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[EdibleKnife]

As usual my YouTube feed has turned me on to an interesting game I knew nothing about. (This was typed from a phone so forgive or inform of any errors or broken links)

Tooth and Tail is an upcoming indie game by the studio Pocketwatch Games best known as the Monaco developers. The game is best described as an arcade RTS with the devs referencing Mario Kart and Smash Bros as the idea they want to invoke; something quick and simple to pick up, best played with friends & rewarding to both the casual player and the devoted one. Another media property the devs reference is Brian Jaques's Redwall series, with the commanders and units being woodland creatures (mice, snakes, badgers, owls, moles etc.) ruthlessly battling against one another on procedurally generated battlefields.

A regular match of Tooth and Tail lets each player choose six units or defensive structures before the fight from a list of 20. Most of the units are then spawned in by constructing unique buildings that they'll automatically spawn from over time. You only directly control a single leader unit which you run around a randomly generated map placing buildings, claiming and improving windmills to get food (the game's only resource), and scouting the enemy. You can issue orders from your general with a pull of the trigger, commanding either your entire army or one unit type at a time. From there, Tooth and Tail behaves just like you'd expect a competitive RTS, except you can learn the controls after just one or two of its roughly seven-minute matches

This interview is a few weeks old but describes the, as of this post, incomplete campaign mode (current alpha of the game offering only the PvP modes):

Tooth and Tail is also going to have a full singleplayer campaign, which I played an early version at PAX East last weekend. It feels like a bite-sized version of the StarCraft story campaigns, which makes sense given the game's goal of condensing that experience down into a more digestible form. I played through three levels, all connected by a larger story and a communal tavern where I got new missions from the various animals in Tooth and Tail's Redwall-meets-WWI setting. Each mission switched up the regular rules of the game in one way or another, limiting what units I could build or changing my objective from killing an opponent to surviving a set amount of time, and none of them lasted longer than a few minutes.

...

But the most interesting of the bunch was a mission called The Long Thirst, where I needed to survive three nights in a desert. Each night the enemy army would come hunt me down as I tried to defend myself, only able to build land mines and moles—a unit that doesn't spawn from a building and can be built individually anywhere on the map. But with no windmills, the only way to get food to fund my army's growth was to go hunting for lizard enemies scattered around the map during the day.

PC Gamer
SmashBoards (Another interview where developer Andy Nguyen discusses balancing the game and it's watchability)

This was the video that introduced me to the game (WARNING: This particular YTer's commentary might not be for everyone): SplatterCat

And here is Pocketwatch's YT channel itself where several skirmishes among the building competitive community have been uploaded: Pocketwatch Games YouTube Channel

As a big fan of Redwall as a kid and an RTS dabbler, this shot up to the #1 spot on my Steam wishlist. The pixel art is great, the drawn art is spectacular, the competitive community is building and the kinetic nature of the moment to moment gameplay glues me to just watching the matches. (It's built to be Twitch fodder). Add a campaign that bends the games rules for tense and bespoke missions and I couldn't help going a step further and informing/reminding GAF of this splendid little title.

Tooth and Tail Steam Page

 

[Dreavus]

Looks pretty cool, more of a tactics game since it looks like there are specific unit caps and the maps are very small. The "woodland creatures" aesthetic is great.

 

[EdibleKnife]

Looks pretty cool, more of a tactics game since it looks like there are specific unit caps and the maps are very small. The "woodland creatures" aesthetic is great.

And the artist(s) they hired are on point the creature society pop just from how unique the units are. Really feels like they can go on to make an animated short for the world they built