Packed Lair launches today: a Tetris-style base builder for evil armies

Space Is Tight in Packed Lair, a Tetris-Style Evil Lair Builder Out Now on Steam

Ever feel like your home has gotten a little too small? That crunch for space is exactly the inspiration behind Packed Lair, a new game that mashes together base building, auto battling, roguelike progression and Tetris-style spatial puzzles. Out today, it casts you as an evil overlord attempting to squeeze an entire empire's worth of machinery into one absurdly cramped underground lair.

How the Lairs Fill Up

At the heart of a run is the grid. You begin with a tiny patch of floor and start placing constructions across it, and this is where the Tetris DNA kicks in. Instead of the falling-block urgency of the classic, the challenge here is about smart placement — rotating chunky, oddly shaped pieces and slotting them into your limited square footage as efficiently as you can. Each building does something different: the biggest ones swell the size of your army, while others boost your minions' strength or HP, provided you cluster them together correctly.

Digging Deeper Between Fights

When battles wrap up, you spend coin to gradually excavate more room, opening up space for additional buildings. New structures arrive as random drafts, with a pick of three offered each time — that's where the roguelike flavor comes in. The real trick is less about simply making pieces fit and more about arranging them so their bonuses stack and synergize. Get the layout right, and your army marches out and handles the rest.

Fighting Is Mostly Automatic

Combat leans on the auto battler side of things: your troops do the heavy lifting, though you can intervene with a handful of active abilities of your own. It's a lot of moving pieces, but the design holds together better than you might expect.

If that sounds appealing, Packed Lair is available now on Steam, where a free demo is also live if you'd like to test your packing skills before committing.

Source: the original publisher