Robot Lord Rising is co-op tactics in 30 second bursts

We don't get enough good cooperative tactics games. We also don't get enough real-time tactics games. Well, Swedish indie developers Limit Break are solving my problems with Robot Lord Rising, an upcoming arena battle game where you use a deck of action cards to program your heroes in fast-paced battles against monstrous robot bosses.

Something between a multiplayer party game and a tactics game, Robot Lord Rising has you build a deck of cards to move, attack, buff, and more, but only gives you 30 second each round to play cards before the action starts and everyone's powers fire off in the programmed sequence. Trying to play nice with your friends seems key, but it's clear you're going to do a lot of knocking them into lava, blowing them up, and the like.

I like the idea of it, a pretty casual-to-start game where you can rapidly spiral into madness by specializing in a character and getting truly good with a wild deck build as you unlock new cards.

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An image from tactics game Robot Lord Rising — (Image credit: Limit Break)

The game is early in development, but there are plans to have demos and beta tests in the near future, which will be conducted via Steam. The first will have two different characters facing off against a robot lord called TOXIC BASTARD, who sounds like someone I'd find in a Twitch chat. You can find Robot Lord Rising on Steam.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.