PEGBRJE: BFF or Die and The Land of Glass
Co-op games and Card Games
BFF or Die is a co-operative puzzle solving game made by ASA studio, a trio of indie devs out of England. Players are a cute quartet of Intergalactic Time Academy graduates, being assigned their first mission immediately as Orbees are missing. These little energy creatures are what powers the time technology that is used to do the whole ‘intergalactic time’ part of the academy, so it’s imperative to rescue them from wherever they’ve gone. Just so happens that their faint traces seem to be on a bizarre planet called ‘Earth’. At least, it looks like Earth.
Akin to the co-operative titles such as Overcooked, BFF or Die is a full couch co-op experience for players to work together in order to collect all of the Orbees on each level and return to the space ship to time warp out. Players will have different roles depending on how many players are actually playing the game; for the single player story, I was in control of both a graduate that was moving and another controlling the time-tech gizmos. The ‘mover’ was in charge of collecting the Orbees and getting back to the ship without getting hurt while the gizmo grad was the support as I moved lights to grant visibility, worked a grabber to lift things and sent out drones. It was a tad tricky playing without help, as both joysticks controlled a different character leading to some awkward moments of me running into walls thinking I was controlling the other character.
If there are more people around to assist in the rescue mission, each player will have the ability to maneuver throughout the level or return to the ship to control a gadget. This is the chaotic storm that creates the memorable moments within this style of co-operative game, in which players either succeed fantastically due to their communication skills or bumble around running into each other and dying. Thankfully there is no actual death here, as we’re Time-shifters — if a grad gets grabbed by a mummy, time is rewound to the beginning of the level to restart. It solves that issue that some co-op titles can have that progress can feel super slow and death resets a lot adding to the frustration. As each puzzle is only meant to take 10 minutes to complete at most, players don’t have to worry about losing a bunch of progress if things go south either thanks to the mummies or their own friends.
Combine this with an adorable message of the power of friendship and BFF or Die brings a fantastic couch co-op experience to anyone who wants a good puzzle game to play with friends. Levels are quick (usually) and enforce teamwork through rewards of time-based special trophies that each level has, and avoids harsh punishments by having quick restart times. If you’re looking for a game to play with anyone of any age, such as that sibling that wants your attention or a parent that doesn’t really get video games, this is definitely a fantastic game to introduce to them.
The Land of Glass is a deck building RPG made by Dual Wield Software, a duo of indie brothers out of Minnesota. The game follows 4 duos of characters through the land of Viterran as they all attempt to save it from monsters that have appeared via portals. Each have their own agenda, their own reasoning for exploration and heroism, yet must confront their own viewpoints on the world in order to do so. Not everyone is trying to stop the demons with good intentions, so it is up to these two characters to decide what the fate of the world will be. Players will go from region to region to explore and close portals, fighting off many foes; and it’s all done through cards.
Yes, I was not messing around when I said this was a deck building RPG, as the entire combat system is a real-time card game. Upon entering combat with an enemy, players will be transported to a small cutout of the landscape, with 2 grids as UI elements. The cards are then drawn at the bottom, and combat begins immediately with a singular goal in mind; knock the enemy off of the cutout. So how do cards factor into any of this? Well, the player will be given a ‘hand’ of cards, and two grids; the left being the enemy’s grid, and the right being the players. Attacks are made by placing red attack cards onto one of the opponent’s grid spaces, lowering the defending value by the red attacking value. Once a value reaches ‘0’ all excessive attacking power is converted into knockback power instead, thrusting the character in the opposite direction it is facing. The bigger the attack, the longer the cooldown, so learning to balance when to use big and small numbered attacks is critical to success. To protect oneself, defense cards can be used to add defending points back to an attacked area, up to a max defense of 5.
This is the basic combat loop of The Land of Glass, as players will be constantly darting between checking their defensive grid while attacking the enemy on cooldown. The beauty is in the quick-pacing, combining the natural randomness that comes inherently with card games with lightning quick decision making of real time strategy. Grabbing a card does slow down time for usability, but that also slows down cooldowns as well, so the more players rely on drawing the game out the harder it becomes to keep up the pressure on the opponent. The added difficulty of juggling multiple squares to place cards onto also adds to the chaotic strategy that this game brings, encouraging different attack patterns in order to avoid being stuck with all squares on cooldown. This also doesn’t mention the magic augmentation cards to assist in attacks or the terrain altering cards that can assist in gaining edges in battle. Thankfully losing at a battle isn’t the end, as it simply restarts the battle back to the beginning instance and allows players to alter their decks again, but players may find themselves dying a few times if they are unfamiliar with deck builders, or having a hard to coming to grips with the system. It’s a little hard to explain in a few words, if I’m honest.
What isn’t hard to explain is the absolutely gorgeous aesthetic that The Land of Glass has achieved. As hinted within the title, the entire game is done within a stained glass syle, with all of the character portraits looking as if lifted from a 14th century cathedral. The environments are a cube-based glass paradise, each seemingly reflecting a light source that may or may not exist within the world to shine brilliant colours throughout the set pieces. The backdrop during combat is a fragmented yet complete solid colour glass as well to drag players into this otherworldly realm, focusing their eyes completely on the combat at hand. Even the destruction of a character’s ‘shields’ is a shattering of glass to even further the aesthetic, as if the world itself was a glass mirage. It’s hard to not get drawn in to a title that puts so much love into its art, especially when the narrative being told throughout compels the player forward.
As mentioned earlier, there are 4 pairings of characters that the player can choose from to follow through their own individual adventure. For the sake of reference, I picked the story of ‘Prophecy’ to follow Aros and Herakh, a warrior and mage duo of the Amreen people, a race of ‘higher beings’ who follow their deity zealously. Herakh is the mage of the duo, and while they may follow the doctrine has too many questions about the legitimacy that the current events are the foretold ‘apocalypse’, while Aros is the fighter and priest worried for their friend’s lack of faith. The duo set out to save the world for the ‘lesser’ races, forced to shut down the portals that are scattered throughout the world. While it feels like a massive undertaking, the plot’s focus remains around the two that players choose to keep things personal, to explore their emotional weight behind each decision and challenge their own viewpoints as they come across unknown things. Aros and Herakh are stuck in uncomfortable positions thanks to their people’s zealotry, and the constant discrimination and bigotry they hold does not win them any points with those that they are trying to ‘save’. Yet fight after fight, they must continue onwards and forced to reconcile that they may not be the ‘higher’ race of people, nor that their doctrine is completely infallible. The only criticism I had was that the personalities of the two for this specific route almost felt interchangeable, with some instances of dialogue feeling as if they were coming from the other person. Perhaps I didn’t know them as well as I thought, or I’m still learning about them.
There’s so much more to talk about with The Land of Glass thanks to combining a mechanics heavy card game system with a narrative heavy RPG system. Free exploration is limited for this reason, keeping the plot moving forward without any possible distractions of getting lost, like a railroaded story that had some sways in the possibilities that were taken. I highly recommend this title for anyone looking for something a tad more experimental, and enjoys deck building games but wanted a bit more tensions added to the mix. It’s not going to be short thanks to the multiple campaigns, but there’s enough content and story to make this an enjoyable ride.
