Fort Triumph is an Early Access game on Steam. This RPG is a Kickstarter funded Tactical RPG with 1,457 pledgers who have donated over 78,000 USD. CookieByte Entertainment, the developer, is hoping to release console versions of the game with the full release. Right now the game is single player but they are considering adding multiplayer options.
Fort Triumph is set in an original fantastical world and like any RPG there are evil forces threatening it. You must use turn-based gameplay which focuses on leading a party of heroes to complete objectives to defeat the magical forces. While this game is tactically based, it does involve a lot of strategies. Planning turns and placement of your heroes are important to completing objectives without losing too many of your party.
Fort Triumph has all the basic character types expected in an RPG. There are barbarians (characters that make heavy close range damage and are more muscle power), mages (characters with longer range that use spells as defense and offense), knights (armor-clad characters that can take damage, usually close range fighters), ranger/archer (long-range fighters usually equipped with guns or bows), and much more. As you use your group and gain experience your characters can level up and evolve abilities. One of my favorite thing about this game is there are so many strong awesome female heroes. Even barbarian and knights which are often depicted as male.
When I first played this game I just used my keyboard and mouse. I treated it as a basic point and click kind of game that included using the keyboard to move the camera. This turned out to make the controls very difficult. Even though I was clicking an available path to move it wouldn’t work sometimes and the options to attack or move would change depending on the area in the circle you would put your mouse. Sometimes when you told the character to attack an enemy you would end up kicking a tree or something and wasting a turn.
This lead to me testing it out with my afterglow controller that is compatible with PC and PS3. I have never had this controller not work with a PC game that had controller options but there is a first for everything I suppose. After entering the loading screen you are prompted to either click with your mouse or hit A (or X depending) on your controller. Once you have done that you are sent to the menu options. This worked fine with my mouse but as soon as I hit A (X) on my controller it went to the menu and then it wouldn’t let me do anything. It wouldn’t let me choose any of the options, there wasn’t a way to scroll through the options or a cursor to select an option. I double checked the Fort Triumph Kickstarter FAQ page and it said, “The game has full controller support and is regularly tested with XBOX One, XBOX 360 and PS4 controllers, but should work with all common commercial game controllers.” I’m not sure if it didn’t work since it is for a PS3 and not PS4 or for another reason. So if you are planning on using a controller you might want to use one of the ones listed instead of a commercial one just to be safe.
I enjoyed the art style and sound. It wasn’t anything super crazy and distracting which was nice for a more laid back gaming experience. The only thing about design that bothered me was that the dialogue boxes were spread out across the screen and kind of hard to follow. I think a more basic dialogue box at the bottom would be clearer.
Overall, I think this game, when released after further development, will be a really fun and more laid back tactical RPG. If turn-based games and/or RPGs are your kind of game, I definitely recommend checking Fort Triumph out.
Watch the Fort Triumph Steam Early Access Cinematic Trailer:
Fort Triumph is available for PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam Early Access.
I'm a postgraduate Information and Library Studies student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. I'm originally from Texas and have a BFA in Creative Writing from SFASU. I grew up playing video games and now enjoy watching other people play as well. I love anything with a good story!
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