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The very first Steam Next Fest demo I opened does not feel like a particularly refined artistic expression. And yet on every single 'game over', the only time I hesitated over the restart button for more than a moment was on the occasions I'd gathered enough money to hit the upgrade shop. It was literally my first demo of the week, and I was instantly dangerously locked-in.
Mage Tower Massacre is a top-down shooter, very much in the vein of Hotline Miami. But here, you're on the defensive, holding your tower from invaders with your host of spells. I say 'spells', but they're not quite what you might expect. My incantation of choice is 'Summon Lesser Buckshot', which fires a shotgun blast across the room, shredding any foes unfortunate to get caught in it.
Elsewhere, there's 'Enchanted Buzzsaw', which fires bouncing blades towards your home invaders, 'Chaingun Lightning', which promises to "combine the ancient magicks with an extradimensional engineering masterpiece," and then a very literal take on 'Magic Missile'. There's a dry, if not particularly sophisticated sense of humor to this world - the Wizard's gruff, potty-mouthed persona lends itself to the rough-and-ready, flash game aesthetic of the demo, which includes a level in which every incoming enemy must first crawl from a toilet before they're ready for a fight.
It's not super-sophisticated, then, but it's shockingly compelling. Before I knew it, I'd put an hour into the demo, relying mostly on just a few upgrades for my buckshot 'spell'. It's not long before you can really start to dig into the score attack elements of the two maps available. I'd quickly got to grips with the idea of juggling aggro, drawing in certain groups of enemies, and making use of the tower's geography - tables that slow down melee troops, or bookshelves and pillars that block ranged attacks - to balance my combo meter while staying out of (too much) trouble.
Over time, the shop lets you unlock some extra tools to keep that combo building. A forcefield can be thrust out to stop incoming arrows, or even cause a missile to blow up in an enemy's face if it's timed right. A teleport spell, charged by getting kills, can be used to get out of (or into) trouble, dodging incoming attacks or chasing down a target so your combo doesn't run out. Add an upgrade system that encourages you to switch on the fly if you find that you've made some spells more powerful than others, and this becomes a much more sophisticated score attack game than I would have expected at first blush.
It's a timely reminder, right at the start of Next Fest, to not judge a book by its cover. For its simple appearance, Mage Tower Massacre nails its aesthetic, and makes for an addictive experience that I'm forcing myself to put down - if I don't, I fear it's the only thing I'll want to play this whole week.
