Giantfall Review

A Kingdom Builder Crossed With a Giant-Slaying Tower Defense Game

Giantfall pitches itself plainly: a "medieval kingdom builder / Tower defence real time strategy game" in which the player builds and grows a settlement while defending it against marauding giants and mutated giant creatures. That dual identity is also its selling point among reviewers, several of whom single out how cleanly it fuses the two halves. One reviewer called it "a great game that mixes tower defense and colony sim without cards or random upgrades," contrasting it with the roguelite-deckbuilder wave that now dominates much of the tower defense space, while another situated it more specifically: "for fans of They Are Billions, Diplomacy is not an option, Gooworld and Age of Darkness, with a little bit of Settlers thrown in." A third reviewer put it more simply as "a more casual Age of Empires meets The Settlers" — a comparison that speaks to how approachable the building side is meant to feel next to its genre neighbours.

Building, Research and a Story Teller That Tunes the Pressure

The core loop has the player laying out farms, lumberyards, and stone and iron mines to fund a growing town, then spending those resources on defensive towers, walls and standing armies as the settlement attracts more people and richer enemies. Steam's own description lists a tower progression running from basic archer towers up through ballista, catapult and bombard towers, plus a mage school that unlocks magical towers further down the research tree, giving the defensive side of the game its own long-term progression separate from simple economic growth. A notable structural choice reviewers keep returning to is a "Story Teller" system that lets the player tune the intensity and pacing of threats, similar in spirit to the AI storytellers found in other survival-management games. One reviewer credited this directly for the game's accessibility: "It is easy to play slow and enjoy building my base and then fighting the monsters when I am ready, because you can be attacked frequently or not that often" depending on the Story Teller chosen, while another confirmed the same flexibility let them dial the challenge toward "casual games or action packed" play depending on mood.

Determining the Cause of the Mutations

Beyond the build-and-defend loop, Giantfall frames its giants as more than generic monster-wave fodder: the game's own pitch asks the player to "Determine what is causing the mutations and destroy it," folding a specific narrative mystery into what could otherwise have been a pure numbers-and-towers defense game. Reviewers describe the escalation this creates in practical terms rather than lore detail — one wrote about the amusing chaos of managing that escalation directly, joking that they'd "accidentally turn your army into a bunch of rampaging giants and somehow still manage to survive," which suggests the mutation mechanic isn't confined to enemy units alone. It's a smaller, more grounded hook than a sprawling fantasy epic, but it gives the player a stated reason to keep pushing forward beyond simply surviving the next wave.

Early in Its Lifecycle, But Not Bare-Bones

Multiple reviewers flag that Giantfall is still early in its development arc, yet are careful to note that this doesn't mean the game feels thin. One wrote that the game is "still early in its lifecycle, and on first glance it looks a little bare bones," before going on to recommend it anyway on the strength of what's already there, while another described the depth building over time: "the game is simple at the start and it gets progressively deeper as you go through the days, having to manage the resource supply, the defense of your base and other aspects of your game as well." That combination, a game still growing but already substantial enough to hold up on its own merits, is echoed across the review sample rather than isolated to one player's experience. The reception on Steam is uniformly positive at the time of writing, with every English-language review returned by Steam's own review API recommending the game, several after dozens or hundreds of hours of played time.

A Single Upfront Price With a Free Demo Available

Giantfall costs a single NZ$18.75 with no in-app-purchase category flagged on its Steam store page and no live-service structure attached to its building-and-defense loop. Steam also lists a free demo, which one reviewer noted "locks some of the advanced buildings but lets you get a taste of" the core systems before buying — a low-risk way to sample the genre-blend pitch before committing. Between the one-time price and the demo option, there's no monetisation friction of any kind to flag here, a clean result for a strategy game that could otherwise have been built around expansion-style DLC or a premium-currency research tree.

Verdict

Giantfall's pitch, a colony-sim economy paired with a proper tower defense escalation and a giant-hunting mystery holding it together, comes through clearly in how its players talk about it: approachable enough for newcomers to the genre blend, deep enough to keep veterans of Diplomacy is Not an Option or They Are Billions engaged, and tunable via its Story Teller system so the pacing suits either a relaxed builder or a tense defensive grind. It's an early-lifecycle release by its own reviewers' admission, but one already substantial enough to earn a unanimous positive reception rather than a "wait for updates" shrug. At a modest single price with a free demo to try first, it's a solid pick for anyone who wants their kingdom-building with genuine stakes attached.