Spellcasting room-clearance puzzler Tactical Breach Wizards gets new beta that includes the whole game

Tactical Breach Wizards is having a beta playtest, with space for around 2500 players over the next month or so. New to Tactical Breach Wizards? It's a grid and turn-based room-clearance puzzler in which you control a gang of door-kickers who happen to be armed with spells and magical artefacts, rather than plain old riot shields. It's the work of Suspicious Developments, the studio founded by former videogames journalist and - *engage mystic rite of disclaiming* - RPS contributor Tom Francis, and lets you do things like chain lightning bolts around cover and knock people into mystic portals or out of windows (a Suspicious Developments staple).

If you successfully conjure a beta build from the summoning pool, the catch is that you'll need to actually do your duty and send in feedback before you can play all of it. "The full game is ready to test now, but we're doing things a little differently this time," reads a Steam post from Francis. "If you get an invite, you'll first get access to the first 75% of the campaign. We'll then wait to see who fills in their feedback forms on what they've played, and periodically invite those folks into a beta that includes the game's final act.

"Most testers don't give feedback, so we just wanna make sure we don't give the full game to too many people without getting what we need in return," the post adds.

Tactical Breach Wizards is very much about experimenting with the tools - you can rewind each level as much as you'd like. But it's not just about optimising your strategy. There's a relatively robust-sounding, eight hour story campaign in which you piece together the doings of an evil paramilitary corporation. Between missions, you'll make dialogue choices and upgrade your team of arcane home-invaders. It's all played for laughs, as with the developers' previous Heat Signature and Gunpoint: foes include "the elder Shrublords of the Druid Mafia, and the Rushwater Police Department's rising star: The Traffic Warlock."

Sound appealing? Speaking as a fan of wizards, Into The Breach and Rainbow Six: Siege, I am keen. I loved Heat Signature, which Brendy described as a great space-heist simulator, and also enjoyed Francis's work as a journomancer. His diary pieces about Galactic Civilizations are treasured tomes indeed. Anyway, you can sign up for the beta here. Best make haste: at the time of writing, around 500 slots have already been given away.