''Sanctum'' is a

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...

tower defense Tower defense (TD) is a subgenre of strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usually achieved by placing defensive struc ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

, developed by independent developer Coffee Stain Studios. It was released on Steam for Microsoft Windows on 15 April 2011. The successor, '' Sanctum 2'', was announced in 2012 and released in May 2013.

Plot

In ''Sanctum'', players take on the role of Skye, an elite soldier sent out to protect her home town, Elysion One, from hordes of mysterious alien creatures. To be successful in the task, the player will have to defend a "core" on each level. To accomplish this, the player builds defensive structures, and assists their structures by fending off the enemies themselves.

Gameplay

The gameplay in ''Sanctum'' is divided into the building phase and the extermination phase. In the building phase, the player builds structures on a pre-defined grid, using the eight 'towers' chosen at the start of the level. These towers include stationary weapons, teleporters for the player's use, and pads that affect enemies moving over them. The player can also upgrade any of the three weapons equipped at the start. Building and upgrading both cost points, which are gained when enemies are killed. In the extermination phase, a wave of one or more enemy types moves across the level towards the core. With each enemy that reaches the core, the condition of the core degrades from 100%; when the condition reaches 0%, the game ends. Unlike most tower defense games, the player is allowed to move about the level during this phase and attack enemies with different weapon types, much like in a typical first-person shooter. Touching enemies will result in the player being knocked back, but no damage is done. There are ten types of enemies in the game, three of which are air-borne. Because certain towers are more effective against certain enemies, and only a select few towers affect flying enemies, the player must plan for all possibilities when building defenses. To aid the player in this, information about upcoming waves is shown in the pause menu, as well as descriptions of the various enemies, towers, and weapons. The different enemy types have varying travel speeds,

hit points Health is an attribute in a video game or tabletop game that determines the maximum amount of damage or loss of stamina that a character or object can take before dying or losing consciousness. In role-playing games, this typically takes the f ...

, and resistances. For example, Runners are weak and fast while Soakers have large health pools and travel slowly. Some enemies have complete immunity against certain towers (such as flying enemies not taking any damage from gatling gun towers). Other enemies include the Walker, Bobble-Head, Hoverer, and Tank. This variation of enemy traits forces the player to construct different tower types in order to mount a successful defense.

Development

The beta was made available to all people who pre-purchased the game on Steam. The beta only allowed players to play one map in both singleplayer and multiplayer.

Reception

''Sanctum'' received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregation website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

currently estimates a score of 70 out of 100, based on 22 reviews.

Sales

Sanctum sold more than 180.000 copies via digital distribution by August 2011.

References

External links

* {{Official website, www.coffeestainstudios.com/games/sanctum/ 2011 video games Coffee Stain Studios games Embracer Group franchises First-person shooters Indie video games MacOS games Tower defense video games Unreal Engine games Video games developed in Sweden Video games featuring female protagonists Windows games Multiplayer and single-player video games