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ORX’s compelling mix of deckbuilding and tower defence is 100% my jamRTS turtlers, take note
RTS turtlers, take note
Medieval city builders that pit you against enormous waves of enemies are clearly having a bit of a moment right now. In the last few months alone, we’ve endured the cursed nights ofAge Of Darkness: Final Stand, called down sky lasers on the hordes ofDiplomacy Is Not An Option, and now we’ve gotORX, a dark fantasy tower defence game that blows all of them out of their ditch water moats with its compelling mix of deckbuilding and real-time strategy. It’s not out in full just yet, but its demo got a substantial update this week, adding more levels and a bunch of game-changing cards to the mix that are well worth making a return trip for if you’ve only ever played the original half-hour version from 2020. I’ve lost several evenings to it already, and lemme tall ya, RTS turtlers have never had it so good.
ORX - New Demo Trailer (April 2022)Watch on YouTube
ORX - New Demo Trailer (April 2022)
You see, until those wall gaps are all plugged and filled, your defences are non-existent. Simple four-wall castles can come together pretty quickly, but their meagre size means they won’t have a lot of HP to withstand the incoming orc hordes. Provided you don’t close it in with surrounding roads, you can always expand them outwards with more walls later on to increase their size and bank of HP, but it’s risky when you’ve got so many compass points to defend. Orcs will invade from any angle, and while icons on the map will give you a rough idea of where they’ll be coming from, it’s all a constant battle of quality versus quantity. Do you take your time building a giant, weird mega castle whose can stop orc hordes in their tracks, or do you just go for lots of small mini forts and hope for the best? A lot of it comes down to the cards you’re dealt, of course, but cor is it thrilling.
Orcs raids are on a fixed timer, but the day always turns to night when they eventually pitch up in their hundreds.
If all that wasn’t enough, your hunger for gold and orc blood will also increase your ‘corruption’ bar at the end of each level, with your green foes forcing an increasing number of orc spells and curse cards into your deck to work against you. Playing these cards will make the orc waves harder to beat (which is where a sneaky redraw can sometimes come in handy), but sometimes you’ll find yourself playing it anyway just to get the card that’s coming next. It all makes for a thriving, feverish mix of real-time strategy chaos, and I’ve ended up falling into that ‘just one more go’ loop more times than I can count this week.
If that sounds like your cup of green tea, then you, too, can try ORX for free right now over onSteam. The new demo is pretty sizeable – I’ve played it for several hours this week and haven’t managed to conquer the final boss yet – so it should give you a pretty good idea of what’s to come when it launches in full later this year.
