Card-Based Fights in Tight Spaces - card-based tactical melee combat

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Nortar]

In my opinion, it looked way better when all the enemies where red, or at least the same color.
Now it has lost some of it's edgy style and started to look too parroty.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Infinitron]

Coming December 2nd:

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...al-secret-agent-beat-em-up-thats-almost-there

Fights in Tight Spaces review - a strategical secret agent beat-'em-up that's almost there
A bit James Bland.

It's a great concept, and it's perfectly enjoyable, but it lacks the excitement and flourishes it needs to really come alive.

Fights in Tight Spaces is a turn-based recreation of those moments in spy films, or any kind of action film really, where the hero is suddenly surrounded in an enclosed area and there can't possibly be any way out. Except there obviously is, through a carefully choreographed fight scene, in which we get to see just how hard our hero is. They swirl around, a blur of arms and elbows, and all of a sudden enemies are punching each other and looking very confused, and a gun goes off, and someone's fighting with a towel for some reason, and then the scene ends in stillness as the hero stands triumphant amid bodies strewn around them. It's textbook stuff.

In Fights in Tight Spaces, you're that hero, a smartly dressed agent working for some James Bond-like organisation trying to take down some criminal organisations. And you have an impressive array of moves up your sleeve. You can leap off walls to propel attacks, you can roll over enemies while acrobatically taking them down, and you can smash heads into scenery. You can even jump-kick enemies either side of you, which is something I've always wanted to be able to do but I always end up kicking the television.

Exactly what your agent can do depends on your deck, for this is a deck-building game. There are a couple of ways of approaching this: build your own, or choose a pre-made deck and add to it as you play, upgrading the cards or removing them as you see fit, at stops along the way. You move through a map while stopping to fight, tinker with cards, heal, and risk random events. These pre-made decks are good by the way, built around themes like Aggressive, which I really like (it has the Wall Punch) or Slasher, which plays on the Bleed debuff. Crucially, these premade decks don't leave you short in really important areas like movement and defence, because it's not all about attack.

Fights in Tight Spaces is easily as much about getting out of harm's way as it is harming enemies. You don't have much health and it doesn't regenerate between fights, and you only have one life (on most of the difficulty levels - there are some easier modes with level-restart options). A good player conscientiously attacks while making sure they're not going to be hit in return.

In many ways, it's all about wriggling free, because the real puzzle of the game comes from negotiating safety while being surrounded by enemies in very "tight spaces", as the title says. As an idea of how claustrophobic it gets: the smallest play area I've seen was a grid of 3x3 squares, where I occupied one, and two enemies occupied others.

Fortunately, you have some inventive ways to get yourself out of trouble. Yes you have standard movement cards to move one or two squares one way or another, but better cards involve manipulating your enemy either at the same time, or instead. For instance, Shift allows you to step through an enemy to their rear, and leaves them facing the same way, usually ensuring you not only stride free of danger but you now blindside them for repercussion-free attacks. Or better yet, Grapple moves your enemy to an adjacent square around you, and faces them in that direction, which is really handy if you just want to pick them up and plonk them in harm's way instead of you. That's the real skill: putting them in trouble while you wriggle free.

See what I mean about 'tight spaces?'


Equally satisfying is booting them out of bounds, whether that be through an open door or over the side of a building - there are almost always breachable boundaries on a level. And doing this results in an instant kill, which means it's incredibly useful as enemies get tougher, and as lieutenants and bosses appear. I once killed a boss in two moves - two Front-kicks - hoofing them over the edge of a building, and because it was a boss, the battle ended there with a big score bonus for me (scores are only used as bragging rights as far as I can tell, but there are some bonus monetary rewards when meeting certain requirements, one of which is speed of completion).

But some enemies cannot be pushed, and some will face you as you dance around them, scuppering your plans to have them all facing - and hitting - away from you at the end of the turn. They will also increasingly gain special abilities of their own. And it's of the utmost importance you read these (by cursoring over them) because lapses in concentration can cost you your entire run in only a turn or two. Poof! Two hours of playtime sacrificed for one silly mistake. I've done it many times and it really stings. Concentration here is everything.

You can, however, skip straight to latter levels when you replay (there are four proper levels bookended by a tutorial and fancy final stage), but doing so means you miss out on all the upgrades along the way. To have the best chance at winning, you need to play from the start. This, however, becomes wearisome.

There are few things which contribute to this feeling, I think. One, runs can take a long time, so to have it all undone so quickly leads, naturally, to a lot of frustration, which isn't easily shaken. It's particularly annoying when you lose because of something that could be tuned slightly better in the game, such as the ability to see (when you currently cannot) enemy turn-order. When you deal in the fine margins Fights in Tight Spaces does, every detail matters.

Two, most of the levels aren't that interesting to play. They get better, but there's a lot of repetition and many of them can feel quite robotic, and as though you're slogging through them to get somewhere rather than enjoying them in their own right. And from this comes a feeling of laboriousness as you try again.

That's not to say there's no enjoyment in going back through, because even at a base level, Fights in Tight Spaces is engrossing, and there's always a thrill in taking care of a battle expeditiously. But what I really find myself longing for is another layer of attention, of decoration, of exuberance - something to increase the joy in playing it again and again. As it stands, it can be quite mechanical.

Wham! Have some of that!

This is a wonderful subject matter after all, spies and hand-to-hand combat. Why is it so quiet when enemies are fighting, then? There's no bickering as they battle, no one-liners from the agent as they prevail. And why aren't there more props, be they special agent gadgets or pick-ups on the levels? Levels are just empty, and quiet, and it's weird (although the final stage is much glitzier and does involve a lot of talking).

I also wouldn't mind if the moves were dialled up a bit, to make you feel even more powerful, and the Enhancements, the permanent buffs you collect. It's as though everything needs an injection of more: more speed and more oomph, more over-the-topness. Even the sped-up replays you can watch at the end of a battle feel a bit unexciting, a bit flat.

Because of all this, Fights in Tight Spaces struggles in a battle all of its own: to convince you to play again. And it's a key battleground the core design of the game is based on. It's so close, so nearly there. But as it stands it's a bit like a cake without icing: perfectly edible and enjoyable, but not all it probably could be.

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/fights-in-tight-spaces-review/

FIGHTS IN TIGHT SPACES REVIEW
Think with your fists.

Smashing an armed goon’s head against the wall before launching his buddy out of a third story window doesn’t sound particularly strategic on paper, but the small-scale turn-based combat of Fights in Tight Spaces transforms even the simplest enemy encounter into an intricate puzzle box where the only solution is your fists. Although its roguelike trappings can sometimes detract from the overall experience, the unforgettable moments where everything comes together in a glorious display of cinematic violence always shine through.

Stepping into the well polished shoes of Agent 11, a super spy tasked with bringing down international criminal syndicates, the game’s basic plot serves as little more than set dressing to loosely string together the five separate worlds in which the action occurs. Divided into a series of semi-procedurally generated levels, each world has you fighting your way through a number of tightly enclosed locations that range from densely packed subway carriages to compact office corridors. The Hollywood influences are clear to see and it’s undeniably thrilling to try your hand at recreating some iconic film moments like Casino Royale’s opening bathroom brawl or the tea room shootout in Hard Boiled.

Despite all being rendered in the same charming minimalist style, each world manages to convey enough of a unique aesthetic to memorably set them apart—a fact which is greatly helped by the huge variety of enemy designs that are just waiting to be discovered. In my first run alone I ended up squaring off against a terrifying cleaver-wielding prison chef before bumping into a gang of bloodthirsty ninjas, and yet the sheer number of types on offer meant that every subsequent playthrough still had plenty of surprises in store.

In addition to the clear visual differences, later enemies can also be distinguished by their distinct combat abilities. Early on, the new introductions are limited to basic buffs, like having a slightly higher health pool or regenerating shields. But soon you’re dealing with the complex attack patterns of long-range firearms, or enemies with the ability to launch a sudden counter blow outside of their turns.

It’s certainly good that things start off slow, as the combat itself is deceptively deep and in my experience easily took a good few hours of practise to master. With fights centred chiefly around improvisation, each turn has you juggling finite energy resources with a set of selectable cards that represent various attacks, dodges, blocks and movements. Every card carries a specific energy cost that must be met to play it, and there is an immense amount of strategy in deciphering the most efficient way to spend your energy with each available hand.

On screen indicators highlight projected enemy moves to assist your decision making, meaning you often have to make the tough choice of either evading an attack or landing an extra hit on your adversary. This not only lends every confrontation an exhilarating cat and mouse feel but also makes it possible to exploit an enemy's future moves to your benefit. There is simply nothing more satisfying than seeing an unsuspecting grunt get shoved into a barrage of oncoming gunfire and I was delighted when my meticulous plan to position a group of enemies to all punch each other in the face at the same time unfolded in a suitably glorious Rube Goldberg fashion.

At the end of a turn your opponents are given an opportunity to take their actions before a new hand of six cards is drawn at random from the deck. Once every card has been played or discarded, the deck is reshuffled and the process starts again. This core gameplay loop may seem simple at first, but the addition of Momentum, which measures combat flow with a numeric value that rises with every attack but falls with blocking or movement, adds an extra layer of depth to overcome. Momentum can be spent independently of energy and is primarily reserved for powerful special moves, functioning a lot like the combos found in more conventional fighting games but with an even greater degree of control over exactly how and when moves are played.

There are cards which represent several types of injury as well, which can appear in your deck and slowly decrease your health if you take too many hits. These can only be cleared after the battle has ended, making frequent use of dodges and blocks vital for survival when coming head to head with the hard hitting enemies that are introduced in the late game. The result is a combat system that is remarkably easy to pick up and enjoy from the get go—especially on the considerably more forgiving lower difficulties—but also one with more than enough depth to sustain prolonged interest over multiple playthroughs.

The core emphasis on repeating runs works well, with the gradual unlocking of new starting decks and even the ability to build your own helping to create a solid sense of progression. The same can’t be said of a small handful of the game’s other roguelike elements. In particular, each mission’s bonus objectives, which can be completed to earn currency, become far too difficult as the game progresses.

Challenges like the completion of increasingly tricky levels in a pitifully small allowance of turns can seem outright impossible at times and my limited successes were always far more reliant on the luck of the draw than any actual skill. To make matters worse, money is used for everything from upgrading cards on the fly to topping up health in between fights making it an essential component of victory on higher difficulties. I quickly found that the most effective strategy involved focusing exclusively on the easy optional objectives early on to ensure I had enough money for upgrades when the challenges became too difficult to complete, spoiling the flow of the campaign. It’s by no means a deal breaker, but this slightly haphazard implementation of the in-game economy sticks out among the exceptionally polished combat and clean visuals.

THE VERDICT
83

FIGHTS IN TIGHT SPACES
An excellent turn-based strategy that shines in spite of some minor annoyances.

 

[Infinitron]

Released:


https://af.gog.com/game/fights_in_tight_spaces?as=1649904300

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Did anyone here play the release version? Is it any good?

 

[Spectacle]

Did anyone here play the release version? Is it any good?

It's pretty fun, if you liked the demo you shoud enjoy the final version too.

 

[Lhynn]

Just beat this game tonight on the classic difficulty, which is fairly challenging. Its a good little game.

The absolutely most important aspect of this game is that it does melee in a way that no other turn based rpg does, it gives it a lot of depth and should be a blueprint for any implementation of melee combat in any crpg. Movement, attacking, defending, controlling, it all feels powerful and satisfying and a well built deck can wreck the opposition.

The game itself is fairly short, like most roguelikes, and while you dont really feel the repetition, by the time you beat it it will have felt too short, while it is fairly cheap, I would have liked more.

I am grateful that most forms of control dint have hard counters as this game punishes mistakes way too harshly, which makes fights very tense, but hard counters would make some battles impossible, and that would add to frustration and remove the tension. I didnt like that by the end most "push" cards became useless, I can see why they did it, but I think it was detrimental to the game.

Perhaps the sequel could have a campaign mode with, actual characters, choices and a decent storyline, just more than what essentially feels like a well made tech demo.

Still, would recommend, even if for the novelty of an indepth melee turn based combat system.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The absolutely most important aspect of this game is that it does melee in a way that no other turn based rpg does, it gives it a lot of depth and should be a blueprint for any implementation of melee combat in any crpg

Cryomancer btfo
I kid, but still.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Dickie]

I had forgotten about this game. I normally just add stuff to my wishlist to check out later but tend to almost immediately forget about it until I'm reminded the game exists when it goes on sale on Steam. Looking at isthereanydeal, it looks like it hasn't been on-sale since the launch discount in December 2021.

I'm not sure about the gun DLC, but the game looks neat still.

 

[Lemming42]

It's really good, worth getting if you like stuff like Slay the Spire. It's one of the more difficult games in the genre too, took me like 15 runs to get to the end.

 

[Lhynn]

If you go on the difficulty that lets you have a movement card every turn, game is on the easier side, if you dont its very rng based for my taste.

 

[spectre]

If you go on the difficulty that lets you have a movement card every turn, game is on the easier side, if you dont its very rng based for my taste.

Yeah, the "classic" difficulties all diddle with movement draws, so it's pretty much how the game was intended.
Secret Agent is a sweet spot for me in terms of challenge, not seeing myself going higher until I get better maybe.

I played Slay the Spire to death, can't bother looking at it anymore. This game was just what the doctor ordered.
I really recommend it to everyone, even to just give it a spin. It's really gratuitous, tactical fun, unless you're allergic to cards and deckbuilding.
There's a great variety of "decks," or fighting styles, you should find something that suits your fancy and have it reenacted in john woo style.

It copies a lot of mechanics from StS, the only criticism I have is that the "mission tree" thingie could be a bit more branching.
Also, events seem to suck, aren't very interesting and are extremely heavy rng dependent. You can really screw yourself over by picking the wrong option.
The game is also very storyfag-unfriendly, gameplay obviously comes first and all you get is a bit of exposition serving as thin justification for just stringing fights together.

As for the DLC, I've bought it, but haven't gotten far into it yet. The gunslinger deck looks pretty complicated and I'm still getting used to it
(but that's true of all the advanced styles in the game). If anything, it adds a female model for the protagonist to use with any other deck out there
(original game only has a male/bulldyke option) which is good for variety.