INTRO:
Most tower defense games have the player plonking down buildings to funnel and massacre waves of creeps in various ways, usually with the help of a convenient camera view that gives a good view of the map.
However, it is rare indeed for a tower defense game to have the player build things and fight off waves almost completely from a first-person perspective.
Sanctum is one such title to take this risk. The result is a fun hybrid of tower defense and first-person shooting, but it has many problems in its designs that still persist even two years after its debut.
Furthermore, it was a long time before its content updates became convincingly value-adding. Before that, they started out as much too late and then later ones came with price tags, before Coffee Stain finally decided to release new content for free.
PREMISE & CHARACTERS:
Most of the backstory and story-telling of the game is only available through marketing blurbs and other official promotional materials. The game itself will not be divulging much on the story at all.
In fact, if a player jumps into the game without doing research on it, he/she would be bewildered by the reedy-looking badass girl with oversized gear and weird-looking aliens moving in conga lines towards a shiny giant silvery bubble.
The only character that would mention anything remotely related to the story is the A.I., which notifies the player of what to do. Yet, that is not saying much about the effort, if any, that was invested by Coffee Stain Studios into making the story matter in regards to the gameplay.
Anyway, according to sources outside of the game proper, the story is about a colony of humans that are trying to protect the precious energy cores of their establishments from being overloaded by dumb but determined aliens.
In fact, the humans would seem to be doing quite a terrible job at protecting them, because they had not thought of removing the routes towards the cores and isolating them entirely. Perhaps one could argue that this oversight was deliberate in order to bait the aliens out to be murdered en masse, but such an argument would only strengthen some players' impressions that the story is just an excuse to have the player murdering stupid aliens.
The player character is Autumn Skye, a hot-headed and sadistic soldier. Although she is one of few characters in the game that has legible voice-overs, her significance to the almost non-existent story is little more than the person that would be killing lots of aliens.
GAMEPLAY – OVERVIEW:
The player takes control of a heavily equipped soldier that has to prevent enemies from running into an energy core by shooting them with weapons and more importantly, creating a maze to delay their progress and funnel them into killing zones that are watched over by nasty automated weapons.
All of this has to be done via a first-person camera, which is definitely far from the norm in tower defense games. However, wise game design decisions on Coffee Stain's part made this easier to do than one would think. Of these, The most important of these is the separating of the gameplay into building and combat phases, which will be described later.
The game can be played with limited numbers of waves of enemies with predictable composition, or with increasingly diverse and numerous waves, in both single-player and multiplayer. The single-player and multiplayer experiences can be quite different from each other, but these differences are not always positive.
Generally, completing waves gives the player money, though there are game mode options that give money through killing enemies or even remove any source of income. Anyway, this money is needed to erect buildings and upgrade them, as well as improve any weapons that the player has equipped.
PLAYER CHARACTER:
If the player has played shooter titles that have been made with the Unreal Engine before, he/she would be quite familiar with how the player character moves around. By default, she runs instead of walking, and has no believable limitations of stamina.
However, jumping may be a problem, because the game designers have never deigned fit to give the player a view of the player character's model in first-person mode, e.g. the player cannot see the player character's feet when looking down. This would not have been an issue if there is not much peering over edges, but there is a lot of this that has to be done when shooting at aliens.
The player character is practically immortal and can never be taken out of combat. She has no health meter whatsoever, not that there is a need for one as there is not one enemy that can attack the player.
She can fall out of the map boundaries, an occurrence which essentially sends the player to the teleportation screen, which will be described later.
DEFENSE GRID & ENEMY MOVEMENT:
The region around or close to the core is called the "defense grid", which is appropriate considering its function. The grid is composed of square cells, most of which can support the placement of buildings.
Cells that can support buildings generally have off-white plating on them to indicate that they can be built on. In some maps, some cells have other visual characteristics such as being placed on top of cubic rocks.
The waves of aliens will move through the grid, always along paths that are at right angles to each other; they do not move in a diagonal manner. This behaviour can be used against them by creating mazes that force them to traverse the length of the grid a few times over before reaching the core, and/or forcing them to make many turns, which is devastating against certain aliens.
WEAPONS:
Being partly a first-person shooter, Sanctum arms the player character with up to three weapons. Some of these weapons would be familiar to veterans of first-person shooters, though they have been designed to better suit tower defense gameplay.
For one, all of the weapons have unlimited ammunition. Some weapons may have what appear to be magazines, but once these run out, the weapon is merely taken out of action for a while in order for the magazine to be refilled. This is the case for weapons like the Shotgun and Sniper rifle.
If a weapon does not have a magazine, it has an overheating system. This is the case for the Assault gun and Tesla gun, both of which are rapid-fire weapons with no downtime beyond the times when they overheat.
A crafty player will eventually figure out how to juggle weapons around to maintain the damage output of the player character.
All weapons can be upgraded to become even more powerful at what they do. In the case of magazine-based weapons, their magazines are expanded, which leads to higher damage output. However, weapons with overheating systems do not appear to heat up slower or cool down faster.
Most of the weapons in the current build of the game are quite reliable at what they do, thanks to each of them having two firing modes. For example, the Assault Gun's primary mode has rapid-fire that is effective at close-to-medium ranges, whereas its secondary mode hurls grenades that are effective against clusters of enemies, though they generate a lot of heat.
However, the restriction of just three weapons can hinder the player from utilizing these weapons effectively. On higher difficulty settings, the player would be hard-pressed to use anything other than the most reliable combos of weapons.
These tend to include the Assault Gun, which is valued for its two very different firing modes, the Sniper Rifle, which has a long reach that is difficult to forgo, and the Freeze Gun, which has the side effect of causing enemies to clump as different aliens move at different speeds due to the slowing aura of its rounds. If the player wants to take up any other guns, he/she will have to forgo these dependable mainstays.
BUILDING, SELLING & UPGRADING BUILDINGS:
The abovementioned actions can only be performed in the "Building Phases" of any session. In any of these phases, the player character raises her arm with the massive gauntlet, indicating that the phase is active.
In this phase, the player can place buildings on suitable cells in the grid. Knowing which cells are suitable is easy, thanks to context-sensitive scripts; the player only needs to look at cells and see if there is a blue hologram that appears on them to know if they can build something there.
At launch, there was a problem with the Building Phase: the player could not see the paths of the aliens. This was not conducive to the planning of mazes. It was corrected, but only months later. This can be argued as a case of "better late than never", but less forgiving players would argue that the game could have been better off with this feature in the first place.
Fortunately, at least the game already had in place a mechanism to prevent the player from completely blocking off the path of the aliens. It may seem silly that this cannot be done if one considers the backstory, but then the game is a tower defence title after all.
Before the player can build any sophisticated defences, he/she must populate the defence grid with blocks. Blocks are essential, so it is not a surprise that blocks are always included in the player's list of building options. Blocks are needed to block the path of the aliens (of course), as well as to be used as foundations for other buildings.
Yet, considering that blocks are the only foundations around for any other building that needs a block, it would have been a lot more convenient if the player can build more sophisticated buildings immediately onto an empty cell by including the block into the costs. In most game modes, this is not an issue as Building Phases do not end until prompted by all players, but in some game modes, it ends on a timer.
The player can sell off buildings that are no longer needed, though this is not a decision to be done lightly as they are not sold off at their original value. The only exception is blocks, which is convenient as planning a maze is a lot easier if erroneously placed blocks can be removed without any loss.
It is worth noting there that weapon upgrades cannot be reversed to free up funds, which contrasts with the benefits of selling buildings.
The process of building, selling and upgrading is not instantaneous. Any of these actions, when started, initiates a progress bar, which is filled up as the player's money is syphoned away in real-time to fund the action. If the player runs out of money, it stalls.
The significance of the non-instantaneous nature of the actions of building and upgrading buildings can be seen in multiplayer, as will be described later. However, in single-player, it is pointless. One can argue that the wait is short, but as the player will be building, upgrading and selling things a lot, the waiting times can accumulate to quite a lot.
TELEPORTATION:
To help the player character get around the map, there is a system of teleportation that sends the player character to specific locations, usually in the defence grid. A tap of a button brings up the teleportation screen, which shows a convenient bird's eye view of the defense grid, though not the entire map and certainly not where the aliens come out from.
By default, there is one irremovable teleporter in the map, so that the player character can always return to the map if she falls out of it, or moves out of the boundaries of the operation area. Speaking of boundaries, holographic fences flash warnings whenever the player gets too near the edges of the operation area.
It should be noted here that for the case of the player character falling out of the map, the game does not immediately remove the model of the player character. Instead, the player can see that the icon for the player character's location continues to fall, apparently without any limit on descent. This can cause a technical problem if the player dallies too long before teleporting the player character back into the defense grid.
Anyway, the player can set up more teleporters in the game. These teleporters also double as lifts, which is handy if the player prefers having the player character jump onto the blocks instead of using the teleportation screen, which can take a while to use. However, these devices take up space that could have been used for other buildings, so their deployment should not be taken lightly.
TYPES OF DEFENCES:
Firstly, it has to be said here that none of the defences can stop the aliens from strolling towards the core without killing them outright. There are defences that can stall them, but there is no way to permanently cause them to stop in their tracks.
That said, the variety of defences that the player can use in single-player is dependent on his/her progress through the maps; each subsequent map unlocks more buildings for use, as well as weapons.
Initially, the player only has weak but cheap buildings such as the Gatling and the Scatter Laser. The former is short-ranged and has very limited firing angles but has considerable damage output if it can draw a bead to its target for a consistently long period of time, whereas the latter has long-range and has no restriction on firing angles but has relatively poor damage output.
Most of the other defences that have to be placed on blocks are designed around such specifications, though some of them are specialists, such as the Anti-Air tower that can only attack aerial targets but does tremendous damage against them.
Eventually, the player is introduced to defences that apply de-buffs on aliens. Among these are defences that allow the aliens to pass over them but afflict them with maladies, such as the always-dependable Slowfield. There is also another defensive option that turns blocks into crystals that amplify the strength of gunfire that passes through them, which players who prefer finesse-driven strategies would appreciate.
All of the defences require a clear line of sight to the aliens in order to fire. This is a major difference from many other tower defense games, which often have defences firing as soon as the waves come into their range, regardless of any possible obstructions. This is an important consideration, as many of the defences have limited firing angles.
Some of them are positioned on the top of blocks so that they have an advantage of height, but their perspective is still ultimately limited. In addition, defences that are placed on top of blocks have hitboxes that can obstruct lines of fire, including the player character's.
There is a lost opportunity to make the defences more versatile. Some defences are placed within blocks, while others are placed on them, and some others hover above the blocks. The game could have allowed the player to utilize all three kinds of defences on the same block, which could have made for more interesting build strategies.
ENEMIES:
As mentioned earlier, the aliens are mostly dim-witted creatures, but some of them have capabilities that make them harder to kill outright; these are gradually introduced as the player progresses through the maps for the first time.
The first wave in any map is always composed of mooks that depend on numbers to get to the core. Later, there are aliens with actual talents, such as Chargers, which can run very quickly down straight lines. However, these other aliens are balanced against the vanilla grunts by having disadvantages, such as being large targets or being slower than most other aliens.
All of the ground-bound aliens have glowing weak points that apparently gave them their names – "Lumes". These weak points are usually their eyes (or what are thought to be their eyes), though some other aliens have weak spots on their backs instead of the front. Hitting these weak points directly score significantly more damage against them, thus making the Sniper Rifle near-indispensable (much to the detriment of the other weapons).
It should be noted here that explosive munitions do not appear to damage weak points as direct shots with other munitions would, unless they directly hit the weak points of course. Yet, the very large hitboxes for explosive munitions make this difficult to achieve, as they are likely to hit some other part of the aliens instead.
Aliens with weak points are nothing new in video games, but Sanctum does have one such alien that is particularly interesting: the Soaker. As its name suggests, it is a damage sponge. However, the nuance here is that the more hits that it take, the more damage it will take from the next hits. Watching its huge weak point grow even bigger from sustained punishment can be very amusing.
Then, there are flying enemies. These are of course not restricted by any mazes that the player devises, but as a consequence they do not benefit from any cover. There are also dedicated anti-air defences that are devastating against them, as mentioned earlier.
CONTENT UPDATES:
Although Coffee Stain Studios loves its game and is committed to building on it as much as possible, this developer is not very good at making value-added decisions for its content additions.
The first few content updates were sorely needed to fill in strategic gaps in the player's arsenal. Some of them are also actual game modes that were promised but did not make it into the launch version. For the first half-year and so since the game's launch, Coffee Stain would be filling in holes in the game's designs.
To cite an example, there is the Kairos tower that was only introduced many months after the release of the game to fill in the absence of a defence that can slow down aerial units. A few more examples include the Rex, which is a rocket launcher, and the Shotgun, which is self-explanatory; both of them are weapons that should have been in the game in the first place as they fulfill significant tactical niches.
Then, after that, there were the premium DLCs that offer additional defences that are balanced against the existing ones. They certainly were not so powerful as to give the contentious impression that the player is "paying to win"; however, it can also be argued that these DLCs should have been free in the first place, since they do not have more tactical worth than existing defences.
Eventually, these premium DLCs were made free, but only for new customers and existing customers who did not purchase them. Existing players who bought the DLC were not given any more compensation than a "thank-you" for having monetarily supported Coffee Stain.
Finally, after this stint of premium-then-free DLCs, any further content updates were thankfully free-of-charge. However, a few of them appear to have the involvement of certain parties other than Coffee Stain itself; this is the case for the Yogscave update, from which the game benefited from the exposure provided by the Yogscast team.
If there is any convincing value to be had from gear-related content updates, it is to be found in multiplayer, where players can equip different gear and building options. In single-player, they are not versatile enough to replace reliable staples.
Unfortunately, some maps remain premium DLCs even to this day.
CHECKPOINT SAVING:
The game uses a system of checkpoints to record the player's progress in single-player sessions. At certain waves, the game makes a checkpoint-save that allows the player to continue playing later if he/she chooses to quit. There can only ever be one game-save, however.
One can consider that these periodic checkpoint saves contribute to the challenge of the game, but another player may consider this additional challenge to be artificial.
In the case of the computer version of Sanctum, which can only be ever played on Steam, the default method of storing checkpoint saves have been changed from a localized save to a game-save on Steam Cloud. This is handy for people who play on-the-go, but for anyone else, especially those who make back-ups of game-saves, this may not be a pleasing change.
GAME MODES:
The Standard game mode, in which the player fends off finite numbers of waves with predictable compositions, is the default one, and the only one available at launch. It is worth noting here that the compositions of the waves in single-player are set in stone.
The Survival mode, and its Turbo modifier, was introduced later to mix things up with waves of randomized compositions and provide game sessions with no end. Survival mode was later enhanced with more variants, such as Bounty, which has money being granted from killing aliens instead of clearing waves.
MULTIPLAYER:
Co-op multiplayer had been in the launch version of the game, but it was very limited in features. In the aforementioned half-year period, the multiplayer experience in Sanctum was expanded with more features, such as allowing up to five players in a session, depending on the map. Yet, the game could have been better if they had these features in the first place.
Anyway, multiplayer involves the creation of matches over Steamworks (which is the only platform that the game's computer version runs on). The host's player character is always Autumn Skye, while the others are copies of her, except that their heads are obscured by helmets and their color schemes are different. All players must protect the same core, though they can go about building, upgrading and selling things on their own.
The aliens appear to become tougher as the numbers of players increases, which is an appropriate increase in challenge. However, if the players are skilled and experienced enough, they probably would not notice the increase in the difficulty of the waves.
The most notably pleasant feature in multiplayer is that players with similar building options can finish each other's building/upgrading process, if their team-mates do not have enough funds to do so. However, there is a lost opportunity to make multiplayer more fun by lifting this restriction. Without it, players could have been encouraged to have more diverse load-outs.
COMPLAINTS ABOUT MULTIPLAYER:
Unfortunately, Sanctum's multiplayer is not guaranteed to be all fun, mainly because it is not immune to certain malaises that often afflict games with multiplayer modes.
Gate-crashing players can join any non-private session and annoy the other players by selling off defences and blocks; there is no way to force the griefers to give up the money that they can gain either, much less any way to recoup the losses from selling. Having the hosting player kick out these griefers does not return any lost money either and the griefers can simply return and continue their shenanigans.
It has been two years since the debut of the game and there is still not any insurance mechanism against griefing.
Yet, ironically, Coffee Stain Studios has the selective wisdom to foresee an exploit where players might join a match to spend all their starting money, quit and rejoin again. The developer has devised a solution to have sessions "remembering" players that have joined and spent their credits, yet they could not come up with a solution to prevent griefing.
Players in a session are not able to view each other's lists of building options and weapons. This could have minimized the need to communicate and inform each other of their building strategies.
There is not any voting system or voice-communication support either. Considering that most other competently designed games with multiplayer have these features, that Sanctum does not have them would give the impression that it still has a long way to catch up with the current trends of user-friendly features.
Another minor annoyance is that text messages that players make are automatically enunciated out loud by an automated narrator, at least by default. It can be disabled, fortunately, but if the developer had intended this to be a substitute for actual voice-communication, then it is doing a less-than-decent job.
MODELS:
The designs that went into the player character's model can be considered as quite rare in games nowadays. The player character is practically a waif, having a slim build instead of the usual athletic or stereotypically buxom body figure for most female humanoid characters that are seen in games.
The waif-like body figure happens to contrast in deliberately comical ways with the player character's gear, which are stupendously oversized. There is no explanation for this, but then the game has sci-fi settings, so any excuse, if there is any that was given, would not change the impression that this was the result of mere artistic expression.
As mentioned earlier, the player does not get to see the player character's model when using the first-person camera. This would not have been an issue, except that the player needs to look over edges of blocks often. Being able to see the player character's feet would have been handy, as the hitbox for the player character is not shown.
The defences have their own models, including different models for each level of upgrade. The differences in the numbers and placements of polygons between the models for defences of different levels are quite subtle. Fortunately, they have distinctly different color schemes, which make differentiating them with a glance quite easy.
The Lumes have impressively intimidating models, but these would have been more convincing if not for their animations that will be described later. However, from looking at their models, one would wonder whether they have been intended to have offensive capabilities. For example, the Walkers' large arms could have been used for purposes of old-fashioned mauling.
(Indeed, in the sequel, the Lumes would be able to attack. This may reinforce the suspicion that the first Sanctum game was a halfway-there project.)
The aliens also have the dubious distinction of having the only models in the game that can break apart into gory chunks when hit with particularly powerful shots, albeit these are orange instead of blood-red.
The least impressive models are those for other humans in the game, namely the technicians, who always walk around in bulky, silly Hazmat suits.
TEXTURES:
The game uses the Unreal Development Kit, which means that slow texture applications may occur for some people. This is an unfortunate setback if it does occur, as the game has some well-detailed textures, especially those for weapons, the player character and defences.
Moreover, the game has to re-apply textures for weapons and the player character's gauntlet whenever she brings them up in first-person view. This can be hideous to look at.
Fortunately, the textures for the environments seen in the map are quite stable, which allows the player to appreciate the splendid sci-fi artwork that went into the game. There are even more impressive textures to be seen in the areas with Easter Eggs.
The textures for the aliens have varying quality. The Walkers have some of the blandest textures in the game, whereas other aliens, such as the Hoverers, have far more intricate textures and clearer bump mapping as well.
LIGHTING & PARTICLE EFFECTS:
Coffee Stain Studios has a predilection for HDR lighting, bloom and normal mapping. The launch version of the game and the first set of maps would not show this, but one map in particular in the content updates does, though this matter would be explained in other reviews.
Anyway, the readily available maps in Sanctum have satisfactory application of lighting, resulting in some breath-taking sights. Particularly noteworthy examples are the Mine map with its subterranean features and the Arc map with its canyon vistas.
Weapons-fire have little lighting effects, which is perhaps appropriate as it would have been difficult to see what the player is shooting at if there had been lighting effects. However, there are particle effects for when the player hits the aliens: splashes of orange blood denote that the player has hit someplace soft, whereas sparks are emitted where the player did not.
The Lumes, appropriately, are walking sources of lighting. All of their weak spots glow with significant contrast. They may also have other sources of lighting that indicate their other capabilities; for example, the aptly named Tanks have glowing chevrons on their torsos and backs that show the state of their rechargeable shields.
The core also has varying lighting effects in addition to sizes to indicate its state. As more Lumes walk into it and overload it, it grows bigger and its colour becomes more sickly; eventually, the player is rewarded with a bright explosion when it critically overloads.
ANIMATIONS:
Most of the animations that the player would see are those for the aliens and defences, especially in single-player. The environments in the maps of the game are mostly static.
The Lumes may look menacing, but their animations reinforce the impression that they are none-too-bright. Walkers look like they are strolling, Hoverers flit daintily and Tanks waddle, to name a few examples. However, they still look amusing.
What are unintentionally amusing are their ragdoll animations when they die. Due to their weird shapes, the aliens' ragdoll corpses can be thrown around in hilarious manners, twitching all the way.
The defences mostly have recoil animations as they fire their weapons, though they also have lighting and particle effects that accompany their discharges to make them look more impressive.
The player character has some postures for the firing of weapons, as well as recoil animations. There is no lip-synching to be seen from human characters with actual faces however, at least not clearly. The reloading animations for weapons with magazines are disappointingly sparse as well.
The best animations to be seen in the game are probably the victory dances that the humans have when they win, and those for the aliens if the player fails. In the case of the former, the player gets to see the player characters performing silly dances while a few aliens mope in the background, whereas for the latter, the oddly shaped aliens perform even sillier cha-cha dances while wearing dapper hats.
OTHER GRAPHICAL DESIGNS:
For a game with considerable lighting, the shadows in Sanctum are surprisingly difficult to notice. They are indeed there, but they tend to be noticeable only during the Building Phase, and not when the waves come.
Numbers pop up whenever the player scores hits on the aliens, denoting the amount of damage inflicted on them. These are usually handy, except that the numbers become bigger as the damage that is dealt increases. This can obscure the life bars that float above the aliens, especially in the case of the Soakers.
VOICE-OVERS:
As mentioned earlier, there are very few characters with legible voice-overs in the game.
The only voice-over that the player would appreciate is that for the A.I. that informs the player of important occurrences and warns about impending disaster. That this is a very heavily synthesized voice-over would not be saying much of anything good about the other voice-overs.
Autumn Skye's voice-overs, in particular, can seem quite useless for anything other than purposes of entertainment. Skye will utter creepy laughs and hoots whenever a large number of aliens die in a short period of time, or when the player scores multiple one-hit kills in a row. She will also cuss whenever she gets slammed about by the indifferent aliens, but otherwise there is nothing substantial to be had from her utterances.
If there are any worthwhile voice-overs, they are those that are associated with the Easter eggs in the game. These shed a bit more light on the backstory and give hints on what to expect from the sequel, Sanctum 2.
SOUND EFFECTS:
Most of the sound effects that the player will be hearing in the game are gunfire. In fact, the din can overwhelm most other sounds, such as the moans of dying aliens, if the player has created a heavily armed maze.
There are some ambient sounds that can be heard during the Building Phase, such as the humming of the core and sometimes the wind. This makes the Building Phase quite a contrast in audio when compared to the Combat Phase.
The sound effects that the player would appreciate the most are those that indicate when a round has just started or just ended. There are also sound effects for the countdown before the game makes a checkpoint-save, which is handy if the player wants to revert to an earlier checkpoint before the game overwrites it.
MUSIC:
Perhaps the most convincingly good aspect of Sanctum is its music, which is composed by Gustav Tivander.
There are two sets of soundtracks: one for the Building Phase, and one for the Combat Phase. Both sets are predominantly electronic, as is usually the case for music in indie games such as Sanctum.
The tracks for the Building Phase are noticeably more peaceful and slower than those for the Combat Phase, which is appropriate, except when the game mode that has been chosen for play restricts the time that is given to the player(s) to build things.
The tracks for the Combat Phase are appropriately upbeat, though they are better appreciated outside of the game as the din of gunfire can easily drown out the music.
There are also tracks for the occasions of victory and defeat, which accentuate the silliness of these scenes.
It is also worth noting here that close to a year after the launch of the game, the game's official soundtrack was given to owners of the game's licenses for free, which is pleasant, though it could have been done earlier.
CONCLUSION:
As a game that claims to change the tower defence formula with the introduction of first-person shooter elements, Sanctum certainly did held up to its promise. However, it was released practically unfinished with only the most essential features but not many of the other, promised ones, and its launch was then followed by premium DLCs that in hindsight was not worth the cost. It took more than a year before Sanctum started to show its value, but by then, the game may have already soured for those who are looking for a bang for their buck.