izigame.me

Summary

Normally, when I write a review of a game, I try to avoid too many direct comparisons to other titles, under the assumption that players might not be familiar with those contemporaries and references will fall flat. That approach is, however, increasingly difficult to pursue in the bloated and heavily incestuous field of indie "deckbuilding roguelikes," or, to put it more succinctly, "Slay-the-Spire-alikes."
Fights in Tight Spaces is the formula of Slay the Spire thrown into a deep fryer with a hearty serving of Into the Breach and some SUPERHOT to taste. If you enjoyed any of those, you'll probably enjoy Fights in Tight Spaces, and it's so modeled off of those experiences that it's hard to describe it without discussing them.

Okay, but what's the gameplay like?

Fights in Tight Spaces is, on the surface, a clone of Slay the Spire. It's a partially-procedurally-generated, turn-based battle RPG with persistent health and resources where after each battle you're given a chance to add a card to your 'deck' of moves. You'll have to weighh the value of these cards to your ongoing strategy; Is it better to have less moves that you can do more predictably, with a small/lean deck? Or is it better to have a greater variety that's less controllable, with a big, wide deck?
Complicating this formula, though, is that the battle takes place on an isometric 3D grid, and every card-based attack or move has a minimum and maximum range and direction, making navigating within the space fully half of the game's strategic depth. Enemy attacks are brutal and will fire off even if you move out of the way of them, so using movement both to mitigate damage to yourself and to exploit enemy AI into friendly fire is as-or-more-important than just spamming attacks, and removing movement from your deck is a surefire way to lose. This does mean that the game's a bit slower and busier than other deckbuilding roguelikes, but it doesn't feel like a chore, mostly owing to the extremely sleek, minimalist presentation.

Critique: Lategame Balance Between Decks

My primary critique of Fights in Tight Spaces is actually identical to my primary critique of Slay the Spire: in the endgame, the constant barrage of new enemy capabilities, several of which will punish you whenever you act, mean that highly reactive decks based around astronomical amounts of defense and counter are vastly more viable than combo-based decks. Consider fighting an enemy who attacks for 15 damage every time you attack: in a defense-based deck, you layer on a bunch of defense and punch him once for 10 damage, and he punches you back, bouncing off your defense. He's not all that hurt, but you're left undamaged and ready to slow-and-steady your way to victory by repeating that move for four turns. If you're running a combo deck with a hand full of 'attack for 10 and play another card' cards, however, you're just fucked and put into an unwinnable situation, unless you have a way to eat 75 damage of retribution for your cool 50-damage combo move.
I don't know what it is about deckbuilding roguelikes as a fledgling genre that makes them go "hey, what if for the final zone we had enemies screw with the action economy and act out-of-turn?" Any board game designer with half of a prefrontal cortex could tell you that action economy is the most important thing in any game and flippantly changing the rules at the last minute for a difficulty boost is an abysmal design choice, but then, I suppose I haven't made a successful deckbuilding roguelike.

In Conclusion

My gripes about fine balance aside, Fights in Tight Spaces is a fun, stylish spin on the genre, and a cool thing to see for gamers who like both deckbuilders and turn-based tactics games. I got my money's worth at 30 hours, which evens out to less than a dollar an hour, and if a substantial content pack comes out for the game, I'll almost certainly come back.