Tryst – We’ve Been Invaded, by a Ton of Bugs

I say it almost every time I come in contact with a new RTS game, I love RTS games. I absolutely love them, they’re so easy to get deeply involved in. Even with a smaller RTS games, if they have a solid gameplay and run smoothly, you’re almost guaranteed a great time.

Upon firing up Tryst, I was greeted with a small menu, which took me through the story and basic lore of Tryst. Rebels have begun a civil war with the governing force on the planet. Upon the arrival of the Zali though, this bloodshed ends. The Zali, newly discovered alien race which appears at first to be friendly, makes peace with humans as long as we share the planets fundamental resource. When the fact that the Zali are using this resource to create new weaponry, the situation changes, things escalate and a war between the humans and Zali breakout.

I followed this storyline through the five missions of Tryst, short but sweet, right? Tryst is your standard build a base, construct new buildings that lead to new units, kind of RTS. The missions aren’t anything new, but on occasion Tryst offers you the choice of which objectives to go after. Still a basic RTS is enjoyable, maybe not amazing but enjoyable.   Well, Tryst was enjoyable sometimes. Tryst is littered with dozens of nagging little bugs. Like gnats, one is not a big deal, but dozens of them swarming around your face becomes very irritating.

The problems with Tryst range from the small but very frequent onscreen notifications of sound errors. To the bigger and definitely fun zapping bugs such as in-game events not triggering right, causing you to fail a mission and then having to start over. Not to mention the fact that it just crashes periodically when getting in and out of the in game menu.

I almost gave up on completing the fourth mission after trying six times to get Tryst to function correctly. The problem was a small in-game cutscene made it unable to protect a specific target, every time. The cutscene would start, I’d hear the warnings about being attacked start, but there was nothing I could do, just wait until the mission failed screen popped up.

Tryst is in fact, short and sweet. It’s a short campaign with some enjoyable elements such as the A.R.M. mechanic which allowed me to customize units with loadouts. There’s even buffs and power-ups I stacked on my units for more damage and healing. I was able to simultaneously use my ore and energy collectors with a member of my team.

All of this could add up to a good time if Tryst didn’t feel so very unpolished. Polish isn’t really the problem, Tryst feels as if it’s still in development.