If there was a phrase I wish every person kept in mind when buying new games, it’s that looks can be deceiving. Few Nights More is definitely an example of a title where that phrase applies.
That isn’t to say that Few Nights More: Genesis looks bad. The art style is lovely, though the character designs can sometimes feel a bit busy (looking at you, Barrasz). I could understand, however, why it would give some potential players pause. The game certainly looks like a title you might find on a website like Newgrounds or Kongregate. It’s a good one, no doubt about that, but certainly not something you’d find on Steam. That is precisely why you need to give the game a chance.
Few Nights More is all about being a vampire and defending your castle from the waves of attackers armed with pitchforks and torches. A free demo called Few Nights More: Genesis, featuring the game’s first act, is available if you want to try the game.
Honestly, trying Few Nights More: Genesis before playing the base game might be the ideal way to go. The demo features one playable character, one ability tree, and the story’s first act. Having the game so severely dumbed down helps to wrap your head around the game’s hidden complexity.
See, Few Nights More can be intimidatingly complex at first glance. That is because the game seamlessly combines base building, turn-based combat, and roguelike elements into one beast of a title. The game’s mechanical depth means there can be a lot on-screen simultaneously.
The UI can feel cluttered, with tons of icons and little to no explanation as to what they mean, even in the game’s paragraphs of tutorial messages. Jumping into a new game without the limitations present in Genesis feels like stumbling around in the dark. Still, the gameplay loop becomes pretty simple once you get past the clunky tutorial and busy UI.
Few Nights More is a roguelike where you navigate and defend your castle from waves of attacking parties. Your castle is the map, which you can customize by placing rooms into available slots for different effects and bonuses. You and the enemy parties navigate the castle one room at a time, with the enemies trying to reach and destroy your coffin at the center of the complex. It looks like a game of Clue from this screen.
The rooms you place can be anything from passive bonus suppliers, like more XP at the end of a night, to traps that fear or damage enemy parties before the combat stages.
Navigating into the same room as an enemy’s token begins the turn-based combat segment of Few Nights More. The game features a ton of skills, damage types, effects, and modifiers, so combat can feel cluttered and intimidating if you try to navigate the UI. I’m still slightly confused about what limits the number of skills you can use in a turn, but I digress.
The turn-based combat is otherwise straightforward, playing out with you and the enemy using different combinations of skills and buffs/debuffs to lower each other to 0 hp and win. These segments are both my favorite in the game and the ones I was the most disappointed by. I’ll explain.
The variety of skills available to your vampire hero, determined by the trinkets you wear and the skill tree you chose at the start of the game, is shockingly diverse. The skills are interesting, with unique, creative effects that are efficient and fun to use.
Turn-based games tend to suffer from one of two problems in this department: Either recycling abilities made famous by past games in the genre or trying new and exciting skill ideas that fall flat when it comes to dealing damage or simply aren’t as reliable as more tried and true ideas. Few Nights More doesn’t suffer from either of these problems.
If you’re playing Genesis, you’ll be restricted to the blood tree, which means your Blood Lance ability will be your bread and butter. The lance is so fun to use to skewer multiple enemies at once. Abilities like this demonstrate how creative the developers were with the game.
When I say combat also left me disappointed, it’s not because of anything related to the actual mechanics or flow of combat. It’s just lacking in animation. Currently, abilities feature some neat effects presented in two-frame animations, giving the entire game a sort of paper doll vibe. Better visual execution of these superb abilities would add to that feeling of satisfaction they already give when using them and would make this game phenomenal.
The game also desperately needs tooltip clarity on the abilities and some indicators to show you the damage calculation of abilities.
I have said the game looks fine, but that’s primarily because it’s hand-drawn, and I know how much effort that takes. Even still, the art may be the most significant factor holding the game back. I hate to say it, but the game looks cheap and unpolished, and the lack of animation doesn’t help.
The game’s backgrounds and characters’ designs share the sort of visual busyness that the UI does. There is always too much going on, with the castle itself being a sort of Where’s Waldo nightmare of clutter where rooms and paths bleed into the drab decor unless you pay attention.
Enemies navigate the map with tokens that look like they were created in five seconds on Photoshop, making the game look like an online game of Dungeons and Dragons played over Roll20. Characters have awkward proportions, some have overly busy designs, and some feel stiff. It gives the game a look that otherwise betrays how competent it is.
Overall, Few Nights More is in a good place, with much room to improve. The UI and tooltips are the most prominent areas the game needs to improve on. I feel like the art could be touched up a bit, too. I don’t think the game needs a new artist or a total visual rework, but maybe touching up on the backgrounds and making an effort to make characters feel more animated would go a long way to making this game stand out as the promising title it is. Retouching a few of the busier character designs couldn’t hurt, either.
