izigame.me

After reading the other reviews I'd like to address some of the criticisms they've had with the game, and provide some open ended perspective on games and what they don't NEED to be.
Wall World is an interesting experience, it's not perfectly polished and certainly carries a few design misdemeanors, notably some pretty forced progression and some missing player agency.
But if you've been playing games for a long time you're going to recognize something in it that's missing from a lot of other games that might polish the grit out of themselves.
It makes you feel hopeless and powerless, in a way, for a time. The opening crawl hits you with a bit of "Some of us go out mining for resources on the wall, and few return", and hints at there being more to the wall, some reason to explore, some meaning to go find.
Right off the bat the waves start to feel challenging, sometimes crushing. You'll notice a large health pool, and a timer that pressures you into moving fast (once you understand the consequences). It also features a ruthless and rather horrifying alien enemy that grows stronger and more creative, in intelligent ways.
Some of the upgrades you can find in the mines are disproportionately good, sometimes boosting your runs dramatically, and others are harder to optimize, especially in the early game.
However, that's the grit that kept me interested. As soon as you clear your first few mines and are forced into a vertical walk with no resources that makes you feel stranded against the immensity of the backdrop, you'll understand what kind of game this is. The vertical progression between runs will liberate you from feeling like you aren't playing the game well enough, you'll get through the story regardless of your ability to perfectly optimize your runs because the meta progression allows it.
It also allows for some more emergent, creative input from the player. It doesn't feel like the game is forcing you down any path - more sandboxy in a sense. Up or down? Both? Do you go far? do you stay near and only incrementally explore? Will you build a tall defense perimeter or spend all your resources on your crawler? Are you going to run from the waves to lower the amount of damage you take at once? Or will you take the brunt of the hits just to clear the waves faster and get more breathing room before the timer hits 0?
It will feel familiar to some, and I appreciate the breath of fresh air. This game is an experience, not just a get good training sim. While I appreciate those games for what they are, there's also an eye-level place for this one to sit on my shelf.