How do you make a game stand out in the modern age? Innovative ideas and designs might be the path to longevity, but, if we’re all being honest, a game’s visuals are the initial hook. Cataclismo manages both feats though, with a beautiful, distinctive aesthetic married to an inventive take on tower defence and RTS mechanics. Launched into Early Access last month, Cataclismo is an enigmatic, atmospheric, and even at this point, borderline essential title from the team behind Moonlighter and The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story.
You take on the role of the Lady Iris, leader of the last remnants of humanity. This was once a vibrant world, and remained so when the perlas appeared, giant glowing orbs that carried immense power. Humanity accepted their gifts, but, as with most things, this power came with a price. The world became covered in Mist, its enveloping cloak hiding a malignance that transformed people into foul, thoughtless creatures known as horrors. These grim remnants are attracted to the remaining humans, and so, you must defend against this ongoing threat.
The remaining people reside in Hogar, the last city yet to fall to the Mist. As their leader, Lady Iris commands the steadily growing troops, oversees building, and assists in the city’s defence as well. Unusually, Lady Iris was born with a perla within her, an oddity that allows her to perform Artes. These special actions form the cornerstone of your defense against the monstrous hordes. These abilities can be discovered, upgraded and strengthened as you progress, and likewise you’ll unlock new buildings and structures to help you guard against the horrors as they grow ever more dangerous and greater in number.
Cataclismo is dark. Its landscape leers out of the gloom, black edges teetering against stone and tree alike. It marries well with the bold lines and simple shapes of the people that dwell there, and there’s a comic-like design to each of the different units and the Lady Iris herself. That ties into the cutscenes, which in turn remind you of the more thoughtful artstyle of books like Y: The Last Man or Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. Whichever comparisons or influences are apparent, Art Director David Aguado has absolutely nailed it.
Controlling your army is reassuringly familiar. Selecting units and deploying them is as simple as it’s ever been, though at the outset they might just be the chattiest group I’ve come across since Warcraft III, acknowledging your every request with a selection of dialogue. While actions are played out in real-time, you can pause the action whenever you like, issuing commands or simply gathering your breath for the next assault. It’s especially important when you’re about to indulge in Cataclimso’s most rewarding aspect: building.
Each settlement you build must be designed to protect the people within. You have to build up your defenses, make them accessible for your troops, and think about the most effective way to fight off your attackers. This means chunky stone walls and parapets thrusting into the air behind your ground troops, as well as walkways and stairs for your ranged units to clamber up.
Hogar’s impressive Solas Gate forms the initial defensive structure, and it stands as the last line of defense against the swarms that come every night, attracted to the people within. Your first major task in the campaign is to build further walls, and you immediately get a sense of the straightforward but powerful building tools that let you quickly create new structures.
The higher your walls, the more strength they have. There’s then a variety of bonuses that can be bestowed on your troops by adding Tactical Pieces to your structure. The team have previously likened the building tools to Lego, and there is a glorious simplicity to the way it all locks together, telling you when something isn’t correctly supported, or making you rethink your approach so that you create a structure using the finite resources at your disposal.
As you try to push back against the horrors, you build new settlements, or reinforce those that have fallen. To do so, you have to build up a working economy, with wood, stone and oxygen forming the central points within it. A Sawmill is the first building you must put down, but you then have to make sure there’s a clear route to your Citadel for it to function. The city-building tools are as well thought out as you’d hope, and the modularity of the walls carries over to each of the buildings, with flat roofs allowing you to continue building further structures on top of them.
The music here is the final, and perhaps most important, layer to Cataclismo’s atmosphere. Synth-led tones grow and pulsate, rising out of the gloom in the same way the visuals do, while plaintive acoustic guitar tells its own story in the quieter moments. These are then juxtaposed with bombastic moments of drama, the two key instruments joining together to create something powerful and moving.
Cataclismo is tough. You have to get used to the rhythm of pausing the game to build, organise your troops and prepare, before letting the timer wind down to the evening and a fresh wave of horrors. It’s well worth persevering though, and with Iris’ ability to rewind time, you can return to several set points through each level, allowing you to correct where you’ve gone wrong.
This is all in the stellar campaign, with hours of gameplay to be found here alone. The addition of skirmish mode, where you can play across hand-crafted maps, including your own, and an endless mode that gives you a steady stream of procedurally generated maps means that Cataclismo is capable of taking all your gaming time, and then probably a bit more. I didn’t go to sleep until 1AM last night, and it is definitely Cataclismo’s fault.
If you’re looking for this year’s most innovative, genre-splicing indie, then Cataclismo has set a standard that looks unlikely to be beaten.
