This is the second time I’ve written this week’s Game of the Week. The game has remained the same, though. That’s the first part of the trick. Our game this week is, of course, Timemelters, by Autoexec. It’s the spiritual sequel to one of my all time favourites, Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves.
In both games you play a version of tower defence that’s enlivened by unusual powers and unusual weaknesses. You have to protect something from hordes of enemies, and you usually know which path they’re going to take. So far, so tower defence. But you can plant traps, and lure enemies off the path. And weirder stuff too. In Sang-Froid you can kite wolves using your scent. In Timemelters, you’re a witch and you can record previous lives and fight alongside their echoes, doubling, tripling, quadrupling your attacks.
And those weaknesses? In Sang-Froid, you’re simply slow and a bit feeble. You’re a lumberjack with an axe, but the axe is heavy to swing and your stamina doesn’t last forever. In Timemelters you’re the epitome of a glass canon: so much power, but only one HP. You can’t take any damage at all.