Tower Defence games often follow a similar formula of enemies following a path to a goal, with players placing towers to attack the enemies en route. Keyclash does follow this formula, but it dresses it up in entirely new clothes. It presents a keyboard where any place a key could be, can be a place for a tower. Enemies come in waves from the top of the screen in increasing numbers like the playground game Red Rover, trying to barge their way through your keyboard turrets, to the other side. It is a great visual and strategic twist on things that feels part tower defence, part lane defence, but something entirely on its own, too.
Initially, placing your turrets to cover the width of your keyboard is the priority. There are three tower types. One can aim and shoot one bullet, one can shoot two bullets only vertically straight up, and one can shoot three bullets at a 45-degree angle V, with one bullet going straight up. These towers have decreasing range, but can be replaced over time. I found the basic tower was most useful, and that’s because as the game progresses, upgrades, and then perks become the main way to strengthen your arsenal.
As Keyclash is also a roguelike, between each wave (which carries on until you’ve killed a certain amount of enemies rather than clearing the entire wave), there is a shop. You can hearts (cash) for how many keys on your keyboard are left after the battle, and similar to Balatro, you get cards with semi-random pricing and suits. One suit buys you more keys to place down on your keyboard, or keep in your inventory to generate more cash between waves. Another suit generates an upgrade whereby the player chooses from two randomly picked stats to improve by 5%. These can be reload speed, range, tower health, or bullet damage. You can have 30 upgrades during one run and then these cards stop showing up. The last suit is the perk selection. Perks are huge upgrades or twists that can totally change how you play. They might increase the range or reload speed by 50%. They might let bullets penetrate through an enemy to a second enemy. They might bring critical hits, leave burning fire circles, or have an instant kill chance. You can only have 10 perks at one time, but crucially, everything can be stacked. Fancy that 5% instant kill chance 10 times? It’ll cost tons of hearts to get it but technically you can! I found multiple penetration bullets and knockback or stun perks were incredibly powerful to help you survive the long battles. They make or break your run and you can keep swapping them out forever.
The main gameplay loop is decent but I did run into issues over time. There are only three towers, but the perks help slant them into feeling new. What doesn’t hold your attention is the fact that there are only five enemy types, and you only see two of them for the first hour of play per run! Keyclash spreads the difficulty curve out too thinly for the variety it has on offer. You’ve usually maxed out your keyboard by wave 50 or 60, and your perks and upgrades around the same time. From there on in, you just keep on going until you tire of the game or eventually a wave kills you. It takes forever, but it becomes so hands-off when you’ve found your happy set-up. I got quite bored. There is, at the time of review, no way to save and resume a match. This means you’ll be spending hours per run only to quit out because you are too powerful and the harder enemies don’t come for ages. To mix things up, Keyclash has lots of keyboard layouts to try, and these can be harder to survive against, but all of the layouts end up reaching that hands-off problem sooner or later.
I really like the concept of Keyclash. It just needs a small balance tweak, and if possible, a save and resume feature, to make it more satisfying to play. Once again, it’s the solo and indie developers who are trying out experimental new ideas, and I appreciate it when someone tries something new. Not everything lands here, and it’s stretching out of a streamlined scope is more the issue than the concept or design itself. Still, for a game under $3 or £2.50, it’s a time sink if it clicks.
Review copy provided by the developer. Keyclash is out now on Steam.
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