The next step in video game graphics technology isn’t ray tracing, tray racing, or any of their variants – it’s crappy stop-motion animation and affordable plastic puppets, and it all started about 30 years ago when I first watched the Adam and Joe Show. If you’ve never watched the Adam and Joe Show, they used to make home re-creations of notable movies like Titanic AND Saving Private Ryan Saves using stuffed animals and action figures. I found these “Toymovies” hysterical when I was a kid – I suspect they are less so now. They are probably full of jokes that we might tentatively classify as “of their time”. The point is that Reptilian Rising is, in a sense, Toymovie: The Game.
Created by Gregarious Games and Robot Circus, the game puts you in charge of squads of crooked plastic miniatures battling evil reptiles on cardboard tabletop dioramas. Characters range from Cleopatra to (three versions of) Churchill to an off-brand riff on Back to the Future’s Marty McFly. The developers have just released a up-to-date trailer, and I gave Steam demo spinning, and while I have some reservations, I can see that I might like it.
The main complaints are about the humor. It’s one of those retro parodies that falls over itself to pile reference on reference on joke. It’s charming in its re-creation of a tabletop wargame – the levels look exactly like the ones I cobbled together for my dysfunctional High Elf army as a newbie Warhammer player, and one map has a nice, chunky cassette player with buttons you can press to stop the music. But the over-the-top voiceovers are a bit obnoxious, especially considering there aren’t that many lines per character. I get it, St George – you’re a braying, blue-blooded parody. Please put that venerable ass-kicking line on cooldown.
I wanted to stop playing after a few moments of St. Georgian-style chatter. But sunk-cost thinking got the better of me—and it turned out to be no mistake, because I started having fun. Underneath the whimsy, Reptilian Rising is a pretty sober tactical game. On the map I played on, I had to take control of crystals that summoned waves of hooded reptilian cultists and cyborgs; once I took control, I could spend time energy on crystals to summon additional miniatures of my own.
Time Energy can also be spent on character upgrades, such as stun resistance, as well as unpredictable power-ups that lure you out of formation. You also have to worry about the boss appearing after the countdown, unless you smash all the glowing purple cubes. The overall picture is a tactical game, where you have to expand your position under varying pressures, rather than methodically whittling down a finite selection of enemies. As for the characters, they fill familiar roles: Einstein is your artillery, armed with a laser cannon, while Not-Marty McFly is given a hoverboard for quick flanking. A reptilian overlord off the map, who reminds me a lot of Bowser from Bob Hoskins’ Mario movie, occasionally issues orders to enemies that change the odds – for example, ordering them to focus fire on St. George. He’s got it, a roaring nuisance.
It’s no Into The Breach, but I found it entertaining enough that after finishing the demo mission and taking a break from writing, almost instead I kept playing. If I could recommend that the developers do anything, beyond making the dialogue more varied, it would be to come up with a proper unboxing animation for each up-to-date miniature you collect, rather than having them appear in a blast of Tardiss sound effects. Let’s rip the cardboard. How about a simulation of real wear and tear? I want my Einstein to look like a dog is trying to eat him.
Reptilian Rising doesn’t have a release date yet. Speaking of figures, let me direct you to Judero’s Celtic weirdness and Jack King-Spooner’s work in general. If Reptilian Rising is Adam and Joe, then King-Spooner’s creations have more in common with Mad God.
