I hadn’t heard of Shardpunk: Verminfall when I received an email telling me that it had won a gong at the Intel Pixel Awards Europe. In fairness, I hadn’t heard of the Intel Pixel Awards Europe either, and I’m usually pretty up to date on these sorts of things. There are hundreds of awards ceremonies going on all the time, but I started taking notice of this one when I read thatRoadwardenhad won multiple categories.
Roadwarden was last year’s most overlooked narrative RPG, and if it had released in a year that didn’t also includeCitizen Sleeper, I feel like it would have garnered much more attention. However, the Pixel Awards noticed its spark, so I had an inkling that our tastes were similarly aligned.
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Shardpunk: Verminfall won Best Gameplay, and was also nominated for Retro Roots and Indie Grand Prix, the former of which is self-explanatory and the latter of which is not explained anywhere on the awards’ website. Still, the best gameplay award going to a game I hadn’t even heard of? I had to check it out.
Let’s get one thing straight right out the gate: Shardpunk: Verminfall is a terrible title. It’s utterly meaningless and tells me nothing about the game. What’s Shardpunk? It’s not an existing genre, and I’ve aired my grievances witheverything being suffixed -punk these dayson many occasions. Vermin does suggest rats, at least, but why are they falling? Maybe I have seen this game, and the sheer genericity of its name all but forced my eyes away from it? But don’t worry, it gets better.
At first, the game’s description seems similarly generic. It’s got a lot of buzzwords and even more genres, describing itself as “XCOM meets Darkest Dungeon” in a way that so many indie games do to latch onto something that you’ve heard of to lure you in. Move past the descriptions of it being a survival RPG with turn-based tactical strategy, though, and you find something that is all of those things, and somehow is more.
This isn’t a copycat. It’s not one of those profit-hungry Vampire Survivors clones that popped up in the wake of the indie game’s immense success last year. It’s borrowing ideas from plenty of successful games, XCOM and Darkest Dungeon included, but it’s elevating them. What if XCOM had even more survival elements, you had to scavenge for your grenades and cobble together scrap to keep your all-important, fusion-powered automaton functioning? What if your characters had personalities that were shaped by each level you play, what if being ambushed by a group of anthropomorphic rats carrying steampunk plasma rifles would induce a lifelong fear of dark corners? And what if that fear affected gameplay in a meaningful way, increasing your characters’ fear level and therefore effectiveness in a fight? The more scared they are, the more likely they are to ignore your orders and flee, or spray inaccurate fire at any moving shadows. Scared soldiers are ineffective soldiers.
Shardpunk’s survival mechanics have a very real effect on its tactical gameplay, to the point where resting between missions doesn’t even fully heal you. Healing stims grant you temporary HP buffs, but nothing in the sewers of The Capitol is forgiving. Once you realise that your goal is escaping the city, not defeating the ratmen horde, then you’ll fare a lot better.
I’ve only played a couple of levels so far, but already I understand why Shardpunk picked up a best gameplay award. The way it merges genres and blurs the line between survival game and tactics is masterful, and it’s a surprise the two genres haven’t been so successfully combined before. And then there’s the wonderful art.
From the 8-bit style characters, to the wonderfully realised steampunk-esque weapons they carry, to the Victorian automaton they protect, every design is creative. From chainsaw-shotguns to energy-powered sniper rifles, each weapon is unique in both design and gameplay implementation. This goes double for the sound design, where the crack of a bullet sends shivers down your spine and the hiss of vented steam as you reload your weapon is wonderfully atmospheric.
I haven’t touched on the RPG elements of upgrading your characters, how you can spend time sharpening katana blades instead of mending your wounds or put skill points into movement abilities rather than upgrading your armour to adapt to a more ‘run through and don’t look back’ playstyle.
There’s a lot to like in Shardpunk: Verminfall, and I think it may have gone under the radar thanks to its unfortunately generic name. But it’s worth checking out if even one of the genres or games I’ve mentioned interests you in the slightest. It recontextualises classic genre mechanics by juxtaposing them with new, seemingly disparate genres. It’s like XCOM, but it’s not. It’s like Darkest Dungeon, but it’s not. It’s Shardpunk: Verminfall, and I’m starting to understand why this game was so difficult to name.
