ValeGuard has an attractive and compelling gameplay loop – during the day, you’ll build up your town’s defenses, train soldiers, and create pathways to defend during the night, when you’ll be attacked by monsters. There’s a pleasing combination of real-time strategy and hero management that shows a smart economy of design.
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But what might be most interesting about the game is that ValeGuard has been developed by one person, Ryan Drag, and that he hasn’t written a single line of code for it. Instead, he’s used a piece of software called Playmaker, a plugin for Unity that allows developers to create scripts and gameplay behaviors in a visual interface, handling the arcane details of coding under the hood.
Playmaker has allowed Drag to create a feature-complete game using his own art assets and ideas. ValeGuard has a blocky Minecraft-style look and it procedurally creates new worlds for each playthrough. When you realize that no coding was required to make it, the details start really popping out – enemy and friendly AI all work, and the towns the game generates are all unique, playable spaces.
It’s a great example of the democratization of game creation tools over the past several years, but it’s also a fun tactics experience. ValeGuard launches in Steam’s Early Access May 11, and you can check out its page here, or find out more on the ValeGuard IndieDB page.