Sir, We Have An Orc Problem Key Art
Image: Mumpitz Games

As a lifelong Warhammer 40k fan, one thing that crops up frequently in the novels, the official lore, and art is that the Space Orks are an incomprehensible green tide, often blotting out the entire horizon. In gameplay, this disappointingly translates to them having a few more units in play than the other factions. Enter Sir, We Have an Orc Problem, released today. While not an official licensed game, the inspirations are clear, and indie studio Mumpitz Games is here to capture that absurd, cartoonish scale.

This one proved its worth during the last Steam Next Fest, with an excellent demo that is sadly unavailable now. What you get here is a hybrid of old-school tower defense and an incremental game. Think Cookie Clicker, only instead of clicking cookies, you're calling orbital strikes on large angry green guys, then investing your Violence Bucks into upgrading your basic technologies, new avenues for money-making, and then doing it all again but bigger and louder once the enemy breaches your defensive line.

It's pure, simple stuff. The sort of game you'd expect to see on flash gaming portals back in the day. Only this one would have likely melted your CPU, because there are a LOT of orcs, and they all need to be exploded. Behaving less like individual soldiers, and more like a fluid simulation, they roll in like the tide. Unlike the ocean, you can keep them at bay with smartly positioned turrets, artillery emplacements, and the occasional bit of off-map support fire to clear out problematic clumps.

It's simple to get into, but smart play, number-crunching and carefully placing your overlapping fields of fire to optimize damage can carry you a lot further than raw stats and upgrades might otherwise. And that's really the heart of a good game like this. Easy to pick up, but with enough depth to obsess over if you're so inclined. Plus, y'know, explosions and fantasy violence on a cataclysmic scale. That's always fun.

With initial user reviews being glowingly positive (not surprising, given the demo's reception), I'm eager to try Sir, We Have An Orc Problem. It's out now on Steam for £9/$10, with a 10% launch discount running until August 11th, plus more savings to be found in a couple of cross-promotion bundles.