It all started with Artillery, a game released in 1976 that featured two players separated by a large hill. If they wanted to blow up the opponent, the players had to take into account several factors, like gravity and trajectory. Years later, it was followed up by the likes of Tank Wars and Cannon Fodder until the formula reached an apex with Scorched Earth. Then came Worms, which brought the masses to this form of strategy. Other developers have tried to tweak the formula to produce something different, whether it's the inclusion of more players in later Worms games or the addition of MOBA-like and tower defense elements in CastleStorm. The latest crack at this form of strategy is Cannon Brawl from indie developers Turtle Sandbox. While it seems familiar on the surface, it has many good ideas that help form a very solid strategy title.

Cannon Brawl is set in a 2-D battlefield, and you're tasked with blowing up your opponent's base while making sure that your base stays safe. There are no soldiers ro deploy or control on the field, but you have a blimp. You can use the blimp to construct buildings, like cannon towers, to assault the enemy or mine houses to produce gold. Most of the buildings can receive upgrades if you have the cash. However, those buildings can only be constructed within your spheres of influence that start from your base onward, and while the buildings can expand their influence spheres, you can build balloons to extend your reach. Also, most of the buildings require you to dock your blimp and decide when and where to fire after its cooldown period has expired. As in Worms, your buildings have health bars of their own, and since the ground is susceptible to damage, the buildings can be destroyed by simply eliminating the ground underneath it. Everything happens in real time, though, so acting things out slowly is an all but guaranteed means of losing.

On the surface, this sounds very tedious. Your blimp has to return to base if you want to equip it with a new building to drop, and the buildings can only be placed in specific spots within your influence sphere. This limits the amount of freedom you have in customizing the battlefield. That potential tedium is balanced out by the fact that your blimp moves at a good clip, and the maps aren't too large or complicated. You usually don't have to travel too far to return to base, and your weapons can be upgraded. You can power up what you have rather than aggressively building outward.

Cannon Brawl does a good job of ensuring that the battles are interesting. Part of that comes from the various structures. Shield towers can be aimed to protect a wide firing range while repair units can be directed at a single unit to give it a form of invincibility. Missile launchers provide a spread effect halfway in the launch cycle while bomb bots are more effective with ground troops who can circumvent shields. Lasers may have slow warm-up times but also have sustained damage periods and can bounce off enemy shields to make some difficult shots. Drill missiles are excellent at eroding large swaths of terrain, and ice missiles are great at temporary immobilization. Those are just a few of the abilities afforded to you by the towers, and by the time you unlock a majority of the structures, you'll have a variety of strategies at your fingertips.

Your blimp pilot also makes battles interesting in both passive and active ways. Depending on who you choose, you can reduce tower cooldowns or reduce the damage they take when the ground underneath disappears. One pilot lets you make repairs on structures as long as you hover over them, negating the need for a repair building in your arsenal. Another pilot has an attack that gets rid of a good amount of ground at the expense of a very long cooldown time. Again, like the structures, the variety of pilots plays an important role in the strategy.

Cannon Brawl offers a few modes, including the requisite campaign mode. Two brothers clash over control of a kingdom, with the evil brother going out to kidnap the good one. As the good king's daughter, you must rescue him, gather some allies, and stop your uncle. Unlike other games like CastleStorm, the title doesn't aim for humorous story or go for something with a smidgen of lore behind it. It serves up a basic backdrop for everything that's about to happen and nothing more.

As expected, the campaign serves as a large tutorial to get the player up to speed with the game mechanics and introduces many new building and blimp types. The conclusion of each level is achieved when the enemy base has been destroyed, and this is usually followed up with a new structure or blimp being unlocked. As a bonus, players can try to earn three different medals in each stage. One is earned by beating the level, but the other two can be obtained when the player finishes the stage in the appropriate time limit or by maintaining a specific number of actions per minute.

The campaign is quite short, clocking in at only 20 levels. On the one hand, this is perfect for those who just want to quickly unlock everything. On the other hand, those who crave solo play will be done with a huge chunk of the title before they know it. To combat this, Cannon Brawl features some puzzle levels and a harder difficulty level for the campaign. New scenarios would have been nicer, but those two things work out fine.

The real meat of the game comes from skirmishes, and most players will spend their time here. Offline players can either fight against the AI or another friend locally in up to seven different maps. All of the maps are unique to the mode, and while it would have been nice to get a larger selection of maps, including some from the campaign, the maps are well balanced enough that the small number might not be a hindrance.

As in the campaign mode, the objective is to blow up your opponent, but win or lose, you gain XP that lets you increase your rank and obtain more weapons and blimp pilots. The selection isn't large, but it is interesting enough that players who've already beaten the campaign will want to grind to get these. You can also earn any items that you haven't yet earned in the campaign, though it is generally faster to obtain them in the campaign.

Online multiplayer is smooth and performs just as well as offline multiplayer. Due to the game's nature as an Early Access title, the online population was rather small at the time of this review, but it was easy to find a game since there are bots in ranked matches in case a real opponent can't be found in time. It is a nice idea, but it would be nice if the bots were also present in regular unranked matches. You can enter the multiplayer lobby at any time no matter where you are in the game and put yourself in the queue, so you can continue playing until you get a match. It is a small gesture, but it ensures no downtime at all.

Graphically, the game presentation is pretty good. The bright colors play out well against the artillery smoke and fire. Environments are varied with a good sense of depth thanks to the background blur, and all of the structures look distinct, so players can easily discern a structure's function at a glance. As far as sound goes, the game hits all of the right notes with a lighthearted but epic score that nicely fits the semi-medieval theme. The explosions are clear, as are the other effects, like lasers charging and flames spewing. There are no voices in the cut scenes or in battle, but their absence doesn't hurt the game at all.

Overall, Cannon Brawl is loads of fun. The decision to make it a frantic real-time game instead of a turn-based one makes it exciting. Constantly darting between your base and the towers keeps you fully aware of what's going on instead of expecting things to happen automatically. The weapon sets are varied, and even though the campaign is short, you'll quickly be appropriately stocked up for the solid multiplayer matches, which are available both online and offline. For fans of the genre and those who don't want something too complicated to jump into, Cannon Brawl is well worth owning.

Score: 8.5/10