Tideline Command

Tideline Command asks you to juggle two things at once: keeping your island settlements fed through fragile boat routes, and fending off raider waves that hit when your attention is elsewhere. That tension is the whole game, and when it works it's genuinely tense in a good way.

I loved how the maps force compromises. You never have enough boats for every route, so you learn to let a small outpost suffer while you protect the port that matters. The interface took a session to click, but once it did, giving orders felt fluid on a touchscreen.

It's a thinker, not a reflex game, and the mid-game difficulty spike might scare off newcomers. Stick with it past the third campaign mission and it opens up into something really rewarding.

What we liked

• Meaningful resource trade-offs
• Campaign that teaches as it escalates
• Clean touch controls once it clicks