Tiny Troops
| Developer: Phoenix | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Vulcan | Sound: |
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| Year: 1997 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Strategy | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 2 simultaneous | Rating: |
5/10 | |
It’s the story of a petty war between two races of extraterrestrial insects, the Klutes and the Furfurians. After several centuries of hurling missiles at each other, their planet was completely ravaged. Realising the risk of making their world uninhabitable in the near future, they made the only reasonable decision in their eyes: find a new planet to outsource their conflict to. Earth was chosen.
Luckily, our bellicose visitors are no bigger than ants. Their furious battles are fought, unsuspected, in the garden, amid ceramic gnomes, or in the children’s room, the kitchen, or the bathroom. These settings, of course, bring to mind Micro Machines.
This time, it’s a real time strategy game, relatively well-presented but simplistic, and above all, not very ergonomic. Why click a button, then click the destination to move our troops, for example, when we could just click on the destination directly? What’s the point of clever formations, like lines or pie charts, if they just make group movements even more imprecise?
The AI is roughly on par with a turnip (unless it’s just me). It’s hard to predict the behaviour of our soldiers, or whether our orders will be followed. These idiots require constant supervision, throw themselves into water like lemmings, or just stand there while the enemy shoots at them. The best strategy I’ve found is to concentrate forces and shoot, all at the same guy. Sometimes, I think it’s better to wait five minutes without moving, at the starting point, and let the enemy come to us. In short, the strategy usually consists of figuring out how to effectively exploit the glaring limitations of the AI.
If you stick with it a bit, you’ll still recognise a clear effort to bring some variety throughout the missions: new weapons and gadgets, new objectives (rescue, cargo interception), interactions with the environment, presence of bosses! I was tasked with pushing a rock into a river to reduce the current before crossing it, sent a scout to sabotage a miniature train, and used a trampoline to reach higher areas. The new mechanics seem fun on paper but are tedious to implement, and they hardly qualify as earth-shattering tactical interest. I’d also add that the missions are exactly the same for both factions, which is disappointing. Let’s not forget this game was released three years after Command & Conquer and five years after Dune 2. Far too little, far too late…
Strangely, I installed Tiny Troops on my hard drive and it still asked for floppy disks. I recommend emulating an Amiga 1200 with four drives. It works up until the end of the first world, where it keeps asking for disk 2, endlessly. If you encounter the same problem, use the cheat code to select the mission. On the briefing screen, place the cursor in the top-left corner of the screen and type the level number (two digits).
Second tip: use the right-click to issue chain movement orders.
More images here, here, here, here, and here.
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