Packed Lair Review – Random Units Go!

When the forces of good arrive at your doorstep, you must raise an equal army to combat them. You must try because the forces of good are constantly at your back, and you don’t have infinite resources. Packed Lair puts you in the villain’s seat in this auto-battling roguelike game as old as time. Developed by Fables of Wits and published by Mystic Forge, you must find the optimal combination of units to succeed. A bit of magic sprinkled in won’t hurt either.

There is no deep story behind what you do. People want you gone, and only your army can stop them. It’s simple and lets you dive into the action immediately after a quick tutorial, something I appreciated. Rather than draw you out with an excuse plot, I was able to start commanding armies and make proper decisions. You shouldn’t skip the tutorial, but once you have the basics, there’s not much left for the game to teach you.

Your army size and composition depend on the structures you build. Buildings produce a unit type, let you access new spells, or enhance your units/magic. After purchasing buildings, you place them on a grid, expanding that grid if you have the money. Three buildings are available for purchase every round, and you can pay money to reroll them. All buildings must be placed on the grid or sold off before you start fighting.

Once you are satisfied with your building placements, you move to combat. Both sides battle each other without your input, though you can use magic spells to even the odds. If you win, you get more money to develop your base. Enemies gradually become stronger, though there are some points where the difficulty jumps. Whether you successfully beat all 30 waves or fail, you get crystals to unlock new buildings for another run.

While there are mechanics you must learn on your own, I easily understood the basics. It’s easy to understand what magic power refers to, or what unit abilities scale off of. Buildings also show you their area-of-effect range, helping you align buildings for the best formation. New spells are also clear about what they do without ambiguity, making it easy to decide whether it’s appropriate. There are lots of strategies to try, and I enjoyed testing them out.

However, gameplay runs into two big problems. The first is that there’s a lot of luck involved. You don’t get much money per battle, and upkeep drains a considerable amount. If you don’t get the buildings you need in a roll, rerolling makes your financial problems worse. Your runs might end because you never pulled enough unit-producing buildings, for example. While failure is part of the roguelike experience, I felt that there was a lot more luck involved than I would like.

Unlocking more buildings should theoretically help in future runs, but you also have no way of restricting what appears. The end result is that you might never see the benefits of new buildings because they rarely appear. I had many runs where I felt my newly unlocked building would help, only for it to appear once or twice. This just adds to the large amount of luck necessary for victory.

There’s also not much gameplay variety other than auto-battling. While you can play an endless mode to play as long as possible, there are no other quests or objectives. I enjoyed my time with Packed Lair, but the fun gradually decreased as gameplay became repetitive. This is still a solid auto-battler, but it’s a game I prefer to play in short bursts. Otherwise, I would drain the fun and feel the monotony creep in.

Packed Lair lets you command various armies while blasting enemies with magic. Creating powerful armies is enjoyable, and managing buildings on a grid is challenging. There’s a lot of luck involved in your runs, unintentionally caused by the mechanics. Gameplay can be repetitive since there’s not much to do. For short bursts of fun, Packed Lair can be a good option, but the fun may not last long.

Victor reviewed Packed Lair on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.