Death by Game Show

I regret purchasing this trash.

There's just far too much things going on at the same time on an already cluttered screen. The game is just too overwhelming... in a bad way.

The weird theme is the game's best part, and although it has a lot of polish, it is a flawed gaming experience. The gameplay is like a two-tracked lane-defense game, with a lot of power-ups, upgrades, and unlocks. It has a solid series of several tutorial levels, although owners may quit playing even before completing them.

The game is off-putting with its confusing mix of item upgrades, limited controls, and odd menus. For example, the game never describes the vital "pack-up building" action, which is also inaccessible on the gamepad controller. Overall, this dry game lacks a certain fun-factor. To illustrate just how many people get turned off by this game, only 3.5% of game owners get the achievement that is automatically obtained shortly after the campaign tutorial levels!

If you can finally get into the gameplay, then the levels offer rewards for replaying. And there are a lot of levels in the campaign, then steam workshop levels to play. I enjoyed the pacing and narrative that encouraged playing them again. There were a decent musical tracks and voiceovers. I thought the bizzaro theme was sufficiently good to make up for the limited gameplay.

I played on Ubuntu 18.10 & 19.10 with radeon mesa graphic drivers. I used an xbox-type gamepad controller (not recommend) and keyboard-mouse control. This game uses the Unity game engine, with rather long level-loading times. The game requires 430MBs of diskspace. I would recommend this game for gamers who are looking for a quirky gaming experience, who will take a chance on an inexpensive price tag. Wish there were more inexpensive games on steam that tried such an experimental approach as this one.

Most confusing game. The interface is ugly, the overall esthetics is revulsive, and the controls are curious (stand still and press some key to have a spinner to get random money ???). You can only move either right or left (no jump), and you have a grappling hook which apparently is unable to catch unything. You only produce robots which will move in the direction you're looking at and then will beat other robots. Nonsense.

hey,,,,,controller is not working with this game,,pls help

this game feels like a Plants vs Zmoibes clone, only much harder and non-intuitive

This is a pretty good strategy game with twisted humour thrown in. Some levels will feel a bit impossible but if you keep trying you will get a bit further which nudges you to try and complete a bit more of the game.

For the first 10 minutes I didn’t get it. I was ready to hate. You can’t shoot, you can’t jump, the humor is for morons and overall I was ready to get a refund.

Three hours later, I’m hooked. The game isn’t casual, it’s got a real learning curve that I wasn’t prepared for. You’re not going to start and win.

For the first time in a long time, I’ve found a game that doesn’t hand hold me on the big picture. I had to learn to play and even decipher the story and setting.

That moronic humor makes sense. The game world is meant to feel dumb. The signs in the background tell a story of fake media, robot overlords behind the scenes and mass mind control. How all very relevant.

It’s definitely not for everyone. If you’re unwilling to put some effort into the mechanics, skip it. If you want something with hidden meaning then check it out - at least while it's on sale. 4 out of 5.

This is a re-review (I kept the original review below this). Originally I was frustrated with the game unintuitive mechanics and UI, and I critized quite a few things that actually weren't true, but I misunderstood them due to lack of good tutorial and help system. The developers were extremely responsive to my feedback, and while there haven't been big UI updates (which I understand budget-wise, since this wasn't probably a selling breakthrough), they changed at least a few things (made the game less grinding and probably a bit easier). I got interested again and decided to properly investigate and understand the game mechanics, and I finally mostly do. I have created a steam guide for other users, so that it's easier to start with the game and you're not confused by a million of things. Hopefully it will help the game sell better. You can read it here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=832774845

After finally having understood the game, I found it a lot of fun. It's challenging, but not exceptionally difficult if you know what you're doing (that's a big difference). I'm even in the top-10 global ladder already, which I find amusing considering my earlier impressions and review. The game is a well-done mix of action and strategy.

I'm still unhappy about some design decisions, but with the guide, it shouldn't be such a problem now. I created a long list of suggestions for the developers on the forums and they read it all and respond to everything, which is great. Hopefuly the improvements make it into the future versions of the game, if it continues to sell reasonably.

Older review below (mouse over to see)


Death by Game Show reminds me of Hammerfight - a great game with awful UI and obscure game mechanics so that you seriously wonder whether you should suffer through the shortcomings and try to enjoy the fun that is there, or smash the keyboard and never start the game again.

I love the presentation, the art, the style (heavily inspired by Idiocracy movie), the humor. I very much like the tug-of-war game style. I also like how everything is exaggerated, chaotic, distractive. Tens of objects moving at once, everything flashing, exploding - just great.

However, the UI and the game mechanics are so obscure and unexplained, that it kills the game. At least for me, because when I play the game, I want to know the rules, and not just button mash (this game is too hard to do button mashing anyway). You can read my detailed reservations in the section below.

I'd really like to continue playing this game and enjoy it, but at the current form, it's very hard to do. This game desperately needs a) proper in-game help with game mechanics well explained b) usability testing and UI improvements c) less infuriating item progression system. Until then it is a very very rough experience.

It kinda makes me sad to leave a negative review here. I mostly like it, just certain parts of it make me go nuts. Maybe I'm just too thick-headed. If you don't mind the lack of help and a confusing UI, try it out, maybe it will click with you more.

Notes for developers

The in-game help is probably the least helpful help I've ever seen (it's funny, yes, but that doesn't *help*). And there are so many unknowns. Why some buildings or units appear or disappear from your "inventory" at some point of time. What is even the inventory the game is referring to - units, power-ups, buildings, everything? How does the wheel of fortune work? How do you charge it up? What is the spin bonus for? Why does my vending machine sometimes stop producing units for a while, even though it has enough energy? No one knows. There are a few helpful hints in the tips, but you can only see those when you die.

The whole progression of items from previous to next levels seems to be convoluted and nowhere explained. After 2 hours of playing I accidentally saw a tip bubble that I need to "pack things up" if they should persist. I got mad at that point, because it means I've been losing all my items for 2 hours. But what does it apply to - buildings, or even units? What if units die, can I still "pack them up"? A core mechanic, almost unexplained. Needless to say, there are no game guides on the Internet.

The UI. Even after hours I still don't understand all the widgets at the main screen. The in-game zoom levels are "everything is too big" and "everything is too small". Why not continuous zoom? It's very difficult to place buildings in the strategy view, because you can't do it in the more useful zoomed-out view, and you also can't move the ground while placing the building. Recalling buildings is weird. Recalling certain units (iTCEs) is almost impossible, due to how the icon shifts when you click it for the first time. Very often your own view moves with every click on "swap/recall unit" icon, which makes double click on that icon impossible even for ground units. Key E to recall all units is mentioned once in the tutorial, and then not mentioned anywhere in the key overview in help (I had to replay the tutorial to remember the key). Double click to refocus your units never works as you would expect. When your rocket arrives, your strategy view becomes unusable, because it forces your screen to be centered on the rocket and it can't be moved. You can't click on enemy buildings to see what their abilities are. You can't see the firing range of your own buildings. There's a difficulty slider at the beginning of each level, but there are 10 options you can choose(!), each with different ruleset, and you have whooping 10 seconds to read it all and make a choice. I never managed to read through even half of that. (Why on earth would you time-limit the difficulty picker?). I could go on and on. It's unfortunate that the devs didn't let 10 of their friends play the game (without seeing it in advance) and see how they struggle.

There are certain parts of the game which I find infuriating. By trial and error (because it's of course missing in help) I figured that if you pass the level, your non-damaged buildings and units are returned to you. But if you fail, you lose everything even if you hit Retry challenge. Unless you manually pack up everything possible just milliseconds before dying/losing (using the strategic overview). Does that make sense? I don't think it does. First it adds needless busywork before each failure (packing up things). Second, if you forget about it, you need to go to lower levels to grind things back up and then finally try to repeat this level again. That seems to be a deliberate decision how to make this game artificially longer. I don't approve that. Grinding is not fun. It would make sense if I lost items destroyed during passing the level. But if I want to retry challenge, it should automatically give me my undestroyed things back, without busywork. And probably even destroyed ones, because that's the purpose of *retrying*. Anything else is a chore.
Another example are time limits, which are extremely tight and you need to exactly know what you're doing to make it. Time limits are again a mechanic which is usually rather annoying than fun, and it's true also in this case, at least in their current ultra-strict configuration.

From psychological standpoint, it would be much better for the game to have 3-4 difficulty settings (easy, normal, hard, insane) and default to normal. That would allow people to bump up difficulty if they feel like it, but also not feel like wusses to lower the difficulty for each level. Many people will rather quit the game than to lower the difficulty (including me, I'm not going to go lower than the *default*, I'm not a sissy -> I'll rather not play it). Making the insane difficulty the default was not a smart move here. I understand the "from hardcore gamers to hardcore gamers" sentiment here, but that could've been even without sacrificing the rest of the audience.

I start playing and think "Cute".

Then the language is off, to the point of making the instructions confusing.

Then I come to see this is a very simple resource allocation game where you order droids to counter an onslaught of enemy droids.

Then I think "Hmm...that sounds familiar."

This is almost exactly like that resource allocation game where you order plants to counter an onslaught of zomblies.

The difference? The language in PvZ isn't off and PvZ is F2P.

I applaud whoever worked so hard on the art, but sorry, this is not terribly original and definitely not how I thought I'd be killed on something called Death by Gameshow.

Maybe the devs need to revisit the seminal works in the death-by-gameshow genre: SmashTV and the movie The Running Man.

Fantastic game.
This is an essential game for anyone's library.
It mixes a few genres to create a really addictive gameplay with fantastic style.
I'm really enjoying this and looking forward to continuing to play.

I've followed this game since it was Greenlit, and it hasn't disappointed! Wonderful action strategy game with cartoon graphics and a Monty Python/Futurama sense of humour. The graphics in particular evoke memories as a kid of the Beano style comic annuals I used to read. Love the sound effects, especially ones that remind me of famous movie lines.

The gameplay is quick and action-packed, but still incorporates a degree of strategy and puzzle-solving so that you're rewarded for that "just one more go" way of approaching this. Tremendously satisfying!

I hope to see more games like this in the future: polished, lovely artwork, sound and humourous, but not sacrificing gameplay in any way.

I just hope there's a sequel in the pipeline!!

Really have enjoyed playing this game. I'm about five levels from finishing and man - this game becomes a monster of difficulty in the later levels. Some of the early levels I found kind of easy, yet I love piling up the power-ups and buildings. You definitely need a ton of power plants to get your energy high. And anytime the power plants or rockets powerup is available on the spinning wheel, use all your spins. The rockets make some of the hard levels much easier.

The only thing I didn't really like about hte game is the pre-set levels where you can't use your own stuff in a level. Those levels are nearly impossible.

Fun sidescroller. If you like funny 2D games you will love this, very unique to say the least! Check it out on my youtube channel.

https://youtu.be/2mnZnvl2ezU

I love this game its design is suited for a tower defence but something so different.

I would recommend this game if your a fan of the tower defence genre.

My one and only complaint is the Cuttered feel its very overwhelming when first learning the mechanics.

All in all alot of fun :D

Death by Game Show Review

• Strategy/Tower Defense
  
• Game show setting
  
• Place buildings and send droids to win challenges
  
• Asset Creation, Level Editor, and Text Editor.
  

• You go through levels, with various objectives, placing buildings and sending out droids. It sounds like an easy concept, but this game very difficult. There is little to no hand holding, and that can be considered good or bad, depending on the type of player you are.
  
  
• As you play through a level, destroying enemy droids and buildings, coins will fall on the ground and start sinking below the surface. You are equiped with a launch hook (grappling hook) which is used to pick up coins from a distance.
  
  
• The main goal of every level is to board the rocket and fly back to safety. However, there are various objectives to complete before the rocket arrives. For example, some levels may have you survive a certain amount of time before the rocket lands and you can enter, others may have you collect a certain amount of coin.
  
  
• When you send out droids, your G.I.M.P.'s energy meter goes down, but does recharge over time. If the charge depletes, G.I.M.P. falls to the ground and your movement is slowed. However, you can still send out droids.
  
  
• Throughout levels you build up a spinner, which hold either power-ups or extra cash.
  
  
• Upon completing a level, you get rewards (power-ups or buildings) to use in other levels.
  

1. Unique game
   
2. Extremely fun to play
   
3. Witty and commical writing
   
4. Challenging gameplay
   
5. Almost everything is customizable
   

1. Challenging gameplay
   
[*]Could use some gameplay tweaks

If you want a game that mixes tower defense with robot mayhem, Death by Game Show is worth checking out. The mechanics aren't hard to learn, but will take a lot of practice. The challenges in the game will have you either surviving the onslaught or completing an objective (collecting money or destroying buildings) before timer goes out. The game also has an Editor mode, which you can make your own challenge and present it to other players via Steam Workshop, which is a very nice feature to have. However, I find the difficulty spike to be pretty rediculous and the grinding aspect of the game is really tedious. However, I manage to have fun with Death by Game Show, and I'm always finding new ways to get through the challenges.

Rating: B

Before the game went on sale I spotted it in the listings and was attracted to the art style. It stood out and seemed like it had good deal of quality for me to follow up on and check out when it was released. So scooped it up on release day.

It hasn't dissappointed. So far I really like the game even though level 9 has me completely baffled after many retries and resets. With that said the game has a charm and enjoyment to it's style and presentation that with even being stuck on a level I'm still enjoying trying to figure out how to beat it. If the rest of the game is like this I'll enjoy it but I can probably see it not being for people who are prone to punching monitors or smashing keyboards in fits of rage because a game isn't easy insta-win enough.

If there was one thing I wish it had that's missing is a hotkey system for picking the various units rather than having to mouse click them. I find myself to be wanting to just use the mouse for grabbing dropped coins to get my wheel spins or level requirements. Having to do that and also clicking the right unit to build in the small list on the bottom is a bit of a juggling act when things get a bit frantic.

All-in-all a very well made game that's fun to play and look at. The hard work and thought put in by these devs definately shows. Better still is it's complete and not another early access.

This game is immensely fun, you can pick it up and play just a couple of levels but you will probably find yourself playing for hours. The replayability of the game comes in the form of trying the same levels over and over to finish them or get a high score, while this may sound dull the game manages to be quirky enough with the right mixture of different game-play elements that it never gets stale. The devs were not lying when they said the game is hard, sometimes it will take several attempts just to finish a level as you try and build up the required buildings and power ups via the 'spins' mechanic to complete a level, but when you do it feels very satisfying. I would recommend anyone who likes micromanagement, arcade or tower defence games to try this out. You won't be disappointed.

This game is good but almost gets unbeatable by the 9th stage for me. Seeing as how there are no walkthroughs out yet I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. The reason I would recomend is because you can tell they put alot of effort in this game and it's not their fault I suck.