Rift Riff has such cute art, great sound design, and snappy UI interactions that combine to make this a satisfying minimalist tower defense game. It’s a perfect game for a 15-30 minute session!

After only a few hours, there is a pretty wide build variety available to you. There’s also room for players to choose the next level and upgrade. Interesting choices for your tools before each scenario, but also more complex mid-wave decision points with more upgrades as you go.

It feels great when you intuit the perfect counter to a level, but there are still times where a poor choice overwhelms you. Failing never feels frustrating because the runs are short and there are some forgiving quality of life features (refund towers for full cost, failure restarts wave instead of full scenario). I’m looking forward to the challenges ahead!