damaged.
Let’s talk about the core of the game. It feels almost like an RPG, with upgrades that can be found scattered around in the 2D game world. New weapons are good because you need to always keep an edge over your opponent in this game, remember what I mentioned early about the difficulty curve? So the story and quests lines are quite good even for alpha, doing anything has a text explanation where you can make certain choices, sometimes they can be educated guesses as your engineers on board chip in on what they think the convoy should do and sometimes you can just take your chances. The structure of the quests in this game is a little bit like; one huge ultimate goal and then glued to this goal is loads of little side-quests or exploration and combat. I like the way this game sets out its story, there is always something to strive for and if the developers where to flesh the story aspects and quest lines out a little bit more it would be quite absorbing. So of course the game isn’t just linear corridors in which you are forced down at gunpoint. The game lets you take the reins a little bit and I think that’s what the developers went for and a game like that really benefits from the player being in charge of what they want to happen.
In my opinion, this game is a good idea and I’d love for the developers to really go for this game, it would suit the Indie genre and even for an alpha it seems pretty good already. This game can bring a lot of things to the table such as, a well crafted quests system, a well crafted story and decision making system and difficult streamline combat. Of course there is a lot more to come yet, and I look forward!
Check out the Kickstarter campaign for Convoy here – www.kickstarter.com/projects/1248554329/convoy-a-tactical-roguelike-like