A cute little tower defense game. I generally enjoy tower defense, so bear that in mind... but I quite like this one. It isn't easy, the waves can be challenging.

The graphics are wonderful, as is the animation. This has a charming, cartoony nature to everything that I really love. The movement and jumping animations I found particularly fun. Don't go into this expecting tight, action game controls... this is meant to be a bit more fun and a little bit chaotic. I really like how they have it tuned, and I think the art and animations folks did an A+ job here.

You set up your defenses along the path as usual, though you do have some limitations on placement (which is normal) due to the way power works. You run around while the wave is going and you can either jump on the backs of the enemies and help kill them or you can use your broom to essentially slow them down and keep them in range of the turrets. Or you can throw bomb flowers which you find all over the map and are super useful! Build up enough defense to buy yourself some time, and you can go find peepers on the map and escort them back to your base and they provide you bonuses if you get enough of them. There's also mines and things you can drop in a free form fashion, some slow the enemies or damage them... it's really cool.

What's super interesting about this one is the way currency works. Your currency is souls of the enemies, but you don't get any souls just for killing them. You have to kill them in vicinity of a soul sucking flower that will collect the souls of all enemies killed in range. The flower holds on to those during the wave. After the wave, during you build phase, you can harvest the souls from the flower. But here's the kicker... harvesting the flower destroys it. So you may only have 4 or 5 flowers scattered around the map for your entire run, so you need to plan out how to collect the most souls in a single flower each run so that you can harvest those, and then use the next flower for the next part of the run. If you don't harvest any flowers though, and try to just keep them collecting, then you cannot build any defenses!

Each wave you get a reward choice of 1 of 3 new items, whether its a new tower or a new mine. You start each run with a loadout that you get to pick from your unlocked items, so you do get some freedom there to start out how you like, but then the end of wave rewards are random which keeps you on your toes.

The map starts out clouded, and after each wave you uncover more areas of the map which give you access to more soul sucking flowers, more areas to put turrets, and more enemy spawns. Also potentially more peepers. There are portals around that will take you back to your base. Also you can unlock and build jump pads which allow you to make higher jumps you wouldn't normally be able to do, so if you like running a certain circuit you can use jump pads to save time. It's a very clever design.

I haven't done much in the way of unlocks, but this game does appear to have some type of meta progression either through unlocks of new items or upgrades, so that is pretty cool.

What I found most impressive about this game is that it released today in EA and was not only 100% bug free, but works like a champ. The menus work great, the tutorial was good, the movement and controls work fine.... I think there are some opportunities to tune some things in the game, and also some opportunities to improve how demolishing or moving turrets works... but those things will develop. The content is fairly limited, and I think that is where EA comes in to play... but as the game develops I'm sure more levels, more enemies, more towers, etc will be added to the game. I'm happy to follow along for that journey.
The fact that the developers put their time before EA into the main systems and functionality of the game, made that work smoothly and well, and then plan to add content through EA is great. I wholeheartedly agree with that approach.

One thing I haven't tried yet is playing with a game pad or a steam deck. Because of the way the build phase works, you have all the time you need for tower placement, which is usually easier to do with a mouse. I'm slower doing that with a thumbstick. But you have all the time you want, so it's no big deal... and then during the wave, your controls are more similar to an arpg where you run, swing your broom, jump, etc. So I think this game might actually be one of the first really fun TD games that I would try out on steam deck.

I am actually quite happy with this one, even as EA.

- Keeping busy during waves: There is a lot to do during a wave. You can jump on enemies, “gust” them into range of turrets, activate spike traps, throw bombs or even supercharging wind turbines. But you really want to get all the peepers first. Which is a risk. Sometimes you might not have enough time. You want to plan the route you take before the wave starts. It feels tightly balanced.
- Keeping busy between waves: There is also a lot to do after each wave. Cleaning up turrets, Opening paths, consuming “Soul Root” and building new defenses.
- Diversify strategies: Since not every “Soul Root” has wind around it the windmill is not always an option. So you have to be creative and use one-off tools like the mines.
- Music and Sounds: The soundtrack is really nice. It gives these chill vibes. The little noises that enemies make are also cute.
- Cute character designs: The little peepers look cute and the enemies also has this gross kind of charm that together with the animations they have makes for some nice looking characters.
- Nice VFX: The effects like using the bombs and the explosions look good and also unique. It all has this “pinkish nebula” color to it.
- Jumping: It’s nice to be able to help out with the defense by jumping on the enemies. It feels good but it’s obviously not the most effective way to kill enemies. Platforming around is also nice. You really have to nail some jumps to get to the peeprs

- Optimal Strategy?: Seems like I would want to go with the windmill+turret+spiketrap every time at the start of a level? To have some good damage when there is wind and the spiketrap if there is not. Not sure if this is true, I have not played enough yet.
- Mines: Didn’t see much use to the freeze mine. I guess it’s cheap. I also wished the mines would respawn after a wave. It feels bad to spend souls on something that will only trigger once. I wouldn’t mind them being more expensive then. I guess it would turn into a spiketrap that automatically triggers then.
- Trampolines and speed boost: I assume that the trampoline and speed boost come in handy in the later levels. I didn’t see much use for them just yet.
- Level Visual Distinction: Desert world 1 was the same layout as the tutorial with slight tweaks. It would be nice if they are a bit more distinct. Desert World 2 also looked visually similar. I get that they are part of the same “World” but it would be nice if they had some sort of landmark and slight difference in color palette between regions of the map. But this is just my first thoughts after playing the first two levels.
- Bug - Missed Tutorial: I missed one of the tutorials because I started the wave and then walked in it as a new message popped up. It was the most right tutorial when you start the first wave.
- Missing music: when choosing upgrades or looking at the map it’s eerie silent. It would be nice to have a different soundtrack playing then.
- Bug - No Map: Couldn’t press tab to see the map briefly in wave 3 of the tutorial when walking at the bottom of the map. Got it back again when walking up.
- Bug - Can’t demolish: Couldn’t demolish buildings during wave 4 of the tutorial.
- Level unlocks: I don’t think I unlocked anything new from doing Desert World 1 apart from being able to do Desert World 2. That felt a bit bad.

I really like my first look at the game. It’s a unique take on a tower defense game where you have some more things to do during a wave. The art style and atmosphere is also great. It looks really cute. For Early Access it's also pretty stable. I only ran into some issues during the tutorial. But they were not major. I’ll definitely keep an eye on development and I’m curious what comes next.

Super cute! Getting into it more and more. It's always been obvious that Half Past Yellow is giving many ♥♥♥♥♥ about delivering a complete high end indie experience, and this is no exception. It's juicy, well thought out design wise, and is a fresh take on the TD genre. The only pain I can think of is that it's screaming for local (and perhaps online) multiplayer.

As an early access title this is over delivering in spades.

Oh, I play with an XBOX controller and the controls are super great. Would be mighty sad if this wouldn't be considered for PS5 and Switch 1/2.

Just get it already.

Here's hoping the game will be so successful that they will put that in as a no-brainier.

EDIT: I DID IT! MORE LEVELS PLEASE! :)