Though it’s a terrific idea and rather pleasant, it doesn’t have the necessary enthusiasm or flourishes to make it really come to life.
The turn-based game Fights in Tight Spaces recreates those scenes from action movies, espionage movies, or any other form of film when the hero is unexpectedly encircled in a small space with no way out. However, there is, as shown by a masterfully staged battle sequence that reveals our hero’s true might. The action finishes in quiet as the hero stands victorious among corpses scattered about them. They spin around, a flurry of arms and elbows, and soon opponents are hitting each other and looking extremely bewildered. A pistol goes off. Someone is fighting with a towel for some reason. It’s material from a textbook.
In the video game Fights in Tight Spaces, you play as the well-dressed agent attempting to take down various criminal organizations on behalf of a company that resembles James Bond. You also have a very wide repertoire of maneuvers at your disposal. You may roll over foes to take them out acrobatically, crush heads into the environment, and jump over buildings to launch assaults. I’ve always wanted to be able to jump-kick opponents from either side of you, but I always end up kicking the TV instead.
This is a deck-building game, therefore the specific actions your agent may do will depend on your deck. You may either create your own deck from scratch or start with one that already exists and add cards to it as you go, changing or adding cards at certain pauses. You traverse a map, pausing to battle, deal with cards, heal, and take chances with random occurrences. By the way, these pre-made decks are extremely fantastic. They are based on themes like Slasher, which uses the Bleed debuff, and Aggressive, which I particularly like since it features the Wall Punch. Importantly, since it’s not only about assault, these prepackaged decks don’t leave you lacking in other aspects like mobility and defense.
Avoiding danger is just as important in tight space battles as doing damage to adversaries. You only have one life (on the majority of difficulty levels; there are also softer modes with level-restart choices), and your health is limited and does not replenish between bouts. A skilled player assaults with diligence while ensuring they won’t get hurt in return.
Squeezing out is the main objective of the game, as the term refers to the “tight spaces” where players must negotiate safety while besieged by attackers. The smallest play area I’ve seen was a grid of 3×3 squares, where I occupied one and two adversaries filled the other, to give you a sense of how cramped it gets.
Thankfully, you possess a few creative methods to escape difficulties. While normal movement cards allow you to move one or two squares in either direction, superior cards allow you to manipulate your opponent simultaneously or in a different manner. Shift, for example, lets you go around an opponent from behind and leaves them facing the same direction, so you can generally walk past them unhindered and use your opportunity to surprise them for an unretaliatory assault. Better still, if you merely want to pick them up and throw them into danger rather than yourself, Grapple may relocate your opponent to a nearby tile and face them in that direction. The true art is to disturb them while you’re still able to escape.
There are virtually always breachable borders on a level, thus it’s equally enjoyable to kick them out of bounds, whether that is through an open door or over the side of a building. Additionally, it instantly kills the opponent, making it a very helpful move when bosses and lieutenants arise and adversaries become more formidable. I once defeated a boss by doing two Front-kicks and hoofing them over a building’s edge. Since it was a boss, I received a large score bonus at that point. From what I understand, scores are only used for bragging rights; however, there are additional monetary rewards when specific requirements are met, one of which is completion speed.
However, certain foes are unavoidable and some may turn to face you as you dance around them, ruining your intentions to move them all toward you at the end of the round so they can’t harm you. Additionally, they will gradually acquire unique skills of their own. You should read them, even if you just skim through them, since even a few turns may cost you your whole run if you lose focus. Poof! One foolish error cost two hours of leisure. It hurts a lot, and I’ve done it a lot. Here, focus is crucial.
Though you may skip all the improvements along the way, you can retry the game and go directly to the later stages (there are four actual levels, separated by a tutorial and an elaborate final stage). You must play from the beginning if you want to have the greatest chance of winning. Nevertheless, this becomes old.
“What I really find myself longing for is another layer of attention, of decoration, of exuberance – something to increase the joy in playing it again and again.”
I believe that there aren’t many factors that lead to this emotion. One reason is that runs may take a while, so having everything undone so fast naturally causes a great deal of irritation that is difficult to overcome. It irritates me more when you lose because of a game feature that should be improved, like the option to observe the turn-order of your opponents, which is now unavailable. Every detail counts when operating in the narrow margins that Fights in Tight Spaces does.
Secondly, playing through most of the stages isn’t all that engaging. They improve with time, but a lot of them are repetitive, and a lot of them may seem quite robotic, like you’re trudging through them rather than appreciating them on their own. And when you try again, this gives you a sense of exhaustion.
That’s not to say that replaying the game isn’t enjoyable; Fights in Tight Spaces is engaging even at its most basic level, and finishing a combat quickly never fails to provide satisfaction. However, what I truly find myself yearning for is an additional level of detail, flamboyance, and attention to detail—something to make me like playing it more and more. It may be rather mechanical as it is.
Spies and hand-to-hand fighting is, after all, an amazing subject matter. Then why is everything so silent while adversaries are at war? There’s no squabbling throughout the fight, no one-liners from the agent after they win. And why aren’t there more props, whether they’re pick-ups on the levels or unique agent devices? Although the latter stage is more glitzier and does entail a lot of chatting, the levels are simply silent and empty, and it’s strange.
I wouldn’t mind if the permanent Enhancement bonuses you accrue and the techniques themselves were somewhat amplified to give you an even greater sense of strength. It seems as if everything requires an increase in oomph, pace, and flamboyance. Even the accelerated replays that are available after a combat seem a little dull and uninteresting.
Due to all of this, Fights in Tight Spaces has a unique challenge: persuading you to return to the game. It’s also a crucial battlefield since it’s essential to the game’s fundamental mechanics. It’s almost there, very close. However, as it is, it’s about as edible and pleasurable as a cake without frosting, but maybe not as good as it might be.