Earlier this month, I was graciously invited by Disc 2 Games to try their upcoming debut title Canvas City at London Games Festival’s New Game Plus event. Although my time with the game was short due to my rather late arrival, I got some excellent hands-on time with the game.
For those of you who aren’t in the loop, Disc 2 Games is Black Salt Games’ sister studio, formed by several Black Salt Games team members. The studio announced Canvas City back in August last year.
It’s a story-driven turn-based tactics RPG, but rather than taking the usual fantasy approach, Disc 2 Games has instead opted for a fun, 90s-style roller blade aesthetic with a focus on artists, musicians, and dancers.
The game is set in the suppressed world of Canvas City, a former hub for music and creativity that is now dominated by luxury apartments and corporate towers, and a place where public art is outlawed and music permits are impossible to obtain.
Groups of dancers, musicians, and graffiti artists are working to rise against the regime by forming underground leagues and battling for territory, and you follow the newest crew and must upgrade and expand your team to expand your territory across several districts.
It’s unique, and the game’s quirky backdrop and narrative lend themselves to its gorgeous colourful presentation and speedy gameplay, creating something that, to me, felt fresh, fun, and engaging. But what was the game actually like?
My time with the demo
I was immediately pushed into a level of the demo where I was tasked with tagging billboards a vivid yellow colour with my team of four artists while facing and fighting a rival group who were attempting to tag the same billboards pink.
Turn by turn, you move across the level via a grid system – your character has a limited set of moves – on your rollerblades, using pipes to grind between rooftops and ramps to climb and descend buildings, all while performing tricks to earn points for more movement.
I moved across the level’s area slowly, trying to work out which member of my crew could go where to optimally tag billboards and fight my rivals. Within minutes, what plan I had quickly went awry as I realised each crew member had varying levels of movement as well as different abilities (I only clocked that one crew member could heal herself as well as allies once most of my crew were already dead).
The experience felt overwhelming for me as I’ve never played a tactical game before; they’re just not something I tend to play – I’m usually either knee-deep into a Sims session, so I was completely out of my depth.
But I was enjoying it. The music was great, and the vibrant colours were gorgeous to look at, but what I loved most was the level’s environment. It wasn’t just a setting that the level took place in; it was a thoughtfully designed obstacle that I had to take into consideration when playing.
I could just walk to the billboard on the other side of the tower I was beside, but that would likely have taken three turns. So instead, I used the nearby ramp to shoot up the building, attack one of the rival crew members on its roof, and then shoot back down, ready to target the billboard on my next turn.
I had to learn how to navigate stairs, cross gaps using pipes, escape walled alcoves using ramps, and plan routes based on my characters’ limited movement – all of which was my own fault for not paying close enough attention to the game’s mechanics and made the experience all the harder.
What started off well with my tagging a few billboards within a few short turns quickly turned into chaos as the opposing team traversed the area quickly, tagged multiple boards within several turns, and took down several members of my crew.
This placed me in a terrible position, as I found myself having to stretch my surviving artists across the level as the opposing team ganged up on me, revisited lost billboards again and again, and tried to defend the survivors. As you can tell, I failed miserably, and my surviving artists were swiftly defeated by the opposing team, losing me the level and ending my time with the game.
Instead of feeling frustrated or agitated that I had lost, I wanted to continue playing, put more thought into my positioning, and, as the genre suggests, my actual tactics. I unfortunately couldn’t, as it was time for someone else to play the game, but I’m very much looking forward to when I can get my hands on Canvas City again.
I feel there’s a lot of room for creativity and freedom in Canvas City, and I can’t wait to see what other environments the team at Disc 2 Games cooks up for me to experiment in, and I’m eager to see how the story unfolds and how we can (hopefully) restore Canvas City to its rightfully artistic glory.
There’s no official release date for the game just yet, but if you like the sound of Canvas City, make sure to wishlist it on Steam. And make sure to check back here for the latest on the game.
