Tryst Review

Futuristic real-time strategy games have always been popular. Games like Starcraft and Supreme Commander have build up up a massive fanbase and competitions for real-time strategy games are becoming popular everywhere. In South-Korea futuristic real-time strategy games are so popular matches between people who play these type of games for  a living are streamed live on television.

I wonder if the game we are looking at today will get a bit of that popularity. Tryst, a real-time strategy developed by Bluegiant Interactive, certainly looks promising and after you played the game for a while it’s hard to believe a small indie team has managed to pull of something like this. In this futuristic war game up to 8 players can battle it out in on several maps, blasting each others units away.

In Tryst there are two races. While I would have liked more races to choose from, the factions have been worked out in-depth. The two races are: the humans, who have evolved over the past years and use the latest technology to defend the world against incoming threats like aliens, and the Zali, an alien race that is best described as a machine-type, intelligent life form. In my opinion the Zali is the most interesting to play, because they have the ability to merge units together into one stronger units. Features like this make the game a very tactical strategy game which is quite enjoyable to play once you get the hang of it.

Tryst supports multiplayer with online servers, meaning you can look online for games any time, and battle it out in a teamplay or a free-for-all match. Player can choose to to play 1 vs 1, but the game allows up to 8 people in a game, resulting in a total chaos that requires fast thinking if you don’t want to be crushed in the first minutes of the game. As mentioned before the races have been thought out well and are well balanced in my opinion. Both sides can build various structures and fight it out with infantry, heavy armored vehicles or flying phenomenons. Some of these units come along with their own special abilities, allowing you to play stealthy or aggressively, depending on how you’re going to make use of these abilities. Resource management is key in this game, as this allows you to expand your base and creates more units. An interesting feature is the ability to steal one of your opponents generators, allowing you to gain more electricity then one of your opponents. Basically you’re busy expanding your base while keeping as many generators protected as possible in the meantime. You can even share a generator with an ally if you wish to do so, making the game a very tactical and fun strategy game.

The maps have certain environmental hazards, requiring quick thinking. For example a generator could be on a piece of the map that is covered in lava, making the capture of a generator a quite risky choice. The game comes with a bunch of steam achievements which are can be obtained by performing various objectives, ranging from not losing a teammate in battle to using a unit’s ability a specific amount of times. While there is a limited amount of preset maps the game has a map editor, allowing the player to create their own worlds. The online matchmaking service and leaderboards allows clans to take each other on head-to-head, making this indie production very enjoyable for the more competitive player.

The graphics aren’t too great. While the game looks far from horrible, it cannot compete with similar games when it comes to graphics. The textures aren’t rough and the movement of the units is quite smooth, but in general the game looks like it could have been brought out a few years ago, giving the player a feeling of playing a mixture of the first Starcraft and Red Alert (I have to admit this is quite an enjoyable feeling). The ingame sound is reasonable, but nothing spectacular, although the game does come with a nice ingame soundtrack that makes your blood pump.

Apart from playing multiplayer the player has the option to play against the computer in skirmish mode or play the human or zali campaign. I would recommend playing the campaign mode out first, because the missions slowly require you build more structures and units, giving the game a slight easier learning curve. The story of the game isn’t anything special, but it does have some fun features. For example, in the first mission there are two bases under attack and you only get to choose one to save, giving the player an uncomfortable feeling knowing a complete tribe has just been murdered out. However, features like these do make the game more enjoyable and can even give the campaign modes some longevity.

In skirmish one can battle it out against the computer on the following difficulties: easy, normal and hard. While you have a little time to build your base in easy mode, hard mode really is hard, and being crushed within the first five minutes of the game is no exception.

Despite the fact the graphics aren’t amazing and there are only two playable races, the game provides a fun experience for any person who likes playing real-time strategy games. Bluegiant Interactive has done an amazing job creating a tactical wargame. I would certainly recommend the game to everyone, because it has some nice features and offers an excellent multiplayer service. So gather your resources, build those structures and start blasting and I hope I see you in one of the game rooms.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.