FortressCraft Chapter 1 review: Digging its own identity

Initially, many developers were concerned about the the 2,400+ ratings within 24 hours of launch that this title had received. Their concerns were quickly assuaged when FortressCraft enjoyed the most successful Xbox Live Indie Game launch ever, selling more than 30,000 copies this past weekend. Naturally, many will complain that Fortresscraft is a blatant ripoff of Minecraft, but keep in mind that Minecraft was actually spawned from Infiniminer, a title to which it appears strikingly similar. In fact, MineCraft lead developer Notch has recently stated his support for FortressCraft via his Twitter. Lead Developer of ProjectorGames, DJArcas wrote on their site that FortressCraft isn’t a carbon copy, stating “Originally, his started almost two years ago as a Dwarf Fortress style game (called Diggers), hence the Fortress part of the name.”

The two titles share a number of similarities, but bear just as many key differences; the absence of enemies is one of them. The anxiety and sense of urgency MineCraft forced from me each night for fear of monsters attacking or coming to destroy my home was a driving force behind that title for me, as well as many other players. A relic system has also been put into place, where relics, or power-ups, are scattered at random throughout the environment. Once you collect them, they stay with you forever. The problem is that they are random, meaning they could be anywhere in the world, and to make things worse, you have no way of tracking them down. Let’s hope you have a lot of time to kill or know how to exploit a few bugs as many players have already in order to track these relics down.

Graphically, it is a huge improvement over Minecraft. The textured polys are a welcomed departure from the sprites we’ve grown accustomed to over the past year. Where MineCraft does have the edge, however, is in the animations. Real time reflections, bloom, and shadows are present as well, thereby engulfing players in a much greater vivid interpretation of their world. Players also have the option to add a number of filters, such as highlighting borders, removing normal and specular maps, and adjusting the quality of the water. Why you would want to do any of this, I’m not quite sure.

For however beautiful FortressCraft may be, there are still a large number of graphical glitches present. If you get too close to a block when planting it, a number of errors may occur. Often times I was trapped in a green and black box that looked like something out of The Matrix. Other times I could see through the world and find relics, and finally it could also boot me back to the top of the surface. I frequently found myself outrunning the world before it could be displayed before me, forcing me to fall off a cliff, turning my screen to static and displaying the message “You’ve been eaten by a Grue,” before spawning me at my original starting point. What’s a Grue? I never ran into any enemies, nor did the people I was playing online with. [us old fogies remember Zork -Ed.]

Gone is the need for scaffolding to build large structures, as players now have the ability to soar the skies through the use of a jetpack, but only after they find the relic of course. This made the experience of constructing tall buildings much easier and less time consuming. Dropping and mining for blocks no longer requires players to stand adjacent to them; they can process the events from a far greater distance, as I magically stacked blocks on top of one another from several feet away. The building process has been further streamlined by negating the requirement to mine for materials. Instead, players simply need to alternate between the block of their choice through use of the D-pad.

My multiplayer experience was enjoyable as I could party chat with others in the room to gain a sense of community. Players were also marked on my map as they moved about and I could see their names floating through the world as I progressed within their environments. Room hosts have the ability to limit who can and cannot join the game, as well as who is able to edit the landscape. It wasn’t until I was added to the friends list of my most recent host’s room that I could edit his castle. Up until that point, I could simply traverse the environment and enjoy his architecture. My cohorts also let me in on a bit of their tribulations with the save system as well. At launch many players were disheartened to see their hard work erased upon going from single player to multiplayer. If you plan on playing single player and multiplayer, you had better be prepared to do the USB dance. Once you create a new world, it overwrites your previous save, whether it is single player or multiplayer. Therefore, you will be required to save one to your local hard drive, and the other to your USB stick. Just be sure to pull it out before going between the two experiences. Whether this is a shortcoming of the Live experience or a glitch is yet to be clear.

As it stands, FortressCraft is riddled with bugs and missing a few features that I would say are key, such as the ability to track relics and have multiple saves. ProjectorGames has six more iterations planned, so I’m confident they will add features as they move along, but the question is will there still be enough players around who care and are willing to drop $3 for each update of essentially the same game? I’m not so sure.

Does Minecraft’s userbase of 3+ million players have any need to break a sweat? Perhaps not just yet, albeit this is only the first of seven planned updates to the title. Due to Live’s terms, downloadable content cannot be released free of cost, therefore additional updates will come at a cost of 240 MS points ($3). If you enjoyed MineCraft, you may enjoy this. Although they share a number of similarities, they also bear a large number of differences that could make or break your experience. I suggest trying it out first, and going from there. Check back here as the title is amended, and we’ll be sure to keep you in the loop.

Rating:

Fortresscraft was purchased for 240 MS points ($3). You can download a free demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Update: To clarify some confusion in the comments, there will be free updates for Chapter 1 that will include some free content and fix bugs. A patch is currently in peer review that will include 8 new blocks. Future chapters will include new gameplay modes and features such as PvP, crafting and minions. New chapters will be 240 MS points, regardless of previous chapters owned, and save data cannot be shared between chapters.

By Dave Voyles at July 31, 2011.

About Dave Voyles

Dave is based out of Long Island, NY and is currently working on projects using the Unreal Engine. He earned his degree in Communications from SUNY Oneonta and currently doing his MBA in Management of Information Systems. Dave is also Co-Coordinator for the Indie Games Summer Uprising on Xbox Live. You can follow him on Twitter, at @DaveVoyles