Into the Breach is a turn-based strategy game that was released in 2018 for PC and later released for other platforms. It is set in a future where players control giant mechs to defend against an alien invasion. Players must carefully plan their moves and use their mechs' abilities to protect humanity from the alien threat. The game has received critical acclaim for its challenging gameplay and unique mechanics.

@Fusha

Congratulations, everyone! We have finally reached this season's puzzle game: the wonderful tactical turn-based roguelike Into The Breach. Made by the same fellows who made FTL, it has a familiar visual style, but entirely different gameplay. The game often gets compared to chess due to the strategy and planning involved, as well as possibilities that you only notice after staring at the screen for a while.

Version: 1.2.86, any platform. The game was offered for free on the Epic Store for a time, so you might already have it even if you think you don't. But if you are a respectable videogame consumer who chooses not to use the Epic platform, the game will be provided for you free of charge if you stream your submission.

Difficulty: HARD. All advanced content should be switched off. Here's how it should look like:

Rules: we will be doing 4-island runs. This means that we MUST clear all four islands every run before going to the boss island. If we win a run with a squad, we then unlock any of the other squads and see how many squads we can get a win with. You can unlock squads in any order, but just unlocking them in the order they're listed will probably be easiest. Using random or custom squads is not allowed. Changing the combat speed slider in the settings is allowed! If you've played the game before, please also make sure to choose a brand new profile in the main menu.

The game has a mechanic where at the end of every run, you must choose one of your pilots to take into your next run. We will not be doing that; all our runs must start with the same pilot, a brand new, level 0, 0 XP Ralph Karlsson. To make sure of this, before each run, click «Change time traveller», and then click on Ralph Karlsson, as shown here:

Do this even if you already have Ralph Karlsson selected, because the one you've got selected might have some XP carried over from your last run.

Progress is measured by squads won, then most islands cleared in a single run with your current squad. Tiebreakers: deaths (your Grid reaching 0 and your run ending, NOT pilot deaths), then time.

Time limit: 5 hours. You can play the tutorial («Battle Simulation») AND your first actual real mission without starting the timer. You should start the timer immediately after starting your second mission. This should allow you to read all the tooltips and popups while not under any pressure. You can pause the timer between runs or while pausing the game, but you shouldn't pause it between missions.

While the tutorial does a very good job at introducing the mechanics, and the game itself consistently shows exactly what the effect of every action is gonna be, some things will still not be entirely obvious. There will be edge cases and unclear situations. Take advantage of the «reset turn» button if need be, you'll be able to do so once every mission. I'll also provide some useful pro-tips below.

Don't be too afraid to take damage with your mechs; all mech damage gets repaired after the mission is over. Even if a mech and its pilot die, the mech itself can still be used in the next mission even without a pilot.
Units can move through fire, mines, etc, without suffering any negative effects. Tile effects only apply if a unit finishes its movement on that tile.
Exception: Non-flying non-boss enemies can't move through water or lava!
Enemies take fire damage in the same order as their move order.
If an enemy dies and gets pushed with the same action, any on-death effects will activate on the tile the enemy got pushed on. Also, you can kill-push enemies onto Escape Pods without destroying them.
You can undo moves, but not actions.
You will not be able to do every mission on an island. You only get to do five missions before the boss arrives.
If you manage to complete all your bonus objectives on an island, you'll get a choice of a free item, pilot or Grid health.

1st) Fusha - Progress: 2 Squads / 3 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 04:29:29 - Deaths: Infinity
2nd) Marcman_59 - Progress: 0 Squads / 3 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 01:47:50 - Deaths: Infinity
3rd) FullCup - Progress: 0 Squads / 3 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 04:13:42 - Deaths: 0
4th) Grom - Progress: 0 Squads / 2 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 04:10:52 - Deaths: 3
5th) HandsomeStrife - Progress: 0 Squads / 2 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 01:18:00 - Deaths: 5
6th) Kythias - Progress: 0 Squads / 2 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 02:59:59 - Deaths: 8
7th) Sander - Progress: 0 Squads / 2 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 04:05:00 - Deaths: Infinity
8th) Lovenfloofen - Progress: 0 Squads / 2 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 02:53:34 - Deaths: 6
9th) ReturnOfOctobot - Progress: 0 Squads / 2 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 04:34:02 - Deaths: 10
10th) carlconiglius - Progress: 0 Squads / 1 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 03:55:34 - Deaths: 9999
11th) imagoth2004 - Progress: 0 Squads / 0 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 00:33:37 - Deaths: 7
12th) Tater84 - Progress: 0 Squads / 0 Islands with Current Squad - Time: 00:48:00 - Deaths: 6

@Fusha

Round 3 comes to an end. Appropriately, Into the Breach proved to be a real struggle, even more so than it needed to be. Unfortunately, I was a bit overzealous when choosing the difficulty, which created a far tighter bottleneck than I had intended -- only three people have managed to get past the third island. Which is a big shame, since I really hoped this wonderful game would have been much more of a hit. Alas, I've only myself to blame. Rule 1 is to have fun, after all. But I did have plenty of fun watching all of you struggle with one of my favourite games, so all's well that ends well! We'll bump the difficulty down to normal if it comes up in a future Return of a Legend spin.

Still, the results are in, and this is how everyone placed. HandsomeStrife gets his first ever podium, and last season's bronze medalist, Cup, is warmly welcomed into the season with another third place finish. Grom also joins the Wheel with a podium, and a very warm, farty welcome to him too! And Marcman, possibly reacting to my last round's summary, is eager to prove he shouldn't be dismissed quite as quickly, finishing second. Finally, I got first! Hooray