Defend your homestead against the forces of darkness!
Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves is a tower defense style game with action RPG elements. Set in rural Canada 1858, you play as one of two brothers trying to protect your siblings and home from numerous wolf attacks. Armed with a logging axe and rifle, you soon discover the wolves are the least of your worries!
Defending your land is a two-stage process once you get past the first few nights. During the day, you can spend time (action points) and money placing traps to hinder or sometimes outright kill the besieging beasts to come. After this setup phase, it's time to put your plans to action! At night, you'll be luring attackers to your traps and finishing them off with melee and ranged attacks. There are a variety of traps available, but some of them require the right timing to work. While I preferred combat over trapping, I could tell even from the short time I played that you have to use every tool available to survive.
You can certainly focus on specific methods to deal with enemies though, as the game offers several ways to improve your chances against the hordes of evil. Your character levels up, awarding you with points to spend on a fairly diverse talent tree. Once you have access to town, you can purchase better equipment and even get your weapons and ammo blessed by the nun. While shopping in town doesn't spend action points, your cash can easily be gobbled up by an upgrade. Managing your income is perhaps the most critical skill to learn, as you'll always feel strapped for cash. I have mixed feelings on this - on one hand I dislike resource management being so critical, but on the other it effectively adds both a feeling of desperation and a layer of tension (as anyone that's played the Dead of Winter board game can attest).
What really stands out for me is just how well the theme and mechanics work together. Everything from the slow reload of the rifle to the importance of bonfires and threat level all feel right at home with this setting. The "omen" explanation for knowing the enemy attack paths each night was perhaps the most questionable of the bunch, but it still makes some amount of sense within the game's lore.
Speaking of which, the overall lore and setting is quite captivating. Combining Christian concepts with Native American legends with werewolves in the chosen time period made for a very interesting setting. The individual characters were all entertaining, but a lot felt lost to a lackluster delivery of the dialogue.
All in all, Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves is a challenging game with a unique setting that I found rather enjoyable.
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