Where to get it

2016 · BetaDwarf · Card game · Indie

Forced: Showdown

Deckbuilding empowers this challenging bullet hell adventure! Each character is a unique experience: Choose a deck of unlockable cards to boost you in new ways every battle - "My whirlwind shoots fireballs!?". Battle hordes of brutal foes to become a superstar in C-SAR’s ever-changing game show.

Released: 29 March 2016
Platforms: Linux Windows macOS
Genres: Card game Indie Role-playing Strategy
Developers: BetaDwarf
Publishers: BetaDwarf
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action Science fiction
Country: Denmark
Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish (Spain)
Time to beat: 13hmain story14hcompletionist

About

Forced: Showdown is a top-down single-player bullet-hell brawler developed by Danish indie game developer BetaDwarf. The game was released in March 2016 for Windows, OS X and Linux through Steam as well as GOG.com. The game revolves around Contestants fighting for wealth and glory in an ever-changing galactic game show. The gameplay mixes roguelike aspects with a trading-card game. It consists of selecting a champion, enhancing and empowering him and his abilities to battle through hordes of minions and dodging their attacks to survive.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player fights through a number of arenas, killing enemies along the way and playing cards. After 8 arenas, the player has completed a Battle, which is a small part of each campaign. Completing enough battles finishes the campaign. There are 4 campaigns in the game. Players have at their disposal 4 (5 with the Drone Invasion expansion) characters, each one with their unique set of skills, that they must choose before entering a show.

Deckbuilding is an important aspect of Forced: Showdown. Each deck must contain exactly 30 cards and at maximum 2 of each card. There are 3 types of cards : upgrade cards, spell cards and consumable cards. Each card has its own mana cost, related to its power.

Story

The players are cast as contestants, gladiators in a galactic game show in which they must battle their way

through, defeat the Titans waiting for them and ultimately survive to earn fame, glory and wealth. CSAR, the Computer-Simulated Arena Referee, acting as the show presenter accompanies the player throughout the show. In the first program, or campaign, called The Crucible, the player faces Raff the Burninator, a large demon wielding fiery swords. In Frontline, the second program, the player must defeat the wealthy Ruby Von Wouthingtonne IV and her tank.

Development

In 2013 BetaDwarf started work on their next game Forced 2: The Rush. During development the game was renamed to Forced: Eternal Arenas, for which they ran another successful Kickstarter campaign. However, due to a lawsuit threat from a bigger company, demanding to change their new game's name, Forced: Eternal Arenas became Forced: Showdown. A beta version of the game was accessible in 2014.

After a little more than two years of development, Forced: Showdown was released on 29 March 2016. An Xbox One and PlayStation 4 version of the game are planned to be released later.

Reception

Forced: Showdown received generally positive and mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Metacritic gathered an average rating of 67 out of 100 based on 14 critics for the PC version.

JeuxActu commented that it “ is a clever little game that skillfully mixes action elements to a card game core, providing a lot of fun” giving it an 80%.