Steam Link Spotlight - Fights in Tight Spaces

Posted by Campbell Bird on February 25th, 2021
+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

Steam Link Spotlight is a feature where we look at PC games that play exceptionally well using the Steam Link app. Our last entry was on Hades. Read about how it plays using Steam Link over here.

For this installment, I decided to go back to a more turn-based title. Fights in Tight Spaces just hit Steam in early access and is a turn-based card game where you manage the choreography of intense fighting set pieces that wouldn't feel out of place in films like John Wick or The Bourne Identity. You do this by playing cards that execute moves on your turn that allow you to manage your spacing while dishing out a ton of pain on multiple bad guys that accost you in tattoo parlors, narrow alleyways, and other cramped environments.


Since it's a card game, Fights in Tight Spaces feels pretty natural using the direct mouse control option on the Steam Link app. There are a few hiccups around camera controls and hover maneuvers that would definitely feel more natural on PC, but those are easy to overcome with a little patience, especially since the game is entirely turn-based. I definitely found myself playing some cards out of turn by accident in the video above, but those are misclicks that won't happen again now that I have a better understanding of the general control scheme.

In general, Fights in Tight Spaces is a pretty fun tactics card game that feels kind of like Into the Breach meets Slay the Spire. You choose certain crime organizations to take down and proceed through a series of increasingly difficult fights, all while building up your fighting deck to make short work of anyone who stands in your way. In fights themselves, positioning is just as important as dishing out punishment, meaning you can do things like shove people over railings or slip around them so they accidentally attack each other instead of you.

It's pretty satisfying when a fighting plan comes together and you bob-and-weave your way around a bunch of baddies, but the game definitely feels like it has some room to grow to make its action sequences feel more fluid. Characters sometimes move and face in strange ways during a fight, and there's a replay option at the end of encounters that simply stitches together moves in a way that feels just as choppy as the turn-based action itself, albeit sped up.

That said, Fights in Tight Spaces is still pretty fun, and more than playable on mobile. I hope the game eventually gets to a state where the fight choreography looks a little more natural, but even without that it's a pretty satisfying card-based brawler.

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