Game Review: BOID

(originally published 16th July 2016 on DVS Gaming)

After one and a half years on Early Access on Steam, publishers tinyBuild GAMES and developers Mokus Games have finally released their real-time strategy game BOID, which stands for Bio Organic Infestation Drone.  The BOID has crash landed on a planet “enabling its primitive life forms to mutate and develop special abilities.”  The game has a 10 hour single player campaign mode, as well as a free multiplayer mode with heavy twitch integration.

 

Narrative

The campaign mode is actually quite fun with each level getting progressively hardly, testing your skills.  Your drone has crashed landed into the ocean of planet Kepler 42-C.  This changes the course of life on this planet and incites “a battle to claim the planet, one microorganism at a time.”   You must claim spawners and class bases in vital positions around the map, mutating your units into different class types in order to defeat the opponent.  TinyBuild GAMES describes it as “…a very extensive tutorial for players who aren’t comfortable with the multiplayer straight away, and is a good standalone experience if single-player is what you’re after.”

The campaign mode starts off with a short comic, showing how the BOID drone was launched into space to ensure that humanity is the first “multi-planet race”.  You play as a private that is already in orbit with 42-C, and you are tasked with finding out what happened to the BOID drone.  Throughout the campaign you are guided by Clava – Computer Linked Avatar Version 3.11. By connection to the BOID DNA mutator modules, you are able to “control” nearby lifeforms and find out what happened at the crash site.

Gameplay

To call the game an RTS would be a bit of a stretch, as the game is lacking a lot of classic features.  There are no resources to capture and manage, no patrolling mechanisms, no base creation, building or deployable defense mechanisms, no way of assigning squad numbers to units to easily manage them, and no skill trees or special units with unique skills.  You control your units much like you’d control minion units in a MOBA – highlighting a group and sending them on their way.  There are no lane designations or abilities to patrol, so you need to be able to carefully manage all your different units in order to capture different objectives.

There is a real sense of urgency, and BOID redefines the term “real time strategy”.  You need to control and be attentive to every unit on the map, as you can only send them to one spot at a time and once they are finished eliminating the enemy, they will stand idle until you move them to another place or enemy area.  Quick thinking is the key as the game is focused on short, intense rounds only meant to be a few minutes long.  There is no building, but you will need to capture various spawners and class bases to give these units special abilities, such as Medic, Gun or Kamikaze.

BOID allows you to be able to login to Twitch via the game, giving a huge amount of twitch intergration and audience participation in your gameplay. The Twitch integration allows the streamers audience to bet for a winner simply by typing in #green or #red in the chat.  The audience also has the ability to start special ingame events, such as freezing all units, removing the fog of war, or changing the game speed.

Multiplayer

There are currently 35 maps (including the tutorial map) that you can play on through PvP or Play vs AI.  You have the ability to play as a quick game against a randomly selected opponent, as well as custom and ranked matches.  There is league system that you will be able to compete in as well.  You also have the ability to create and share your own custom maps using the fully functional level editor.  At this point, all maps are 1v1 and there are no indications as to whether this would be increased to a 4 person map at all.

The multiplayer mode is completely free and the only thing you have to pay for is the single player campaign mode as  DLC, and well as the ability to buy skins to customise your spawners. However it is not necessary to buy the campaign mode and if multiplayer or player vs AI is the only thing you are interested in, you are able to play it for free.

Performance & Graphics

Visually, the game is stunning and the music and sounds effects are on point.  The colors and graphics are bright and sharp, with a color-blind mode also available for those players who need it.  The game has a low computer requirement to run, with the ability to run on laptops with integrated video cards with Direct X 10.

BOID is a polished yet simplistic RTS game that is quite easy to jump into, unlike other games of this genre. However, don’t let the simplicity of the game fool you, it can become quite challenging and complex. It’s a great game that doesn’t take up too much time to play matches. Currently the multiplayer game is free, with the single player campaign DLC on sale at $7.99 USD on Steam. Check out the launch trailer and PvP video below, and let us know in the comments what you think.

Score: 8/10

All images © tinyBuild GAMES