This month has been a little lighter, Real-Time Stratember and themed months in general are pretty busy so it’s nice to take it a little slower. I’ve mostly avoided big budget blockbusters and prioritised games from smaller indie teams. I’m no stranger to indie titles and outside of being a backlog slayer, the Steam Deck was made for indie games. It’s about time I started highlighting some of them. So, starting today I’m kicking off a new ongoing series: The Indie Spotlight. This series will feature reviews, previews and general thoughts about new, old and upcoming indie titles. To get things started, I was invited to the playtest for an upcoming indie title which I’ve been putting some time into over the last few days. Anvira: Forge Defense is a tower defense roguelite and if you’ve been around Dad with a Deck for a while, you might have caught my thoughts on roguelites earlier this year. I don’t usually dabble in tower defense either, but when the developer SakrSoft took the time to contact me directly, I thought I’d put my differences with these genres aside and give it a neutral, unbiased run. They caught me at the right time. I was a bit between games after wrapping up Real-Time Stratember and, for whatever reason, I’ve been putting off Metal Gear Solid 4. Well, let’s dive in.
Anvira: Forge Defense is an upcoming title from SakrSoft due to release on October 30th. It’s a tower defense roguelite, with a heavy reliance on strategy. Fundamentally, this game is about surviving endless waves of goblins and monsters. But under that initial, core setup, which is hauntingly reminiscent of Plants vs. Zombies, Anvira is far more meticulously detailed than your standard lane defender. It has a much deeper strategic layer and provides a genuine sense of accomplishment when you manage to just scrape by in the later levels. Instead of your standard static turrets, you’re deploying elemental golems, crushing in screen-clearing spells and utilising run-altering relics to create some completely absurd builds. What actually took me off guard, as I sunk hours into this playtest, was just how much I enjoyed the progression loop. Usually I hate roguelites, thanks Splintered Fate, but what SakrSoft has implemented here is a tiered, branching upgrade system that works incredibly well. It also gives you the flexibility to chop and change your loadout, even save a combination of different builds. I think what really hooked me is that unlike traditional roguelites, you can update those builds on the fly. Not mid-run, but before you kick off so you change gears as needed. Make no mistake, you’ll absolutely have runs where you’ll straight up wipe and have to completely rethink your strategy, but that is exactly what makes those level-by-level tactical adjustments feel so rewarding.
When it comes time to dive into the actual runs, the amount of freedom you have to experiment with your loadout is pretty unreal. You’re not just placing generic, static towers. You’re mixing elemental golems, hard-hitting spells and high risk but maybe high reward relics to handle a surprisingly vast roster of enemies. One wave you might have a bunch of assassins slipping right past your frontline and the next you’re fumbling the bag trying to stop fast-running monsters that’ll rip through your base before you can even blink. Topped off with huge lumbering trolls that’ll just eat any damage you throw at them. Because of that variety, a one-size-fits-all approach just never cuts it. Unless you’re revisiting earlier levels on lower difficulties. Oh yeah, you can replay every level and pump up the difficulty to earn even more Anvillium (the main meta currency). Five times the enemies? What could possibly go wrong. You can choose to dump everything into beefy tanks with heavy electricity, cold or fire damage or completely ignore traditional defenses and opt for a no tank build in a game of the floor is lava by relying on abilities supercharged by relics. Win or lose, it feels like you’re always pushing forward and you’re not stuck with the usual rigid skill-trees like most traditional roguelites. Again, you’re not locked into your build and that way you can just tear it all down, or make a few adjustments, to completely pivot your strategy and come back swinging even harder in the next run.
SakrSoft pitched this to me as a Steam Deck compatible title and while it’s incredibly close to release, there is a clear lack of button prompts specific to handhelds or controllers. I could be wrong, but I’d assume that maybe that’ll come in a later update. Honestly, that’s basically my only nitpick and it wasn’t a huge deal for me. I’ve been glued to this thing using purely my right trackpad and having a great time with it. You can absolutely move around using the joystick or d-pad along with the face buttons and the team even put the hard yards in by including a detailed, official custom layout with descriptions for each button. While I didn’t find it always worked the best for my personal playstyle, it’s a nice touch for an indie team to make that available from the get-go. Outside of those missing prompts, Anvira runs perfectly on the Steam Deck. It scales well and the fully hand-drawn artwork, which I’m all about, looks incredible on the OLED screen. The individual models for the golems, goblins and assorted monsters are excellent and the spell and attack effects when the screen is full to the brim with chaos are all hits. After pouring hours into the playtest, am I enjoying Anvira: Forge Defense enough to backflip on my claim that I hate roguelites? …Nah. I just don’t hate this one. Kudos to you, SakrSoft. I think their specific take on the genre is particularly enjoyable and there’s plenty here to enjoy. If your build stinks you can just tear it all down, no harm no foul. Then, you can go in a completely different direction.
LONG LIVE THE INDIE SPOTLIGHT. Indies are killing it, seriously. Anvira: Forge Defense launches on Steam on October 30th. If my insane ramblings haven’t convinced you to step outside your genre comfort zone yet, SakrSoft has a free demo live right now on Steam. Download it. Download it now. See if you can break the game with an unkillable army of golems of your very own. Huge thanks to Aly and the team at SakrSoft for reaching out and giving me a crack at the playtest, it’s been an absolute blast and one hell of a way to launch this new series. Are you thinking about giving it a shot yourself? Let me know in the comments, yell at me on social media, send me some unhinged hatemail, but whatever you do: toss Anvira: Forge Defense on your Steam Wishlist. See you in the next spotlight.
Leave a Reply