Tom Sparks and the Quakes of Ruin is a game developed by Tasty Poison Games, a company who has only made iOS and Android games prior and are trying to make their first PC and possibly Wii-U game. Trying to gain funding from Kickstarter, and sadly falling short at $2,219 of their $50,000 goal, will this indie developer company be able to make a game worth the purchase?
Story
The demo starts off with our hero crashing down into a cave after an earthquake, which he says “thumper” should have prevented. You must make your way out of the cave and repair the machine that is malfunctioning to complete the level. There isn’t much besides this main objective in the demo.
The level will last you about 20minutes, but you can play from the beginning with all the blueprints and weapons you had at the end so you can rush through again and try and upgrade your weapons to their highest level.
Gameplay
Tom Sparks is a top down, Adventure shooter game that has a very similar feel to Diablo or Torchlight with a heavier focus on ranged gunplay over melee. You can get up close with your wrench to hit your enemies with a 3 hit combo or shoot them from afar, or close in the case of shotgun, with various different weapons. The guns are your friend in this game it seems as the melee combat is slow and leaves you open to attack, whereas you can dodge incoming projectiles when firing from a distance.
As you fight enemies your ranged weapon gains experience and level up, increasing their damage, range, ammo capacity and fire rate. The first 3 levels are achieved pretty quickly but require vast amounts of shots to be fired before levelling anymore then that but feels rather satisfying when a gun’s fire rate skyrockets after the grinding.
When defeating enemies or cracking open containers you will get scrap and bolts that can be used to craft ammo and weapons from blueprints you find hidden around and at specific parts of the map. There is also health crystals found in crystals found within the cave. Though the pickups are welcome they have a tendency to be shot out of the container they are within, sometimes allowing them to fall of the side of cliffs and bridges meaning you lose out on half of the spoils.
Overall Thoughts and Feelings
The short section the Alpha Demo showed off was overall a fun experience and well presented with nice looking visuals and sounds. While the music didn’t stand out it is still early on in the game development so I am hoping to see more of a focus on the audio of Tom Sparks. The enemies and containers are clearly recognizable against the main character which makes it easy to identify amongst the chaos of battle or when looking for more items.
The game follows a Diesel Punk style which is refreshing to see since the “Punk” styles have seen a decline in recent years, albeit the ones produced are higher quality. You can see pipes and fuel pumping all over the cave, along with carts and crystals that really add to the aesthetic feel of the level, though the stereotypical Big Spiders pull down the area for it’s uniqueness.
While this early build looks promising the game did fail in its Kickstarter so I am unsure on how they would go about funding the rest of the development. The game shows promise and if you’re into this genre of game I do urge you to consider keeping an eye and ear out for it.
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