Viva La Revolución! It's time for squirrel revolution! Yes, that was happens in this High Tale Studios' debut game Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution.

While being a turn-based strategy, it doesn't have much complexity; learning curve is short enough to be easily played by children. Every turn, you get a set of cards that you have to use - those cards are barrels (barriers) or squirrels to spawn. Inspired by many popular casual games, developers thought of including the match-3 gameplay mechanic, so if you place a three barriers or squirrels next to each other, they will unite to be stronger. After you use all your cards, you can spend acorns (resource) to get a bonus attack/health for the turn, then your squirrels shoot, ending your turn.

That's practically everything the game offers and splats for all 25 levels in 5 battlefields. It gets repetitive and boring pretty fast, considering you'll even have to wait for every opponent's turn to play out. To sum up the gameplay, it's like: "place objects, wait a minute, repeat". But you can share your "entertainment" with friends, as the game offers local and online multiplayer (though I haven't got paired with anybody online when I tried it).

It's obvious the game tries to be silly with the squirrely design but it fails pretty short. All the squirrel puns and references get annoying after few ones, cutscenes are just static scenes with moving camera, and the graphic design overall looks substandard. The menu design is pretty poor, like a design made by typical programmer without proper graphics skill and talent, and since the game doesn't even have Steam achievements, thinking of all the cons, I take it as a proof of developers' missing experience.

Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution is a repetitive turn-based strategy that could show as a nice prototype, but can't stand on it's own, especially with relatively high price. I believe the developers have a potential to make a good game, but it isn't happening for their first one. All the gameplay with more content and lower price is possible though, if you are looking for turn-based strategy with match-3 features (and lower price), I'd recommend you to check Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes.


Disclaimer: My copy of Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution was obtained for free - I won the game in a giveaway that might have been sponsored by the developer. This fact hasn't changed my opinion about the game (and the review) in any way.

I received the game from the developer for early access, at first my thoughts were "what the heck is this." Then I played it, the game is based on the french revolution, and is essentially a turn-based game where you place a card, it plops in defense or a squirrel. The goal is to beat down the barrier behind the opponets zone. "I found it odd that nobody had created something like this, so I did it myself" ~ Developer, in response to my question "What made you think about making a French Revolution Simulator via Squirrel?" The developer is awesome.

Multiplayer is also an awesome thing to have, amazingly fun with friends. The developer is super-active and responds with haste.

I highly reccomend this game to anyone who wants to hang out, or play with a friend.

I'd give it a 9.5/10 for what it is, and the tiny development studio behind it.

EDIT: First!

First I thought it was like Plants versus Zombies but then after starting to play I saw its different and I never played a game like that before. Since there was no tutorial how explain you how to play, I watched the computer when he startet his fight agains me and learned how it workes. Also he showed me his tricks with the 3 squirrel and barrels.

The first levels are pretty easy and helps you to understand the game how it work and how to play it right.

Graphic is sweet and music is okay but a bit boring because its always the same music.

I didnt had any bug and game makes fun.

I would suggest to try the game and if you dont like it you still can refunde it on steam if you didnt played more then 2 hours.

TBS meets Tower Defense with a French Revolution theme.... if everyone involved were squirrels lol. It's REALLY fun, it's cute and charming, it eats up a lot of CPU, but the gameplay mechanics is absolutely where it shines. Top notch. Worth a play even just for the story, which is cute and funny unless you're sick to death of the French Revolution. (Admittedly, one of my favorite historical time periods, so I'm biased.)

I haven't tried the multiplayer yet, but I'm looking forward to it, as well as anything else from the game studios. :)

The only thing missing are achievements.

7/10 will shoot squirrels using an army of other squirrels every day this week.

What can you really say about a game that features squirrels recreating the French Revolution? Surprisingly it is actually a really good light strategy match three game.

First off the theme is really charming/funny. It is just so strange playing a game with squirrels fighting one another with old-timey military gear. The French Revolution theme is pretty light since if you know anything about the French Revolution you won't learn anything new from the game. The game does a good job mixing the squirrel theme with it though.

The gameplay is quite satisfying. It is kind of a mix between a light strategy game and a match three game. You play units to the gameboard grid and you attack the other player. When you play three of the same unit next to one another they combine together to form a stronger unit. While the game is not deeply strategic, the game has enough strategy to keep it interesting and I had quite a bit of fun with the game.

While the game is not going to be for everyone, there is only two complaints that I have with the game. First the single player campaign is pretty short since it is only around 4-5 hours long. The other problem is that once you figure out the computer's strategy, it becomes quite easy to beat the computer. This means that if you want more than 4-5 hours from the game you are going to need to play the multiplayer mode.

If you are interested in the theme or like light strategy games or match three games I think you will enjoy Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution.

Note: I received a review copy of the game from the developer but received no other compensation for this review.

Read My Full Review

This game is a silly strategy game and actually got me into playing more stratgic games. If you like indie games, you will love this!

The game is quite tedious due to waiting for the AI to take their turns and play out all of the battle animations, which are pain-stakingly slow. The mechanics of the game are incredibly simple, each turn you place walls or soldiers onto the grid which automatically attack at the end of your turn. If you place 3 or more things adjacent to one another, they combine into a bigger wall or soldier and award you with 'acorns'. You can spend these acorns on temporary boosts to attack/defense or heal yourself. That's the entire game. You cannot unlock anything, no new types of units are introduced later on, you have no special abilities.

You fight 5 enemies, 5 "stages" each, who have a special power such as automatically creating extra walls or interrupting your ability to place units by blocking certain squares. These abilities would be quite challenging to play against if not for the fact that the AI is incredibly dumb, and never gets smarter as the game progresses. After you complete these 25 stages, there's nothing left to do. Obviously I was not expecting some kind of deep, complex strategy title in 'Acorn Assault', but it was entertaining for a few hours I guess.

While very lacking in the content department, the base game is well made and the visuals are pleasing. I don't think I'd recommend this game to most, especially not at it's full price-tag of $10, but it's not a -bad- game per se. I would say that perhaps the game was designed for children due to it's simplicity, but the humor is clearly catered towards a more mature audience with it's movie references, so I'm not really sure what they were going for in the end. The squirrel theme is very appealing, at least.

Rating: C+

NOTE: This game was given to me by the developer for review purposes. This did not influence my review in any way.

Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution tells the story of the French Revolution from the point of view of a squirrel who's had enough, and he's not going to take it anymore.

You play the part of Charles de Montesquirrel, determined to confront the French king and put a stop to his unfair acorn tax, and his hedonistic, carefree spending.

As you can probably tell, the game developers portray the French Revolution with tongues firmly in their cheeks, embellishing this casual turn-based strategy game with a great sense of humour.

Graphics - The graphics are very good. Each of the five stages is introduced by an excellent set-piece 3D cutscene. Each level is then introduced with a bit of text-based banter between Charles and his next assailant, before moving into the game proper.

The game board is rendered in 3D and fixed in an overhead angled view. The levels are primarily static, with a few flavour animations, but they look pretty good. The squirrels -- your active game pieces -- also look pretty good, although it's a bit of a shame you can't zoom in either at will, or as part of an 'action camera' feature. Animations are also well done.

Sound - Music seems to be limited to only one track, although it could be multiple tracks that sound very similar. In any case, it has a classical sort of dramatic battle flavour to it and sounds pretty good, although it does get repetitive after a couple of levels. Sound effects are fantastic, with gun shots, explosions, and splintering wood all sounding suitably destructive, and the death cries of your squirrels sounding terribly forlorn.

Gameplay - The game consists of five stages, each split into five levels and presided over by a 'boss' character with an individual power. Each level is played on a six-by-ten board, split into two halves, giving you up to 30 squares in which to place your game pieces. The objective of each level is simply to destroy your opponent's base before he destroys yours.

The game is turn based, with each turn having you place a pre-determined number of squirrels (attack pieces) and barrels (defense pieces) on your half of the game board. Placing three of a like unit next to each other joins them into one larger and more powerful unit, and also rewards you with acorns. Once you've placed your allotted pieces you can then choose to spend your acorns on temporary attack or defense powerups, allowing for some truly destructive squirrel power. If you're so inclined you can also heal your base by spending acorns.

To me, it plays like a cross between Triple Town and chess, but with nowhere near the latter's complexity. Basic strategy is simple enough to pick up immediately and the game is quite fun to play. The casual nature of the game means that you don't need to allocate hours at a sitting, either; instead you can simply play a level every now and then. Multiplayer (both online and hot-seat) is also included, although I haven't been able to find anyone to play with online.

Pros:
+ Fantastic tongue-in-cheek look at the French Revolution
+ Good use of historical and modern pop-culture references; mostly good writing
+ Good graphics
+ Great sound effects
+ Very stable: I haven't had any crashes or even minor glitches in windowed or full-screen modes

Cons:
- No Steam achievements
- Music gets a bit repetitive

Acorn Assault doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not, and it does what it does very well. It has a great sense of humour and very high production values. There are enough levels to keep you amused, even if just for 20 minutes at a time as you come back to try another level, and the simple game mechanics work very well. It's just a shame it doesn't include any Steam achievements, as it's really crying out for them!

This game was a perfect mixture of adorable and challenging.

The games cute version of the French Revolution instantly caught my attention being a big fan of history. The first thing you do in the game is play through a quick tutorial round in which you are pitted against a very weak tax collector that is probably the only easy challenge in the game. As soon as you finish the tutorial with Mr. tax collector you instantly have to fight him again although this time he has a big health buff and hates the idea of your existence. I have to give it to this game, the AI in this game is very smart and will do whatever it takes to defeat you. You have to be very quick and ready to think about what your next move might be because as soon as you think you might have the upper hand the computer will knock you down a few pegs. I really enjoyed this game and really want to keep playing so that I can see how the story of Sir Montesquirrel ends.

I did a let's play of me getting my butt kicked for anyone curious:
https://youtu.be/KRVsLm6zqJA

I loved this game! It's like a crazy mash up of risk with chess... I don't much know how else to describe it. It's addictive and puzzling. Makes you have to keep playing! You can check out my first look here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqreUWG_xp8 if you would like :) I recommend getting this game asap!