Go Home Dinosaurs preview: Steak 'n' Shake
I learn something new every day. While playing the Go Home Dinosaurs PAX demo, I learned that even the most herbivorous of dinosaurs can't resist a nice, juicy steak. Also, little prehistorical mole creatures are the controllers and distributors of said steak, and they don't take too kindly to dinos attempting to crash their BBQ. Fortunately for them, dinosaurs aren't smart enough to stray from a straight path to get to those delicious smelling things.
Yeah, Go Home Dinosaurs is a tower defense game where moles are trying to defend their BBQ from advancing hordes of pterodactyls. Excellent.
Another thing I learned: Moles aren't terribly good at spacial management. They may be great at creating prehistoric turrets, lasers, and all kinds of general dinosaur-harming structures, but the concept of uniform sizes for those buildings is totally foreign to them. Like big, oddly shaped Tetris blocks, each of the weapons takes up a different shape on the board, each defensive building's location has to be carefully planned out to allow for future placements of those of different shapes. Making sure your laser fires down the longest stretch of dino path possible is tough when you have to think about where you'll place your meteor magnet next.
That's right, a meteor magnet. How else will you make those dinos extinct?
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Adding to the non-traditional tower defense concept is the fact that players will control their own mole dude. Not content with letting the player lay down their defenses and then watch them finish off the opposing force, that little mole will have to dig around the level, collecting coconuts from trees that pop up. The longer you wait for the coconuts to grow, the more they'll yield, allowing you to purchase more buildings. But wait too long and the dinosaurs will sneak past your inadequate defenses. You've got to manage your resources!
Manage to defend your grill for a round, and you'll be rewarded with a choice of a new trading card that improves your mole army's ability to blow away some giant lizards. Want to slow them all down for a round? There's a card for that. Got your eye on an improved laser? Go ahead and snag that. And for those players that aren't too excited about the card choices they made, they can trade with other players to further customize their abilities.
If all goes according to plan, we should be laying down the law against dinosaurs next year. Hopefully by then you'll have grilled up enough steaks to feed yourself and all your mole compatriots. I hear they've got quite the appetite.
