Tug-of-war RTS Warpips is a bit of cute, casual carnage

Warpips, the fast-casual strategy tug of war tower defense hybrid thing from Skirmish Mode Games, has finally released. After a year in Early Access, Warpips is now 1.0 with a big update adding all manner of new units to the fight.

If you haven't seen it yet, Warpips is a simple-but-deep kind of game, one where you take a roster of weapons and abilities into a battle and then use your ever-escalating resources to try and destroy the enemy's command center with waves of attackers. Meanwhile, you want to fend off the enemy's waves yourself: It's a balance, a tug of war, between two sides that asks for careful timing from you.

Nonetheless, it's still a game you can play a match of in 20 minutes and leave satisfied. A snack, if you will—though you can still just eat the whole box and burn through a campaign in a few hours of fun. I found Warpips to be a great game for when you want to play strategy but don't have enough brainpower to boot up a full-scale spreadsheet monster of a game.

You can find Warpips on Steam for $12, though it's 60% off until May 5th, which is a superb price for what Warpips has to offer.

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.