‘Battle Ram’ is an indie arcade game where players must fight off waves of enemies and environmental hazards. Battle Ram, developed by Wloop777 & Anatoliy Loginovskikh and published by Khukhrovr, is only available on PC and was released on January 6, 2023.

In Battle Ram, the player controls a genetically engineered ram and must fight off waves of enemies. The waves vary in intensity and difficulty. The ram is secluded in a small circle area and if you leave the circle, you die. If you get hit once, you die. Dying doesn’t reset all progress, however, and you reset at the start of the last round. Personally, I think making it more of the rogue-like genre and having a full reset may have made the game a lot more replayable.

There is no information in the game about the story or why your ram must defend the small plot of land from the encroaching robots. But there is a small spiel on the Steam store page. The story given from the Steam page is that you (the ram) are being held in a secret laboratory, and waves of military-grade science experimental robots are attacking the ‘Battle Ram’.

The ram has been subject to its own experimentations and is now able to crush steel with its skull. Will the ram survive the gruesome testing of its newly acquired might? Only you can lead it to survival.

Gameplay was super simple. Controls were all made from the mouse, movement follows the mouse and LMB click makes a ram attack, that’s it, that’s all there is to it. No power-ups or weapon pickups, all it is is you and your ram.

The waves of enemies do get tougher the further you progress, but instead of new unique enemies, or different attacks, they change color and take more headbutts to destroy. Personally, I think different enemies or game mechanic changes would change the game exponentially. There are only a handful of enemies as well, ranging from defenders to mini-bosses.

The overall design of Battle Ram is extremely simple but effective. Enemies are easily identifiable, the allowed area to fight in is well outlined, and the character art is overwhelmingly cute. The audio on the other hand is a bit hit or miss. Not in the design, but in the balance.

The backing track is a fusion of electronic and industrial music which is perfectly fitting to the theme of the game, however, the special effects sound twice as loud as the backing sounds and are awfully jarring.

All in all, Battle Ram was a unique experience, the simplicity from the controls to the gameplay makes the game accessible to everyone. The game felt a little too basic, however, and I grew bored quickly. It’s a great game to fill some gaps but the replayability is extremely low due to the lack of variety within the game. Battle Ram will set you back $6 NZD so it’s not a massive cost for a gap-filling arcade game.

Written by: Bigfoot