Game Reviews

Twitchy Thrones

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iOS
| Twitchy Thrones
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Twitchy Thrones
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iOS
| Twitchy Thrones

Much as I love Game of Thrones, aspects of it are screaming out for parody. And that's what Twitchy Thrones does, with a gleefully keen eye. No wonder the splash screen implores "please don't sue us".

Amusing as it is to see the show skewered, it's the game that we're really here for. This is a super-light strategy affair.

Twiddly thrones

You progress through a campaign, unlocking new maps in turn. Each consists of lots of flags, connected by paths with occasional choke points on bridges or doorways.

Each flag generates two troops every few seconds. Your task is to group these together and send them out to capture enemy flags, which then generate your troops, until you own the whole map.

There's nothing to combat. Both sides gradually lose troops until there's none left on one side. But bigger battles take longer to resolve, and this is where the draw of the game lies.

Stuff happens at breakneck speed, and it requires unwavering attention and snake-like reflexes to keep everything in sync.

Miss a flag, and before you know it portions of the map you thought were safe will end up overrun with verminous knights.

Tough thrones

On the normal difficult level, it's hard to lose. Instead you're competing for star ratings and online leaderboard places by completing the level as fast as possible.

On the hard and "crimson wedding" settings though, it's very possible to get things wrong and fail.

There are also a series of challenges that see you revisiting campaign levels with specific goals in mind. Sometimes you play as an enemy force.

Others you have to meet an additional objective like winning without exceeding a certain number of casualties. These get progressively more difficult, and some are very tough indeed.

The basic campaign takes less than an hour to play through. And while it tries to vary things up with new features, a drag-on female super-warrior, and a scenario with three battles at once, there's not a lot of meat in the mechanics. It's fun, but not enough to sustain long-term interest.

Titchy thrones

So the game is reliant on the draw of challenges and online rankings for replay value. It kind of works. Although the strategy model is paper-thin, battling against the clock and the odds on the harder levels isn't easy. You need to adopt a more analytical, puzzle-like approach to succeed.

There's no online multiplayer, and that's a shame. You can finish most levels in just a few minutes. So it's great for bite-sized strategy gaming, and that would have been just as true multiplayer as it is solitaire.

This sort of stripped down real-time tactics is great fun with some human intelligence at the helm of the opposition

Graphically it fills the now-common retro-gaming brief well enough. But the sound design deserves a special mention. The music is a squeaky, perverted cover of the TV show theme tune.

And the way soldiers and characters warble bizarre high-pitched threats at one another is a treat.

Twitchy Thrones is fun and funny and well suited to the mobile platform. But unless you like the idea of replaying levels under virtual cheat conditions, trying to eke out a win, it's not going to be a keeper.

Twitchy Thrones

Entertaining, amusing and great for quickfire RTS play, but too shallow to sustain interest
Score
Matt Thrower
Matt Thrower
Matt is a freelance arranger of words concerning boardgames and video games. He's appeared on IGN, PC Gamer, Gamezebo, and others.