NEW VERSION UPLOADED 2014-04-15
What do you do when evil space villains come to YOUR planet and try to take over? Why, you engage their ships in a billiards-style battle, that's what! At least, that's what you'll do in Sphear by Potato on the Table, a math-pool mashup with some tower defense elements thrown in for good measure. You start with only one type of unit to place on the field, but each level you beat provides you with reinforcements, each with their own abilities from extra health points to color-specific attacks. The enemy troops just keep coming, and they have their own abilities, attack points, health points and movement speed. Your strategy is to place your units in such a way that, as your enemies move around the board, you are able to intercept them for hits. You don't know which direction any one of them will move, so thoughtful unit selection and placement is key. Keep in mind, they are hitting you back.
Arguably, this game is a bit on the simple side, and would have benefited from a steeper learning curve. This doesn't really detract from its playability. The fact that, even when you think you have it figured out, you can still completely miss your target, or lose one of your units to bad planning provides some counterweight to that issue. The smooth, reliable physics allow you to bring your high school geometry talents to bear to keep your team out of trouble while socking it to the enemy units. The artwork is a departure from the majority of games we see these days, and indicates this developer has a style all his own. And don't worry about those 45 levels sucking away your life... if you leave the page and come back later, auto-save drops you right at the level you ended on.
Hmm, I'm now at mission 12, and deploying 1 Blast with all other Buzz are way too overpowered.
I usually only use 1 buzz in any field, and look through the other units for color specifics. I also find the crusher is a good choice on just about any board because of its high HP.
Plus, if you can put a healer on the board and target your own units, you can sometimes keep some of the powerful but low HP units running longer!
Ugh, and then Veleen spam breaks the game again...
Let's hope the third chapter isn't as badly-balanced as the first two.
And finally, Zor spam ends the last chapter. The game is too easy :V
Though, a weird thing:
Why do you obtain Unimaster as reinforcements at around mission 27 or so?
I don't know!
Gave up at mission 13 after having never loss a unit. Way too easy. Most of the time I just didn't even check where I moved my units to end the level faster since I can't lose.
This seems like it would be far more interesting if the AI was smarter. It is trivial to just steamroll the missions, even using strategies with huge flaws that the AI never even considers exploiting
We have uploaded a new version of the game.
Note from the developer:
'This new version of Sphear is now slightly harder overall and even harder on later levels.'.
Please clear the cache if you already played the game.
Sorry, this game isn't getting a second chance from me. When you submit a first version that is impossible to lose, I don't really want to see how the second version turns out.
And you are certainly welcome to take a pass on it! But that's the beauty of this site--we have a good relationship with developers, and they pay attention to our readers. So it frequently happens that they hear what people say and make changes to improve their games.
When they do, we make a point to upgrade the game here as well. It's all part and parcel with making a better gaming experience. I'm sure other players WILL give this game a second chance because the developer was responsive to their suggestions!
I quit at mission 6 with the dinosaurs after playing it 100 times. I simply can't pass it no matter what combinations of units I use.
Update