Instruments of Destruction Gameplay Preview

Instruments of Destruction immediately brings to mind Besiege. It’s the same kind of game. You attempt to construct a vehicle of mass destruction and get to demolishing everything in sight. The game is a lot of silly fun and while the game is easy to get into, much like Besiege, it is incredibly hard to master.

The game’s premise is that you are in charge of building a demolition vehicle suited to the task at hand. Each level has different objectives, bonus objectives, and things to avoid. For example, one level may want you to destroy the buildings while avoiding damaging the ruins. Another level may want you to push cargo containers into the ocean. Accomplishing all of these tasks require you to build a suitable vehicle.

For example, in the levels that require you to not damage the ruins, you can’t build a wrecking ball since it would be hard to control and thus damage all nearby structures. The levels oftentimes place the ruins very close to the buildings. For levels that require you to push things, then your vehicle would need to be designed to be able to handle running into and manipulating objects.

Getting into the game may appear to be a daunting task but the game does one very intelligent thing. As you complete levels, it unlocks showcase vehicles for the player to use and study. These are fully constructed vehicles designed by the developers that showcase how to design and build the perfect instrument of destruction (or in some cases a very inefficient and silly instrument of hilarity). You get these showcase vehicles fairly early and they do a great job of showing how things work.

In the event you don’t want to build your own vehicles, the showcase vehicles are more than adequate enough to complete the levels. The game gives you complete freedom in how you approach the levels and you can design as much or as little as you want.

The game is definitely a lot of fun. It was a bit hard to figure things out, especially the controls at the beginning of the game. I’d recommend taking the time to mess around with the build menu to fully figure things out. Showing the keybinds will give you an idea of what is possible while building. Also studying the showcase vehicles really gets the creative juices flowing on what crazy monstrosities are possible in the game.

While the main fun of the game in my opinion is in designing the perfect or imperfect vehicle, playing around with them is fun as well. Mindlessly destroying everything in sight is pretty satisfying and brings a sense of pride when you make something that works.

Overall, Instruments of Destruction is a game truly powered by one’s understanding of the mechanics and limited by your imagination. It’s pretty easy to get into basic design but the game has an incredible amount of depth that will reward players that devote the time to learn it.