The gameplay is where Emberward really shines. You’ll need to select your character and your tower loadout at the beginning of your run, with each tower loadout having different types of towers and different wall blocks.

As you enter each level, you’ll have a certain amount of time to set up your defenses, and this is where things get fun. Each of your Tetris style blocks can be placed in the level, and you can get really creative here, creating mazes, bottlenecks, and funnels to ensure your towers can cause the most damage possible. You can change where these blocks sit to, right up until the wave starts, and then they are locked in.

Each tower costs a different amount, and has different damage, range, and speed attributes, and some of the towers having special abilities like poison, fire, ice, or arcane. You can place your towers on any of the existing walls, as well as the wall blocks you place, and you’ll find each level has special tiles which boost different things for towers.

Get your walls and towers constructed and then start the wave and see if your ember survives. One big tip, is to look out for the enemy path lines. These lines show the way the enemy will walk, but they also show you which paths will be active for each wave, with the red ones being the ones to watch for.

Each level has different waves, usually 6 or so, and surviving each wave will reward you with a coin bonus, as well as some new wall blocks to place. You also earn coins from taking down enemies, so you can definitely earn a lot of coins quickly.

Throughout the waves, monsters will occasionally drop treasure chests which can contain coins, ember HP points, block cards, or power ups, and you’ll get to choose one of three different options for these. Towers can each have one upgrade, which will cost coins, and will boost certain attributes, and the more expensive towers can have bigger footprints too, needing a 2×2 or 2×1 platform to be built on.

If enemies make it to your ember, they’ll reduce its HP, so you’ll need to ensure your defense is rock solid to survive all the waves. Winning a level grants you experience points which can be spent on talent unlocks, which stay with your character, and these can give you extra fire power, reduce costs, and a whole stack of other cool things.

Levels also have either a block card reward or a relic reward. Block card rewards unlock a new type of block that gets added to your backpack, and often you’ll be able to attach specific runes to the block to give it some special abilities. Relics are similar to the talent unlocks, and they give you boosters that can help increase certain things, decrease prices, and a whole stack of other cool things. The biggest difference here, is that relics will only last for that specific run, and don’t carry through like the talent unlocks do.

You’ll progress through a roguelite map of different levels, with each being randomly drawn from the map pool, so no two runs are the same. Corrupted levels have corrupted tiles which can’t be built on, adding an extra challenge to the game. Make it all the way to the final boss level, and take out the boss to win the run.

Emberward is definitely an action-packed take on a tower defense game, with the wall block placement really upping the ante. Combined with things like the D20 inspired towers, a roguelite progression, and some really fun gameplay, and this is a game that already is a great pick. This isn’t one that feels early access in terms of gameplay, but there is only two biomes unlocked at the moment, so it definitely still has a lot more content to be added to flesh out the game.