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dkirschner's Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (PC)

[June 2, 2022 12:17:34 PM]

This was really funny for a couple hours. Then I realized that the campaigns are pretty thin and there's really not a lot to do, so I finished the Adventure campaign, did some achievement hunting, and called it a day. I now have a whole new suite of rare Steam achievements in the 0.70-0.80% range, which is cool! And these are easy achievements too that just require you to beat a campaign level with an army comprised of one of each unit of various factions.

Totally Accurate Battle Simulator is funny because it's far from totally accurate. You are given a certain number of "points" at the beginning of each map. You can assemble an army, pulling from any of the game's many factions, where each unit costs x points. The campaigns are set pieces with specific enemies in specific configurations to overcome, and in sandbox mode you can just create whatever wacky armies you want and make them fight one another.

The factions/units range from historical (e.g., the Medieval faction with catapults and squires) to fantastical (e.g., the Spooky faction with a grim reaper and skeleton archers). The units all make funny noises that sound like gibberish, and they flail around like ragdolls. This leads to chaotic battles with units launching themselves and one another around the map as they try to kill the opposing army. They'll generally attack whatever is closest. The strategy is in choosing wise formations and choosing a good variety of units that can handle the enemy units that are present. This takes a little trial and error sometimes, but I never encountered a campaign map I couldn't beat eventually. I didn't learn until long after starting that you can push F to take control of a single unit. Not terribly exciting, but it lets you be smarter than the AI and you can save battles that way. I think it's more fun to let the battles auto-resolve though.

There are also hidden secrets on a lot of the maps that unlock special units and factions. I found a few of these naturally, then found a lot more while seeking achievements. One secret, for example, is finding Thor's hammer, which lets you set up a battle between Thor and Zeus (achievement for either of them winning against the other). I imagine some of these are insanely powerful when used in campaign maps.

If I were to keep playing, I would probably start trying to find more secrets to unlock more units. As it is though, I finished the Adventure campaign and played through parts of some others, and feel I've exhausted what the game has to offer me. I've used all the units, got the gist of what they can do, what they are strong and weak against, and have a good understanding of how to defeat a lot of different enemy configurations. If I could add one thing to the game it would be a story mode, or add story to the campaigns. I imagine it would be silly, which is fine, but just something to motivate players to keep going through campaign maps (I finished one; there are like 10).