Defence Hell: Desperate Place
Build a base and survive creature hordes in this bullet heaven/tower defence hybrid.
‣ Desperate Place
From: BruceGalaxy, NPC Entertainment
Release: Coming soon
Genre: Bullet Heaven, Tower Defence
Steam Page • Demo Video • Developer Site
All fear comes from a lack of firepower.
Calamity strikes when a space event damages a long-distance colony spaceship, creating a do-or-die situation for at least one of its occupants. Don't these things know how to swerve? No points for originality there.
Yet, originality is not everything when you know how to do things right, even when you somewhat copy a recent big indie hit. The developers of Desperate Place might be taking heavy inspiration from similar games, but they are producing a title you want to keep playing.
You are a lone marine, popped out of hibernation to rescue the stricken vessel. Soon, you are on the surface of a nearby planet, erecting mining equipment to collect the helium that fuels the colony ship. But the local fauna is very hostile—they storm your base every night, out to obliterate it and the shuttle you landed in.
Fight the attackers and stop them from ruining your fuel gathering. Your character automatically targets and shoots nearby enemies, usually the closest. You can also place gun turrets, missile silos, beam weapons, walls, and several other defensive and offensive buildings. You additionally construct power generators, batteries, and more extraction equipment to mine the resources you spend to build and upgrade your base.
Building sites are predesignated. While that might sound restrictive, it's actually the opposite. Not needing to worry where you place things, the strategy is down to building what you need to survive the next onslaught and earning enough to build more. So the loop goes: build at day, fight at night, and reach a certain number of days. Then you unlock a new stage and try again.
Desperate Place lifts heavily from Thronefall, which was a big hit roughly a year ago (and definitely worth trying if the abovementioned gameplay loop sounds even remotely interesting). It's not incredibly original, the plot being little more than a conceit to defend your base from waves of agitated locals.
But this type of game doesn't need much originality if it does things well, which this does. The art style is attractive and cohesive; it's fun to look at the scenery, appreciate your little buildings, and shudder at the monsters' insectile designs.
As the game's synopsis declares: all fear comes from a lack of firepower. The action is furious and impactful. Your marine unleashes a powerful machine gun, advancing into the fray with the ferocity of a bullet-heaven/survivors-like warrior. A light sprinkle of tower defence ideas puts life into building and defending the base perimeter, and the defences you build feel like good, often essential, investments.
Resonating with this machismo, the gameplay is all-or-nothing. You even get a heads-up of how many bugs are coming from which direction. You have to defend down to a last stand, even as your various buildings crumble under the assault. But the destruction is a temporary inconvenience. Providing you survive, come dawn, your base respawns. You don't have to focus on defending infrastructure. Just kill every attacker before they can destroy your shuttle.
📽 Demo Snapshot: They are coming in hordes!
If things get stale, you can swap out characters that you unlock, such as the arsonist with a flamethrower or the bomber armed with explosives. You can add modifiers that can make the enemies harder but also give much higher payouts. Again, these are not new ideas. But they are staples of this fledgling genre.
There is more going on here than excellent style and execution. Desperate Place includes nice touches, like a selection of robot guardians that can fight alongside or protect something critical. It sticks very close to the games it admires, but it knows what made them work, and it invests in all those areas. It's not a clone or a copy, but a continuation of very good ideas, made with skill and experience. There are some balancing issues, but overall, it’s an entertaining demo.
Perhaps this is a case of a development team focusing on what they can deliver, rather than shooting for the stars with too few resources. You need to crawl before you can walk, but Desperate Place can already jog around the track.
Desperate Place is coming soon to Steam.
Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:
📽 00:40 Disaster in space
📽 02:31 Save the ship!
📽 03:52 Placing structures
📽 06:09 A wall will help
📽 07:36 Robot sidekicks
📽 10:35 Upgrade the ship
📽 12:35 The final night
📽 14:34 Level 2: A new sector
📽 17:45 The base takes shape
📽 21:40 Thermal miners
📽 23:14 Upgrading turrets
📽 26:28 The hordes are getting bigger
📽 37:22 One last attack
📽 40:42 Some gameplay changes
📽 42:17 Level 3: A tough spot
📽 43:26 Base preview
📽 46:48 Eek! A boss!
📽 56:06 That did not go well
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