Speed and well done to all of you, sisters and brothers gamers.
On 29 September, an indie game from Konfa Games, published by tinyBuild, will launch — and it’s certainly a small novelty in the rogue genre [insert "like" or "lite" depending on the vibe]: Despot's Game - Distopian Army Builder. Indeed, it’s a game in which you’ll have to build an army of stylised little men to fight fearsome robots, angry vegetables, or infernal creatures that will cause panic among your ranks, while the tenacious pink oompa-loompas will try to defeat them with swords, spells, and… Pretzel. Your enemy? The “despota”! Your objective? Reach the end. Simple, no? No.
The game divides the various waves of enemies into rooms within a dungeon, through which you move via directional doors pointing to the four cardinal directions... a bit like "Binding of Isaac". Navigation is aided by a small map adorned with symbols (one per room) and each room (often) corresponds to a battle against creatures, somewhat synthetic or not, and/or an event (denoted by those symbols). Upon entering a new room, you won’t know exactly what you’ll face (unless it’s a boss or not), and you’ll have to deploy your troops onto a tile-based battlefield occupying the left half of the screen (the allied side), while monster locations are indicated on the tiles of the right half. Once prepared for the battle, clicking "fight" unleashes your fighters into chaos... or they die badly, it all depends on your skill in deployment and team composition. This composition is possible thanks to assigning one and only one weapon to the gnomes who are weaponless, and each weapon corresponds to a particular effect or attack mode, but also modifies the "stats" of the cute protagonists.
So how do you obtain equipment and “personnel”? Often, after finishing a battle (but also at the start of a new dungeon level), you’re presented with the choice to purchase “niubbi” (i.e. pink, pixelated goblins without weapons) and various weapons. Purchases are made using credits, the currency earned by defeating enemies room by room. At the beginning, the “market” won’t be very well-stocked, and the items presented will have a low chance of being powerful or rare. Nevertheless, you can improve this probability by upgrading the said market, which is also achievable through investment. Over time, you’ll have access to an enormous quantity of items (ranging from simple swords to refrigerators, from bows to pretzels, from death rays to... periodic tables of elements), which will increase your chances of victory, for which the little dolls will forever be grateful.
Set aside enough victories and the goblins will actually level up! At that point, you’ll have to try to protect them by assigning them caretaker friends (or at least that’s what I tried, with results not exactly stellar). Equip different items belonging to a class to a certain number of goblins, and instead a specific ability of that class will be unlocked! For example: with a certain number of swordsmen wielding different swords, every attack by all members of this class will deal damage over a small area rather than just to the target. Beware though: some abilities activate only through mana usage, and sometimes not having enough might prove fatal (especially for mages).
How can you try to avoid encountering unfortunate destinies? Genetic mutations. Even Darwin said so! During the game, you’ll be offered the chance to spend credits to purchase “standard mutations” (+10% attack speed, +10 health points, etc.), which in effect represent an improvement for all fighters (for example: all “niubbi” start fleeing when attacked, drawing the enemies’ ire). You may even be lucky enough to receive some for free at the end of a fight, and if it tells you well as it has always told me, you can count on class boosts when you have only snipers and vice versa.
Last but not least, there’s the army size / food ration report in Despot’s Game. As if the game weren’t cruel enough already, the human in front of the keyboard will have to manage the food available for the pixel-perfect fighters who will consume it room by room. Failure to do so will result in army debilitation (penalties on health, attack speed, etc.). Food can be obtained by entering areas with a dedicated market... or by sacrificing your pink test subjects (Soylent Green anyone?).
Last but not least, a rather unusual feature (probably meant to balance a rather frustrating gaming experience), are the "buttons". Similar to mutation prizes, you’ll have the chance to win up to two buttons for your interface — they’re roughly plug-and-play (they have limited uses and once you’ve “thrown” one, you can replace it with a new one) — and they have significant effects on the game, such as: “resurrect all humans dead in this room” or “create 3 niubbi on empty squares”.
In general, the gameplay is simple, although the luck of obtaining certain items dominates much of the gaming experience. Unlike "The Binding of Isaac", here there is no skill that keeps you winning round after round — I must admit that losing badly to carnivorous lettuce can sometimes feel frustrating. In my view, the initial positioning of the army doesn’t represent a decisive moment in the game between a victory and a defeat: many enemies will create chaos among the fighters, so you often end up having to reuse the positions you’ve chosen. Moreover, when you have many men at your disposal, positioning becomes almost pointless and boring. The game system is well-crafted and the opportunity to unlock new items and abilities as you play grants the Konfa Games title a decent longevity... if you have the patience to lose a lot to finally reach the long-awaited final level.
Unfortunately, despite the "old school" appearance (which I adore), I was unable to appreciate the graphics with their muted and cold palette, so I didn’t fully enjoy the hours spent playing Despot's Game. At least the price on Steam isn’t excessive.
Noldor out.
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