Sanctum is Coffee Stain Studios' first big game, and it's quite an ambitious title. It blends the tower defense formula that many of us have grown accustomed to and added a first-person shooter element into the mix. It does a good job of blending these two genres, though the FPS aspect may prove to be difficult to play for some.

The object of the game is to stop the enemies before they get to the Core. They will automatically take the fastest route, so it's your job to make it as difficult as possible for them to get there. You don't have any health, but the Core does. Every enemy that enters the Core takes a certain percentage away from its life, depending on the enemy. If you get touched by an enemy, you get flung back and your view gets very shaky for a brief moment. Even if you fall off the map, you can come back immediately.

Many enemies have weakpoints, which are highlighted in red and shown in the encyclopedia. If you hit them there, they take extra damage. Some enemies are also immune in certain areas, so it is good to check the encyclopedia for such facts. The encyclopedia also has important information about towers and your weapons.

There's no story to be seen here, just you defending against waves and waves of alien monsters. The game consists of three levels that can be played in either singleplayer or multiplayer, as well as an endless mode in multiplayer. Every round is split into two types of gameplay: the first part is you setting up your defense, and the second is when the aliens come and you can use your weapons like a first-person shooter. During the Tower Defense phase, you have unlimited time to complete your setup, but limited resources. You get more resources by doing well when the aliens come. In order to build a tower you must first build a "Block" on the square. Blocks act as walls and blockades for the monsters, but their main purpose is to play host to a tower. There are plenty of towers to choose from, but you're limited in your selection until the last level, when you're finally given the full pool of turrets to pick from.

You can also choose to sell any towers you wish, though you will get less resources than you spent on them, except for the starting Block (from which you get all the resources back). Once the enemies start coming, you have three weapons at your disposal to fend them off, each with a secondary fire. The Assault gun is your standard rapid-fire weapon and its secondary is an explosive grenade.

This will probably be your weapon of choice when the enemies get nearby. The Sniper Rifle works just like you'd expect, with a zoom and high damage output, and is the only weapon that can reach the enemies before they actually get to your towers. The third weapon is a Freeze Gun and its primary fire slows enemies while its secondary fire freezes them dead in their tracks. They both last for a short period of time initially. You can, however, upgrade your weapons using the resources you gather.

This has various effects depending on the weapon: the Assault gets higher damage, the Sniper gets more bullets per reload, and the Freeze gets longer freeze times. This idea creates a very interesting dilemma as to whether or not to upgrade your weapons or your towers, since they both draw from the same resources.

The game has four difficulty levels: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Insane. Changing the difficulty results in the monster HP changing, and at the higher levels they add more monsters per wave. Multiplayer shares the same three levels, but has two difficulties: Casual and Hardcore. As of now, you can only team up with one other person, but they plan to add four-player co-op sometime in the near future. In fact, while browsing the Steam forums for Sanctum, the developers seem to really be taking the community feedback to heart, so be sure to go there and voice any issues that you may have with the game and they will definitely see it.

Accessibility Issues/Concerns

Colorblind and hearing-impaired gamers will have no problems getting through the game. The only colors used to differentiate are surrounding the towers themselves. They begin as white, and get slightly more yellow and then red as they get upgraded, but this is not the only, or even preferred, way to tell what level a tower is. You can simply look at the tower and it will show you what level it is in a big, bold number. There is even a Text-to-Speech function that translates anything typed out in multiplayer into speech for those with low vision.

There are no subtitles in the game because there is no crucial dialogue and no cut-scenes. Occasionally your character will let out a "Wooo! Yeah!" or something, but that's about it. There's also a robotic announcer that comes in at the beginning and end of each round, saying "Round ended. Begin tower building" or something along those lines. Again, nothing critical.

There are some issues when it comes to precision and mobility. First of all, the controls are completely remappable. Moving around the map is easy enough, since you can build "Tele-Vators" that you can instantly teleport to whenever you please. You also have unlimited time to build your defenses, so you don't need to work fast. Once the first-person shooter round happens though, you may encounter some problems. As I mentioned, many enemies are invulnerable in certain areas of their body. The "Bobble Head" in particular will pose a large threat to anyone who doesn't have great FPS capabilities. He is only able to take damage on his small, bobbling head as he goes through the maze. The towers are not smart enough to aim specifically for the weakpoint, so most of the time they do no damage.

This means it is up to you to dispatch them by hitting their small, moving heads. If you aren't very adept at FPS precision, it will likely be almost impossible to complete the third level (the only level with these enemies). There are also "Hoverers" that are immune in the front and weak in the back. Once they turn a corner though, the towers are pretty good at getting them. They also introduce quick air units later in the game, but the towers are pretty adept at handling them with the right combination. Again, note that many of these enemies are introduced in the third level only, as well as multiplayer.

One-handed gamers should be able to handle the tower building phase with ease, but the FPS section is still an FPS section. Luckily you have your towers to help you out, with the few exceptions as noted above.

The game saves automatically at certain checkpoints (after waves). You cannot save at any time you want.

At a Glance

Vision: Text-to-Speech is included in the game for multiplayer chatting. No crucial color indicators involved.
Overall score: 10/10

Hearing: There are no audio cues or important spoken dialogue throughout the game. In multiplayer, every time someone does something (builds/sells/upgrades), it is presented at the top of the screen in somewhat easy-to-read text, depending on the background behind it. No subtitles for ambient or monster noises.
Overall score: 8/10

Mobility: Keys are completely remappable. As mentioned, a few enemies will be very hard for those who are precision-impaired. No auto-aim, and you can't rely completely on turrets in the third level.
Overall score: 6/10

Overall: It's important to mention that this game is still being patched, and more updates are on the way. Though the game may not be immediately accessible to some, there is always the option of a future patch addressing an issue. If you struggle with FPS games, you might still be able to get through this game, but you should still approach with some caution.
Overall score: 8/10