Thunder Age Review

Being at least a bit old (I remember cassette tapes, VHS, and rotary phones), I have the dubious honour of experiencing many of the weird things happening to our environment due to factors such as global warming. As an added bonus, I have also seen many of the apocalyptic visions our media has magicked forth for our terror and enjoyment, often revolving around the idea of our sea levels rising and eating up our cities into Poseidon's domain. Thunder Age takes this classic scenario and adds an electrifying twist to spice things up, but can it find a spark, or will it fizzle out (I promise, that’s the last lighting pun… for a bit)?

In the name of transparency, I will note here that I am friends with one of the developers of Thunder Age. I will, however, do my best to remain objective and unbiased in the following review.

If they weren't so deadly, the little orbs of power would be kinda cute

As we start the game, we are given the story so far. Humanity ruined the Earth, the water rose and engulfed our cities, so humans, being the stubborn species we are, built special floating platforms that could keep our cities afloat! Normally, this would mean another victory for humankind against nature, but then the massive thunderstorms showed up, threatening to overload our cities and fry us out of existence while at it.

With the use of giant towers acting as lightning rods, the storm’s fury is condensed into ball lightning spheres and small thunderclouds. These constructs of pure energy will make their way through a map of hexagons to the nearby city or cities unless you manage to constrain them with the use of generators and pylons. Each time a pylon sucks up a portion of electricity, it is added to your stash, which can be used to build more useful buildings, though the pylon itself needs to cool down for a bit before it can handle another charge. The cities you are tasked with protecting do have three large generators acting as a last line of defence, but if all three are overloaded and a shock gets through, that's game over.

Trouble's brewing...

The basic premise is simple enough, as is the gameplay: have enough pylons to eat up the charges and make sure the shockers don’t make it to the city. Easy, right? Well… yes and no. The levels themselves are quite large, and the electrical orbs are “smart” enough to zoom straight toward cities, only being contained if they go next to a pylon. As they are costly to build, you cannot feasibly fill the map with enough to contain every zap! To aid in this, you are also able to build a hexagonal wall to lead the sparky balls around the bend, buying yourself valuable time, thus revealing Thunder Age’s identity as a tower defence game!

If you’ve ever played the “Maul” style of tower defence games, which was very popular in the Warcraft III custom map scene, this gameplay should feel relatively similar. By adding generators and pylons in strategic locations and connecting them with maze-like corridors of walls, you can delay the oncoming lightning while your pylons charge, as well as buying yourself valuable thinking time. Be careful not to block any route, however, as the lightning will just bust through the quickest route if the labyrinth leads into a dead-end. Collect electricity, expand your labyrinth and keep the cities safe! You’ll have to be smart, however, as in addition to ball lighting, floating lightning clouds will sometimes spawn, flying over your defences! These can be stopped with two shocks worth of pylons but then said pylons will need to recharge and be unable to snag any rogue orbs.

I mean, at least we're not lacking for water for the cannons!

In addition to the mentioned mechanics, there are a few more factors to help your efforts. First off, if you build a generator near the water, you can build Powerplants that generate a passive flow of electricity for you, though they do eat up one of the six slots available for a generator. Some levels also provide a Water Cannon, which can be used to temporarily stop electricity from going in a certain direction. Finally, generators and pylons can be upgraded a few times to store more power (adding to your maximum total) and be able to take more hits before having to cool off, respectively. Having a pylon that can eat up a thundercloud by itself is pretty amazing!

The game offers two modes: a Campaign and a Custom mode. In the Campaign, you’ll take on five progressively harder levels which also act as the game tutorial, slowly teaching you the ropes while also ramping up the difficulty. The first three or so missions are relatively simple, though acing them on the first try is not a given. Missions four and five, on the other hand, are difficult. There is no pause button in Thunder Age, and each pylon needs to be manually reset after each overload, meaning you will be flitting about the map at high speed to keep track of all your pylons and any remaining clouds or balls. Custom mode offers a sandbox in which you can freely experiment and try different strategies; this mode allows you to select when the lightning will strike, so there’s no rush or panic. In Survival mode, you’ll be up against an eternal storm to see how long you can last.

Building the maze was weirdly engrossing

Now, the game is not overly long, with each mission only taking 10 minutes to half an hour or less to complete, if that, so having the last few missions be difficult is fair enough. Once you figure out the tricks you can use (hint: build Powerplants early), it’s in no way impossible, but the challenge and hectic nature can be daunting. A pause button would have been a nice way to combat the hectic nature, but that would also take away from the challenge, so I can understand its absence. Maybe this could be added as an optional easy mode for us slow-brained individuals? Additionally, moving on the map — you use WASD to move on the map, the mouse wheel to zoom in or out, and the right mouse button to rotate the camera — can feel a bit slow when compared to the hectic pace, which is not helped by the sometimes-finicky selection system (I kept selecting walls when I wanted to upgrade my pylon!) The game is a bit lacking in music, too, though you seldom have time to consider that while multitasking like no tomorrow. This is also a student project, so not having a full OST is more than fine!

Even though it was frustrating at times, I did feel like Thunder Age provided a good amount of challenge, really pushing your reaction time to its limit as well as needing quick thinking to keep ahead of the surging spheres. I won’t lie: it doesn’t have much in terms of content or structures, but it has enough to make the core gameplay loop interesting, if nothing else. I had fun coming up with a strategy, scrapping it because I couldn’t build the walls fast enough, and then coming up with an effective alternative.

In summary, I think Thunder Age is a good proof of concept. In its current iteration, it may be a stretch to call it a full game, but considering it will be free to play and a student project, I think it’s impressive how much thought they managed to put into it. I haven’t seen many tower defence games like this in a while, so it’s a refreshing return to something familiar (for me). Give it a go, see if you can survive level four with three stars, and challenge your mind to come up with the best labyrinth since Daedalus!