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Tooth and Tail |OT| MammalCraft

L

lionpants

Member
header.jpg


Website: http://www.toothandtailgame.com/
Developer: Pocketwatch Games
Release date: September 12 2017
Players: Single Player, Online/Local Multiplayer, Local Split Screen!
Price: $21.99 CDN
Platforms: Steam, PSN, GOG Universal cross-play!
Art: Chickadee Games (Cool Concept Art)
Music: Austin Wintory (Journey, Abzu, Absolver)

MetaCritic, OpenCritic

Lead the revolution with an army of flamethrowing Boars, mustard gas-lobbing Skunks, and paratrooper-puking Owls. From the designers of Monaco: What's Yours is Mine, Tooth and Tail is a Real-Time-Strategy game featuring Single Player, Online Competitive Play, Split Screen, Replays, and more.

Build a base, lead your army, eat your enemies!

  • The War for Meat -- The Longcoats, the Commonfolk, the KSR, and the Civilized are in the midst of a Civil War over who gets to eat, and who has to be the meat. A darkly humorous tale of riots and revolution is told through an extensive Single Player campaign.
  • Endless Replayability -- With procedurally generated maps and customizable factions, no two conflicts will be the same, forcing players to strategize rather than memorize.
  • Pick-up-and-Play -- With matches lasting from 5-12 minutes, split-screen couch play, and controls designed for controllers or keyboard/mouse, Tooth and Tail is a popcorn RTS for veterans and newcomers alike.
Screens

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screen9.jpg

screen10.jpg

screen5.png
Click to expand...

tooth-and-nail-game.gif


PS4 Pro Support

BEMl9rI.png


Campaign Guide YouTube Series by Pocketwatch Games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLeQOlBm69jFUB3TUtMXP6vKhV6Tt9xspK&v=F9bVCjOVgF8
 
Karak

Karak

Member
Reviewed it.
Rated it a Buy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y6CNiQziMo

Pros
A surprising amount of units and options to offer to change battles
AI spread is excellent
Music
Funfactor is through the roof
Local same screen battling is incredibly insanely fun and embraces seeing each others screens versus fighting it

Cons
Procedural maps are fine but sometimes navigation can be difficult
Some unit sounds lack any real dynamic elements
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Destructoid - 9.5/10
I can easily recommend Tooth and Tail for anyone who enjoys the genre, even if you don't care for multiplayer. The story mode is robust and greatly enjoyable, but the multiplayer still has all the bells and whistles that veterans expect by now like replays and post-match graphs. I hope that a strong community forms around Tooth and Tail because it has rekindle
Click to expand...

HardcoreGamer - 4/5
Those looking for a hot new strategy game should look no further than Tooth and Tail. Providing endless amounts of fun with fair and fast-paced action, Tooth and Tail fights tooth and nail for its place in the RTS pantheon. It proves that innovating on an old school genre is sometimes the best thing needed. This doesn’t mean other games have to follow this design from here on out, but it shows that things can be done differently while being immensely enjoyable.
Click to expand...

Polygon - Pre review
That’s why Tooth and Tail, out today for PlayStation 4 and PC, has me so surprised. The game takes the essence of an RTS — shepherding units from their birth at point A to their death at point B — and keeps the spectacle in place. But in effect it pushes unit management to the side, choosing instead to focus on the forces of supply and demand.

Instead of frantic battles, Tooth and Tail is an exercise in frantic economics. While playing it, I almost get the feeling that I’m learning something about RTS games in general, that if I can get good this game I just might be able to get better at other RTS games as well.
Click to expand...
 
L

lionpants

Member
I've decided I'm going to grab it later today for PS4 due to ease of couch split screen. The cross play helps these decisions so much as well. Wish more would do it.
 
B

B00TE

Member
Oh shit, missed that this has crossplay, that's fuckin' hype! Been looking at it for a decent chunk of the day, looks like something I'd really enjoy even just loading up the multiplayer to play against bots.
 
T

Timeaisis

Member
Grabbing this later today but need to decide on PS4 or PC...hmmm....

I'm so intrigued by how they got a FPS to work on controller I might just got PS4 out of sheer curiosity.

Anyway, love Pocketwatch, can't wait to play tonight.
 
K

KodaRuss

Member
This game looks interesting but I am not sure if I am going to be there day 1. Maybe when it is a little cheaper. I will be looking out for Gaf impressions.
 
Z

Zukkoyaki

Member
Played this at PSX and even in my brief time with it I could tell that it's a genuinely great game. Probably the most clever and brilliant approach to RTS on console I've ever seen. The devs were super passionate as well. One of them was even dressed up like a character from the game. Good dudes!
 
O

One Foul Note

Member
Well, the positive reviews and former Monoco devs pushed this into a sale for me. Hopefully it's not too rough, I like rts games but lack the brainpower to play through the tougher ones.
 
D

DiscoShark

Banned
Oh wow, the reviews for this ended up being way more positive than I thought they'd be. Bought. I have 0 experience with RTS but the game's style + Austin on the soundtrack makes it an easy buy for me
 
S

samred

Member
Assigning an RTS game's cursor to a speed-limited avatar is such a cool design decision, turns out. My review of this will be late, but I've had nothing but a good experience so far.
 
L

lionpants

Member
Played a bit last night, got to part 2 of the campaign.

It was a bunch of fun! The core mechanics are great and work very well on a controller. It is very much a distilled RTS, but still has a bunch of strategy involved.

The only thing that was pissing me off last night was moving around the map at times. Sometimes it is such a pain in the ass to distinguish what is a hill that you can easily climb up and what is a wall or tree leaves that will block your path. This was making trying to get the heroic medal on the first mission in Part 2 of the campaign ultra frustrating. (where you have to free the prisoners within 5 minutes)
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
To clarify, there's three-way cross-play: Steam, GOG and PS4 players can all intermingle. I don't mean to nitpick; I just thought I'd mention that as "Crossplay between PC and PS4!" can be interpreted as two-way between either PC version and PS4. I realise Pocketwatch itself has said "PC and PSN cross-play", but I don't think it quite clearly communicates the extent to which cross-play is supported. "Universal cross-play!" is nice and succinct.
 
L

lionpants

Member
JaseC said:
To clarify, there's three-way cross-play: Steam, GOG and PS4 players can all intermingle. I don't mean to nitpick; I just thought I'd mention that as "Crossplay between PC and PS4!" can be interpreted as two-way between either PC version and PS4. I realise Pocketwatch itself has said "PC and PSN cross-play", but I don't think it quite clearly communicates the extent to which cross-play is supported. "Universal cross-play!" is nice and succinct.
Click to expand...
Good point. Updated.
 
L

lionpants

Member
Man... The difficulty of some of these campaign missions borders on bullshit. Half way through Hopper campaign and am stuck on Scrapetown Cutpurse.
 
D

DiscoShark

Banned
lionpants said:
Man... The difficulty of some of these campaign missions borders on bullshit. Half way through Hopper campaign and am stuck on scrapetown cutpurse.
Click to expand...

My main issue is from a map visibility point of view, the ACG review mentioned it but having it in my hands I can totally see what they mean. It's to the point where in some choke points I simple would not know if a path existed in a situation where I didn't have the map available.

The first hopper mission really highlights the worst parts of this.
 
L

lionpants

Member
DiscoShark said:
My main issue is from a map visibility point of view, the ACG review mentioned it but having it in my hands I can totally see what they mean. It's to the point where in some choke points I simple would not know if a path existed in a situation where I didn't have the map available.

The first hopper mission really highlights the worst parts of this.
Click to expand...
Totally.

I was very close to shelving the game last night. But... I kept on trying and eventually got through some of the tough missions. That - I guess - says something about the game, even with it's flaws I was determined to beat it, haha.

I am constantly trying to move through areas of the map that look like totally valid paths but they just end up being blocked off. I am always confused into thinking that the tree leaves are rocks and don't realize I can get through them in the heat of battle. The map design is really unfortunate and really just leads to frustration more often than not.

Which leads to my other frustration...

The random maps can alter the difficulty of campaign maps way too much. Some of the heroic challenges past Blue's campaign are so difficult that you basically need to keep restarting (why is there no RESTART option in the pause menu?!) until you get a map seed that will give you a fighting chance. Even some of the mission objectives themselves are - I would say - impossible given a bad map layout.

An example of the frustration of random maps...

One challenge had me freeing prisoners and destroying mills in a set amount of time with limited troops. The water heals my troops which is required to pass the challenge. Some maps spawned water right beside my spawn point, while some maps spawned water in the corners of the map. Guess which map layout allowed me to finally complete the challenge? Even then - with the favorable map layout - I just barely completed the challenge.

Bashing my head against the wall until the dice roll in my favor isn't my idea of fun.

Anyway, I guess the reason I am so annoyed about these things is because, at the game's core, it has something very fun and charming going on and if some of these annoyances were ironed out in patches (which I'm not sure would be possible without redesigning the game, specifically the map issues), it would bring the game to greatness. I'm in the last campaign missions now and then will be checking out some couch multiplayer!
 
S

Stoze

Member
lionpants said:
Totally.

I was very close to shelving the game last night. But... I kept on trying and eventually got through some of the tough missions. That - I guess - says something about the game, even with it's flaws I was determined to beat it, haha.

I am constantly trying to move through areas of the map that look like totally valid paths but they just end up being blocked off. I am always confused into thinking that the tree leaves are rocks and don't realize I can get through them in the heat of battle. The map design is really unfortunate and really just leads to frustration more often than not.

Which leads to my other frustration...

The random maps can alter the difficulty of campaign maps way too much. Some of the heroic challenges past Blue's campaign are so difficult that you basically need to keep restarting (why is there no RESTART option in the pause menu?!) until you get a map seed that will give you a fighting chance. Even some of the mission objectives themselves are - I would say - impossible given a bad map layout.

An example of the frustration of random maps...

One challenge had me freeing prisoners and destroying mills in a set amount of time with limited troops. The water heals my troops which is required to pass the challenge. Some maps spawned water right beside my spawn point, while some maps spawned water in the corners of the map. Guess which map layout allowed me to finally complete the challenge? Even then - with the favorable map layout - I just barely completed the challenge.

Bashing my head against the wall until the dice roll in my favor isn't my idea of fun.

Anyway, I guess the reason I am so annoyed about these things is because, at the game's core, it has something very fun and charming going on and if some of these annoyances were ironed out in patches (which I'm not sure would be possible without redesigning the game, specifically the map issues), it would bring the game to greatness. I'm in the last campaign missions now and then will be checking out some couch multiplayer!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've ran into all these things and I'm pretty down on the campaign as a result. The more objective-based and specialized the missions are, which is a lot of them, the more the procedural generation hurts it. It's very hit or miss.

I'm not sure how long the campaign is, if it's just 4 chapters - 1 for each faction - then I might try and finish it up. Otherwise I'll dive into the multiplayer I guess.
 
Karak

Karak

Member
DiscoShark said:
My main issue is from a map visibility point of view, the ACG review mentioned it but having it in my hands I can totally see what they mean. It's to the point where in some choke points I simple would not know if a path existed in a situation where I didn't have the map available.

The first hopper mission really highlights the worst parts of this.
Click to expand...

Ya I was surprised more folks didn't mention it. But for me it was hard. Luckily dying and coming back can fix that if the map regens better. But overall that was a sticking point for me.
 
A

A Sentient Keyboard

Member
Bought this game last night, only got a few missions in but I'm really impressed by the elegance of the controls. I've had an interest on RTSs for a long time but the focus on micro has always been offputting to me. I hope this game will allow me to enjoy the genre, in the same way Rising Thunder allowed me to enjoy fighting games.
 
D

disappeared

Banned
Hadn't heard of the game before and I saw the trailer on the ps4 store last week. Looked surprisingly good. Will probably check it out sometime.
 
Quote

Quote

Member
I bought this tonight and started playing. I was hoping that that it being a back-to-basics RTS that it would be slower paced but it feels pretty zerg-like from the start. I just started the second faction and managed to hit all the challenges on the first.

It’s still a lot of fun and the controls are really good.
 
L

Lathentar

Looking for Pants
Played a handful of 1v1 and then 2v2 (AI) with a buddy last night. Fun game, though the random generation really hurts the game in my opinion. Felt like how the maps were generated was the deciding factor in most of our games not our skill (or lack of skill). I'd rather they have a handful of balanced prebuilt maps for multiplayer.
 
C

Chronospherics

Member
Lathentar said:
Played a handful of 1v1 and then 2v2 (AI) with a buddy last night. Fun game, though the random generation really hurts the game in my opinion. Felt like how the maps were generated was the deciding factor in most of our games not our skill (or lack of skill). I'd rather they have a handful of balanced prebuilt maps for multiplayer.
Click to expand...

Didn't find that personally. I think although the maps are random, resources are placed relatively equidistant from all players.

Scouting early game to figure the lay of the land feels like a huge defining factor, in my experience.
 
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