Games worth discovering

The Legend of Zelda meets tower defense in the delightful Dwerve - Pocket Playfest

8K View2023-06-07

Everyone knows Link is the legendary Hero of Time, and everyone knows that a hero of his stature needs a badass weapon. Thus, the Master Sword. But what if our favorite hero didn’t have a Master Sword? In fact, what if he couldn’t really use weapons at all.

The delightful and charming Dwerve answers that question, and it turns out the answer is a lot of challenging fun inspired by great tower defense games just as much as it is by classics like A Link to the Past.

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Welcome to TapTap’s Pocket Playfest - An Indie Celebration! Beginning on June 16 and running through June 28, we will be showcasing demos for ten brand-new, unpublished mobile games. These ten games are all from indie developers and represent some of the most exciting upcoming mobile games on the horizon. You’ll only be able to download those demos for Android right here on TapTap, so stay tuned!

In addition to checking out some exciting new games, you’ll also be able to vote for your favorites. The developers whose games get the most votes will get a big cash prize from TapTap, and that’s not all: You can win too! Just by playing these games and voting for your favorites, you’ll earn points and get entered into a giveaway! You could win a Steam Deck, an Xbox Elite controller, or even a $1000 gift card.

Dwerve is one of the ten games TapTap will be featuring as part of our Pocket Playfest. Enjoy the rest of our thoughts, and be sure to come back on June 16 so you can download it and try it for yourself. Play and vote for your chance to win!

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While playing the demo for the mobile version of Dwerve, I took on the role of, well, Dwerve! He’s a young dwarf who’s been pushed out into an epic, world-spanning adventure to help save his father and avenge his home. But this diminutive fellow is far from an expert at combat. Instead, he relies on his dwarven crafting skills to keep him alive. When enemies attacked, I had to plop down turrets and traps to take them down.

With clear inspiration from tower defense favorites like Orcs Must Die!, Dwerve throws out enemies in quick, aggressive waves. I had to look at the lay of the land and figure out the best place to toss out my devices, such as a crossbow turret to help take out ranged enemies, a spinblade turret for those who got in close, and a tar trap to slow down baddies on their approach.

Where the console and PC version of Dwerve had players move from one map right into the next, the mobile version wisely splits things up into levels, with a world map between them. This makes for much more on-the-go-friendly sessions, though the levels can still take plenty of time. Even just the first few levels often took me fifteen to twenty minutes each, and the encounters got quite challenging, even this early into the game.

I also only had access to a small number of turret and trap types in the demo version of Dwerve, but it seems like there are a ton of options and a lot of interesting ways to upgrade and improve on them in the full game. I can’t wait to check out more and see where Dwerve’s adventure takes him. If you’re looking for a mobile title that really captures the joy and sense of wonder of playing classic action-RPGs of the 16-bit era, you’re going to want to give Dwerve a download right away.