Rift Riff is a beautifully designed tower defense game about pumping juice

Rift Riff is all about jumping through portals (okay Rifts, whatever) and extracting precious juice. Monsters don't like you doing that though but the juice must flow. It's out now with Native Linux support. Note: key sent by the developer.

The gameplay loop in this one is incredibly satisfying with an easy to follow learning curve. Split between two sections — The first is where you run around a special world filled with rifts that allow you to access various scenarios, along with the option to grab new towers and upgrades. The second are the scenarios themselves where you get thrown into when you step through a rift.

The maps are quite simple but well-designed with some invitingly clean and wonderfully vibrant art.

Once you enter a level, you have a quick run around to find the specific point you need to place down your home tower (the Extractor), which is what does all the juice pumping. Placing down your Extractor then brings up your tactical options of what towers you've unlocked that you wish to bring with you. You've only got a limited amount of slots to fill with different types of towers, and you're then locked into using them for the run of that particular level, so choose wisely depending on what types of critters are going to come at you in waves.

Which is another point that's nice about it. You know what enemy types you will encounter at each enemy rift and where they will come from.

After picking your tower types, you'll then directly run around the map to place down all your towers in specific points across the map. Each tower costs a certain amount of juice, so careful placement and watching the waves is the key to winning here. As the waves go on, your home tower will be pumping that delicious juice allowing you to continue to place down more towers and upgrade them.

For each scenario you complete you're then given prisms to take back with you to the special world to unlock towers, paths to more rifts, companions and tower upgrades. It's not entirely linear either which is another interesting idea here. As you unlock more, extra paths will open up but you can mostly do them in whatever order you want, as long as you have the tower types and upgrades you think you'll need.

A little bit of minor backtracking here at times, but it's all simple and easy and takes a few seconds to run across so not really a problem at all.

During the scenarios you're an actual person running around the map too, which also serves a purpose. You're not some faceless entity dropping down towers from above. You're the one directly interacting with the world and getting that juice pumped, and you even have some little critter following you that does a small attack, with the option to unlock new companions that have different attacks too.

Check out the full feature trailer below:

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Some of the game mechanics involving the enemies are quite unique too, with them having an assortment of different behaviours. Some might just make a run for your Extractor, others might attack the first tower they encounter or only attack towers on fertile ground while they move towards the Extractor.

I was quite burned out after playing endless hours of Bloons TD 6, which is a great game and a fun time in co-op, but thankfully Rift Riff has given me a renewed energy and love of the tower defense genre. Absolutely worth picking up if you love a game that will challenge you without being punishing, while blending in some fun mechanics to keep you on your toes and get you thinking. Accessible difficulty too with the ability to restart not just the whole scenario you're currently on, but the last wave as well. Plus, if you find your towers aren't placed well, you can just refund their full cost back.

Really nice smooth controller support too, making it a great game to get comfortable with and great on Desktop Linux and Steam Deck too.