Syma

Syma is one of those rare games on this site that is easy to pitch. What is Syma? It's a squad-based, class-based, turn-based science fantasy combat sim. It has short, structured missions, a wide variety of classes to choose from, unique central gimmicks to each main class, dozens of ways to apply slight tweaks to a character's statline, and very little in the way of plot or visual appeal.

Syma's plot goes something like this: you are on a spaceship. You take missions to build up your credentials as mercenaries, and then you take more missions with your new credentials.

Its graphics follow a similar trend. They are sufficient to communicate the basic information that you need to maneuver around the game world (this is a rock, this is a forest, etc,) but otherwise they have little appeal. In the case of the hubworld, the tiled floor of the ship even vibrates as you walk, causing a mildly unpleasant strobing effect that follows you wherever you go.

If either of these things puts you off, Syma is probably not a good game for you.

Its main strength is in its design, and beneath its scant script and default tilesets are a lot of appealing concepts.

Syma does not hand-hold. It dumps a massive bag of options on the player right out of the starting gate, offering a few optional tutorials but otherwise letting the player pour over the dozen or so class choices that are available to them. As previously mentioned, each class has its own unique move list, and each move comes with an intensely detailed, almost arcane formula for how it works. In a game that revolves entirely around battles, Syma provides exact damages for each of its attacks to the player. Want to hit everyone for low damage? Go with MT (m.at) - 2. Want to hit a single target with poison, stun, and medium fixed damage? Go with ST (500) +poison +stun. Confused by these seemingly nonsensical groupings of letters and numbers? Welcome to Syma.

After that first information overload that comes from looking at the damage formulas, combat quickly settles into a pleasant sort of puzzle. Each mission that you undertake is a structured (sometimes loosely) series of combats, followed by a boss. Consumable resources (uses on attacks, hp, mana) do not recharge between combat, and so typically this turns into an exercise in managing attrition. How, then, do you do the most damage to the most enemies as quickly as possible before they can stick sharp object into your preciously scarce vital bits? Answering that question requires cobbling together a creative loadout of different classes and then mostly ignoring that loadout to cast the one good group magic spell that everyone can use. It is satisfying, designing a team that you like, and the combat kept me playing long after the lack of plot or aesthetics wore thin.

If there is one thing Syma will never be hurting for, it is variety. There are missions by the boatload, either for single characters or for the team, and each one manages to be a slightly different flavor of "go here and kill these people". Likewise, there are tons of equipment options, special unlockable stat boosts and relics, and different sealed-off areas of the hub. This variety does turn samey after you have settled on your perfect class selections, tried five or six missions, and finally stopped noticing the seizure-inducing tile floor of the ship, but that period of time is long past when other games would have outstayed their welcome. Syma has little by way of a hook, but it is engaging.

As a player, I would have personally loved to see a bit more story. A little more attention paid to mapping. A team for the project. The dev has a clear knack for game mechanics, good concepts, and overall design, but Syma falls short on polish, making it just a pleasant experience to play, rather than an addicting one.