City of the Shroud

There are many ways one could improve on the classic gameplay mechanics, but there’s always a chance for it to go all wrong. That is why mostly everyone chooses not to stray too far from well-established concepts, although every game brings its fair share of innovation to the scene. However, gamers are always ready to embrace change, and they are even happy to accept a few flaws as part of the learning process on behalf of the developers.

City of the Shroud is not really a game yet, but it promises many great things. Player-driven storyline, intricate character customization and a fascinating game world are all part of the deal, but as of right now, you can only try out the new combat system. It looks and feel likes a turn-based model, given the grid and the small number of units. On the other hand, everything happens in real-time, so that’s somewhat new.

It’s obviously too early to judge or dismiss the idea entirely, especially since this is still a work in progress. On the other hand, it is quite clear that some things won’t sit well with the community, because it’s going to be really difficult to make them work properly. As such, the fact that everything is happening in real-time may not be such a good idea, because the battles can turn into mindless clickfests in the blink of an eye after people realize that they cannot control the units efficiently.

Some flaws can be explained by the premature nature of the project, such as the fact that none of the skills have any information regarding their effects or damage. Since the entire goal of the combo system is to combine multiple skills in the right order to achieve extra damage, this kind of defeats the purpose. On the other hand, the idea itself is quite neat, although it may prove difficult to think about skill combinations and come up with tactics at the same time.

From a technical point of view, everything looks decent as of right now, but there’s not much to see yet. The characters and the animations are nice, but the special effects for spells and abilities are not very well-developed yet. There is not much information regarding the game world either, so it’s tough to say how everything is going to turn out.

In the end, City of the Shroud can either turn brilliant or sour, depending on how much the developers manage to fix and refine until the final game is released. As of right now, the real-time aspect of the combat does not seem to work as intended, but there are plenty of good ideas to extrapolate from.