Besiege Alpha Review

Constructors are an eternal thing. Even the most serious guys probably have warm memories of childhood with stern Soviet toys, and someone now wouldn’t mind putting together something from a secretly bought LEGO set. That must be why amateur engineers are drawn to the virtual world, where they can unleash any experiments and put their inventions into action without leaving the cash register. Besiege is the best candidate for such purposes.

As the name suggests, the game is dedicated to various sieges: whether it’s a peaceful village or a majestic fortress with guards on the walls, for some unnamed reasons, all this beauty needs to be destroyed, so that not a stone is left standing. Pelt it with boulders, for example. And it’s even better to blow it up thoroughly. And cut down the survivors. Or set them on fire. Or all at once, if you feel like it, because creating siege structures is entirely and completely up to you.

Each level in Besiege presents a small physics puzzle, for which a variety of parts are provided – from wooden blocks and flimsy wheels to metal struts and giant blades. While you figure out what attaches to what and what each part does, a modest tutorial subtly demonstrates how to build the simplest machine. So simple, in fact, that on the first level you’ll have to literally ram a windmill. But the fact that victory is achieved with such a basic machine doesn’t diminish the joy – because, of course, there’s more to come.

As the rules of the game become more complex, so do your inventions. A hastily assembled cart won’t stand a chance against a stone fortress, and archers will easily destroy a wooden contraption. You’ll have to add some form of protection and equip yourself with cannons. It doesn’t matter that an explosion will likely obliterate your makeshift machine – the goal is achieved. Although, it wouldn’t hurt to build a proper trebuchet for the next stage. Or maybe even switch to aviation, just to be sure.

The visual style of Besiege is simply a celebration of some kind. Juicy explosions and dismemberment included.

An excellent physical model plays an important role in planning artillery. In order to prevent anything from falling off prematurely, it is always necessary to take into account the weight of each element and the possible consequences of interaction with objects at the level – almost like real engineers!

Thus, the game motivates the use of all functionality – there is no ultimate weapon, and the tasks are sometimes not quite standard. There is a clear motivation to delve into additional tabs, clarify the purpose of clever pistons for oneself, and study the fine settings of each detail. The closer the understanding of the principles of operation of all mechanisms, the more interesting it becomes to crawl through the intricacies of springs and build one’s own death machine.

Our homemade helicopter doesn’t stay in the air, but it knows its business.

And believe me, you can build anything. The freedom of creativity here is absolute, the full range of parts is available right from the doorstep, even the only restriction on the dimensions of the future structure can be disabled – all for the sake of the player’s sculpting and creating. It must be said that the community has succeeded in this even better than us, filling the Besiege galleries with transformers, giant ninjas, torture conveyors, and God knows what else. Indeed, here better to see once How does it play? Incredibly cool. The minimalist, but very user-friendly interface quickly eliminates the natural confusion when first launched, the gameplay basics are grasped on the fly, and experiments bring pleasure regardless of the result. Honestly, the spectacle of a sorrowful ballista flying after a projectile is even a little more amusing than a successfully implemented catapult.

One of the drawbacks is currently only the not-so-great optimization. If you go overboard with the number of parts, the performance drops to very indecent levels. Apparently, for such cases, the game allows you to adjust the speed of what is happening.

Despite being in early access, Besiege feels like a finished and polished product. On a dozen or so levels available to this day, top-class mischief is taking place, and the level of fun remains unchanged for many hours. For a sandbox game, this is more than a promising foundation for the future, and for a game with the ability to build a mass destruction steam locomotive, it’s practically a claim to immortality. Game version – V0.04