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Tower Defense and Deck Building had a Rogue-like baby, now on Mobile (Cloud) | CD 2: Trap Master

256 View2023-12-22

CD 2: Trap Master

8.3

DarkStrategyRoguelikeDeckbuilding

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✨Overview

CD 2: Trap Master is a tower defense rogue-like deck-building game that has just recently been released in Early Access form. It is a sequel to the original mobile game Candy Disaster TD, featuring very similar elements, and adds rogue-like deck-building elements to the franchise.

Going in blind with this game, the title obviously gave away that this is a game sequel, but I could not find any trace of a predecessor game called “CD” across Steam and the internet until I found out that it was actually titled Candy Disaster TD, primarily a mobile game that was also released on PC. Upon discovering that game, it became apparent that CD 2: Trap Master is indeed a sequel to that title, and these games appear remarkably similar.

⭐️Score: 6/10

Pocket Playfest: An Indie Celebration 2023 Winter Edition

In a recent hands-on exclusive experience this past weekend, I had the privilege of testing a handful of titles on TapTap's experimental cloud gaming service, setting the stage for this 16-day event where indie game developers show-off their creations exclusively on the TapTap mobile platform — fully playable PC games without the need for an actual PC, Android/iOS version, or the need to download the games and install them. Granted, you’d need to have a reliable internet service to be able to stream these games, and preferably are located in US and Canada for consistent play and latency, at least for now.

🔗Join the Playfest >>
https://www.taptap.io/events/playfest2023winter

📅 Schedule
Dates: December 23, 12 AM PT - January 7, 11:59 PM PT.
Playfest Winners & Player Rewards Announcement: January 8, 12 AM PT

For my personal cloud gaming experience in this specific, please see further below in the review.

📖Story and Premise

The story is pretty basic for now, with the narrative revolving around a youthful ninja, which is weird because the game is set in a Dark European Medieval ages looking setting, not Japan or any East Asian location. This ninja is bound by a mysterious evil book to do its bidding, which is to slay some monsters using a variety of powerful contraptions and magic traps. Honestly, I find that story in its current state largely uninspired, and not it’s strong point.

🎨Graphics and Art Style

The overall art style is a mix of gothic and macabre, featuring a dark and atmospheric tone for its 2D and card visuals, while the in-game 3D graphics are stylized and cartoonish with a dark yet vibrant color tone. They serve their purposes, but there is a bit of disconnect between the 2D and 3D art styles here. I’m not sure if all the models are placeholders for now, but they seem to be taken directly from Candy Disaster TD, with its cartoonish style units serving as the monsters to slay.

🎮Gameplay

CD 2: Trap Master is basically a tower defense game that utilizes deck-building for its trap and unit placement, while having a rogue-like progression system. It's kind of like if a rogue-like deckbuilder had a child with Orcs Must Die. The game is about pushing through a series of branching out paths across the lands that are chosen by the player, most of which will be a tower defense encounter of varying difficulties, in other times; a merchant to buy trinkets, treasures to loot, random events to encounter, or a campfire to rest and upgrade your Cards.

Players start with a basic deck, and then loot more cards each run, players upgrade these cards, or swap them out via various NPCs they can find while traversing the pathways. The game has a lot of diverse cards that players can try out, and they’re all pretty fun to discover and use. These pathways culminate in a boss fight at the end, which ends the chapter and starts a new one.

⚔️Tower Defense and Deck building

The tower defense gameplay is where the game shines the most. Tower defense encounters are a core element and will probably comprise 95% of your gameplay, featuring waves of enemies that demand strategic deployment of traps, contraptions, and magic. The level design is as uninspired as its narrative, featuring randomly looking assortments of directions, walls, and hazards that don't really make sense. It feels more like they are randomly generated or haphazardly placed rather than being well-thought-out.

The game employs resource-based card placement mechanics, starting players with first draw, and then allowing them to place these cards on the battlefield as they generate the required resources. Players can occasionally their cards with a short cooldown, so they have balance their resources, current cards in hand, and their redraw ability. As said earlier, the overall card roster is pretty fun discover and use, and there is a lot of depth and engaging strategic elements to the gameplay. If you love deckbuilding and tower defense, I think it’s safe to say that you’ll find many things to like in this game.

⏫Rogue-like Progression

With all the rogue-lites out there populating the market, I think it's very important that this is a proper rogue-like game. There's only one progression, and when you die, everything resets – your level progression, your deck, and all your upgrades are gone. However, the game allows you to choose one random bonus modifier when starting another run.

There are role-playing sections and some semblance of narrative baked in while you traverse these pathways where you have to choose between different items, NPC dialog options, or responses to events, with corresponding rewards and penalties, but nothing amounts to anything substantial as far as the story goes, it’s all just added flavor and additional rogue-like mechanic.

📊Technical Performance

The UI experience in CD 2: Trap Master is notably challenging in its Early Access version. For example, the back button is so randomly placed throughout menus, sometimes its at the top left corner, sometimes it’s at the bottom right, sometimes it’s on the top right as an X button, sometimes its a ‘Leave’ button. The interface is not quite polished yet, and the developers and acknowledge this and are starting to tackle this.

Performance wise, the game ran ok and it’s perfectly playable without any game breaking bugs or crashes, which is a promising starting point for an Early Access release. I’ve experienced major stuttering from time to time, especially when placing units, opening new menus, or there’s loads of enemy populating the map. Which is unfortunate for a game that’s not that demanding in terms of visuals. I do hope the game becomes smoother as it receives more optimizations.

⚖️Conclusion

CD 2: Trap Master excels in strategic depth, offering diverse card customization options for varied builds. However, in its current newly released in Early Access state, the uninspired narrative, level design and UI woes diminish the overall enjoyment. While technically playable, the game requires more time optimization to address stuttering and enhance performance.

In its current Early Access state, the game shows promise with its unique blend of tower defense, rogue-like progression, and deck-building mechanics. As mentioned earlier, it's safe to say that you'll find many things to like in this game if you love both genres. However, in its current state, it would be doing the game a disservice if you try to enjoy it fully as a game. Consider getting it only if you want to support the game financially or don't mind participating in an Early Access phase.

☁️General Cloud Gaming Experience

This past weekend, I had the chance to be chosen as one of the testers for an experimental cloud gaming service by TapTap, and I must say, it holds a lot of promise. The quality is seriously impressive - we're talking sharp HD resolution, not like your typical streamed game. Looks and feels native and doesn’t feel like its streamed. The performance is also smooth (60FPS), with good frame timing (by visual observation only, as there was no tool to monitor this). There’s currently no way to play at a native 16:9 with black bars, as the screen is stretched out to the phone’s screen.

📶Cloud Latency

In my experience, my latency during the test phase was around 200ms --- only because the servers are currently located in United States for now and I'm connecting from asia. Even then, It’s still a bit playable, especially for games that are not latency sensitive like point and click games or those with simple controls. Having said that, it’s just a matter of server location and having lots of servers. It’s understandable since this is just a testing phase with limited servers. If a datacenter is nearby, I am positive that I’ll have a smooth and fluid experience, same with those living in the US or Canada. It works like a charm on 5GHz wifi, but the experience took a hit on 2.4GHz, so won’t recommend that.

🕹Cloud Touch Controls

Now, onto the user interface. I'm a fan of how each game has its own custom on-screen buttons, tailored to the specific control scheme. It works like a charm for simpler games, but things get a bit tricky with more complex ones.

🔃Cloud Accessibility

Accessing the service is a breeze - the Instant Play integration is right there on the game page, next to Download/Steam/Play buttons. Loading times are impressively fast, and I love that I can minimize the TapTap app and return to the game still streaming. Progress is not yet saved between streaming sessions, so it’s clearly just for testing purposes. Overall, it's been an interesting experience, and while there are some kinks, the potential here is exciting. Definitely surpassed my expectations.

🌩Specific Cloud Game Experience

CD 2: Trap Master is a fully playable game on cloud with a native feel for point-and-click interactions, with minimal dependence on Latency because it’s not a very reactive game. However, there seems to be an issue as there is no way to input the player's name at the start of the run. Other than that, the game works flawlessly without minimal adjustment.