Shad'O

Game Category: Tower Defense
Developer / Distributor: Okugi Studio
Release Date: 5 Sep 2012
Rating: PEGI - Not Rated

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Introduction
If you are an experienced player who has been curious about what the Tower Defense genre has to offer and have so far looked upon it only from the sidelines, then here's a game that you might want to consider trying out.

Or, you could be shopping around for that unique gift for Halloween - well, Shad'O is in my opinion a good choice... this game has a dark theme based around shadows that's sure to please.

Be afraid of dark places

Background
Shad'O is a game from Okugi Studio, an independent developer based in Nîmes in the southern part of France. The game features a unique story and wildly imaginative setting that will surely pique your curiosity right from the start.

It presents a single player only experience that has you travelling through the mind of William - a boy who for some reason is in a catatonic dreamlike state. It is up to you to help drive away the dark shadows and help William out.

Help drive away dark shadows in Shad'O

Gameplay
In the game's opening scene, you see William about to be swallowed up by the encroaching shadows. Luckily, he is woken by his one true friend - Teddy. It is a dark and mysterious world that William finds himself in and it's thanks to this little bear who encourages the boy to push the shadows back.

Your first tutorial level is a cinch, all you have to do is follow Teddy's orders and you will be able to survive it without any problems. The key objective you will be defending in every level of Shad'O is a beam of light that represents one of William's memories. Shadows, representing William's deepest fears, will be doing their utmost best to enter this beam of light (even though the brightness sears them like red hot fire). Fortunately, the shadows follow prescribed pathways which makes it easy for you to take them out by placing tower defenses.

You will be depending on companions in the game to defend William's memories; which is just a fancy word for a "tower". The first two companions you will be introduced to in the tutorial are the Collector and Shooter.

Collectors can only be placed on circles surrounding a luminous well; every level will contain a luminous well that gives you light as a resource. Once you have placed the Collectors, your light resource (the number at bottom left in the screenshot below) will start increasing automatically.

A luminous well with Collectors

Very soon, shadows will come pouring out from a angry red shadow vortex. To stop them, you must place Shooters along the pathway leading to William's memory. Companions are not for free, they cost light; you will often have to wait for your light resource to go up before you can place another companion.

Incidentally, you can only place companions on areas with light; these are spots where a little luminous plant grows. Luckily your companions emit light, and placing them will help chase away the roiling shadows. This gives you even more space to place companions - a novel game mechanic in Shad'O.

What? Teddy can speak!

After the tutorial, you can start exploring a map of islands floating in the Sea of Forgetfulness. Each island contains at least one to three fragments of memory waiting to be unlocked, and each fragment takes you to a new level where you must defend that memory from the shadows.

To complicate matters, later levels will have multiple paths and multiple shadow vortexes (starting points for the shadows).

Which memory shall I unlock?

Complete an island and you will be brought before William's drawing book. Within the book, you can pick to either upgrade your companions or learn a new spell.

Companions can be upgraded during game play three times, but to do so you will first have to enable their upgrade from the drawing book. If you choose not to upgrade companions, your next choice is to learn a new spell. These spells - there are 10 of them - give you useful abilities that will help you out a lot during game play.

Pick a spell, any spell

Other than the Collector and Shooter, you will meet 2 other companions after the tutorial - the Projector who shoots a continuous beam of light, and the Puncher whose punch will help slow down the pretty fast moving shadows. Other companions like the Rainbow, Mole, Doc, Sonar, Pulsor, and Greedy will only be available to you in the later stages, usually after a mighty battle with one of the game's three boss shadows.

With ten different companions, you can destroy monsters in as many ways. Oh yes, there's one other thing you have to do: Make sure you pick up the orange little globes the shadows drop, they are used to power your spells.

Somewhere over the Rainbow

Let's cover the bosses. These are mighty shadow beasts that are the stuff of nightmares; and believe me - they will make life really tough for you. You will need to destroy them with whatever companions and spells you already have unlocked in the game, and in case you cannot, it's best you backtrack to unlock memories a second time round in nightmare mode.

Nightmare mode is only slightly more difficult, so hang in there because you will earn yourself a much needed visit to the drawing book. There are also special levels that either give you more starting resources or some other benefit, make sure you also attempt these.

The bosses are the stuff of nightmares.

Graphics and Audio
The graphics in Shad'O looks to be highly detailed although I did notice jagginess thanks to poor (or lack of) anti-aliasing. You will want to admire the panoramic backdrops rendered with Unity's 3D engine but are confined to a top down isomeric view that doesn't allow you to pitch your camera angle at all.

A lot of graphic shaders have been used in Shad'O, like the smoke-like effect you see on the main menu, and the roiling shadows you see on every level. The video cutscenes and images look vibrant and bright; they represent the lost memories of William and tell a compelling story that cannot be missed.

Send chills down your spine...

The sound effects in Shad'O contains a couple of scary sounding clips that represent the shadows emerging from their vortexes. You will learn to recognize everyone of them as it pays to know what you are up against.

The music soundtrack evokes a sense of unsettling anticipation that makes you wonder what has caused William to have such a blackout of memories. The cutscenes feature some reasonably decent voice-over work, however the script sometimes feels a bit stilted - guess the translation from French needs a little more work.

Listen carefully for specific shadows

Pros:

Shad'O combines good story and game play into a spellbinding mix that in the end makes it a good tower defense candidate to recommend.

There are more than 20 beautiful and surreal levels to visit in Shad'O. Pay attention to the fully animated backdrops as well.
Look out for the fog of war effect that roils like a troubled nightmare.

There are two modes of play for typical levels - normal mode, and on subsequent attempts, nightmare mode.
Look out for special levels that reward you with a bonus.

Special battles have different rules

Your ten companions present an interesting array of weapons and abilities; they can each be upgraded three levels.
You have ten varied spells that can be learned and cast to help you in a time of need.
There are many challenging shadow monsters to fight; remember to pick up the orange globes from defeated monsters to help power your spells.
The nightmarish looking boss fights are quite memorable.
Shad'O comes with a great story and some really nice cutscenes and images.

Some really large levels to challenge you

Cons:

The difficulty in Shad'O may be quite punishing if you pick a poor combination of companions to upgrade and spells to learn.
Other than the great artsy feel and look, Shad'O may feel like an overly challenging experience to casual players.
Levels with multiple pathways can be very challenging.
You will find that moving around with the mouse and placing companions down on a pre-defined grid is not as refined as it can be.
With no scoring system in the game, the only thing driving you forward in Shad'O is the story and the challenge in winning a new level.
Some minor quirks in translating from French.
Reliance on Apple Quicktime may not go down well with some players.