Wednesday, August 13, 2014. I remember that day very well as it was the first day of Gamescom. In the afternoon, I silently awaited someone to drop by with something special. This person in question was Brjann from Image & Form and he was going to give me a sneak peek at their next game, which I knew nothing about at the time. The business lounge was busy that day, but it didn't take much time for the lad to pop up. He brought a 3DS and, with a massive grin on his face, he said: “This is SteamWorld Heist!”

In Heist, the latest in the SteamWorld series, you are a captain going on a massive raid in space. With your trusty ship, you hop from base to base and play a side-scrolling turn-based strategy game. Your goals in the base are simple: defeat the enemies, collect the loot, and get out of there. That is easier said than done as you are required to properly strategize to get out of each scenario with your crew intact. Every character, friend or foe, can only move a set amount of steps and can only do so much once they are settled. If your steps remain within a certain buffer area, you are able to fire at your opponents.

Every character has an array of guns in SteamWorld Heist, which fall into a wide variety of shot types. Some only shoot one strong bullet, while others shoot three weaker ones. You have to combine these skills with abilities that, for example, allow you to let bullets bounce against the walls. Naturally, it’s harder to shoot from a distance, especially because the characters move while they aim and you move the Circle Pad accordingly. Each move has a sense of risk, making the vertical slice demo I played exciting and fun. That fine line between success and failure enticed me to play through the demo more than once, making the challenge enjoyable.

And there are more than just guns, too. Players are able to throw grenades and use other special items to get to the loot and harm enemies. It starts simple, but the struggle begins quickly, requiring balance between guns and other weapons.

Outside of battle, you have to go to various bars and recruit new crew members. Once the initial payment is done, they become part of your team until they are defeated. It’s almost Fire Emblem-esque as you lose those valuable crew members when they fall in battle. It’s imperative to keep them around, because without the crew, the latter levels are a bitter pill to swallow. I found myself keeping them in the back until the right moment, but I couldn't do that too often as the hordes of enemies swarmed me. You also have to make sure your captain doesn’t get defeated, because that makes you lose all of your crew anyway. In those rougher places, multiple paths come into play and you have to use your team wisely to explore every nook and cranny. It made the planning impressively maddening and required me to think outside of the box.

Visually, Heist looks quite nice, even though many parts of it were still in development. The maps, which you can look at on the touch screen, still had a Rusty icon from Dig for example. Underneath that though, I found the foundation of something incredibly solid. The graphics were just as sharp as those of Dig, though everything was built differently. The robots were longer and larger in size and the different setting made for some unique situations. This was especially true of the massive overview map, which allowed the player to travel to the specific locations. Some parts were blocked off, but it does hint at the game being much larger than Dig.

I only got to see the humble beginnings of something bigger in SteamWorld Heist, and playing it brought a giant smile to my face, much like Brjann’s grin when he handed me the demo. As a strategy fan, I felt the mechanics were clever and smart, yet familiar all the same. What surprised me the most is how solid this demo felt. It is clear that Image & Form has huge plans in store for all of us and that future is certainly an exciting one. We will surely keep following this title with a huge amount of interest! SteamWorld Heist is currently planned for an early 2015 release.