Black Powder Red Earth 12+

Beautiful game. HUGE missed opportunity (over 1 billion iPhones in the wild)

✅ Four ⭐️’s because it’s an amazing game. Straight raw tactics.. LOVE IT!

Get shot once, you dead. No skill tree, no base building, just you and the deadly scenarios that’s always RNG based. Hardcore tactical - Think.. The Banner Saga or Dark Souls if it was tactical.

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WHAT PREVENTS FIVE STAR:

❌ 1/2 star off —> for not making available on iPhone.

❌ 1/2 star off —> for not making the screen wider so game is easier to see (you have the game set inside a 4:3 or whatever black bar cinema type box) I’m on iPad mini, this weird set up you have, makes it hard to read the words and see the characters. Make this beautiful game full screen please.

Man I want to love this game but there are a lot of quality of life issues this game has. The tutorial covers the basics and that was helpful but there is no way to anticipate what the enemies can do or what movements they have or how you might defend against various attacks. There are key triggers like the triangle icon or “guns up” events that seem to trigger at random no matter what conditions I try and recreate. Also having a turn limit keeps me from all “discovery” I might do to try and teach myself the mechanics. This game needs polish and the game in its current form seems appropriate for ‘hard’ or ‘advanced’ mode. I want to love this game but the behavior loop is almost non-existent. My real advice is to take a look at Nir Eyal’s “hook model” and try to take a look at your behavior loop as a design issue. I want to love this game but I just don’t. Good luck folks.

Title is the best way to describe the game play in my experience. I love the bit-style animations and colors. Gameplay is stressful and tense in my case, but the UI needs some work in my mind. Cell call and drone strike both don’t have back buttons, so be careful not to fat-finger a selection. Great concept, and I can’t wait to see where it goes!