Ruin Raiders
EN: If you like rogelikes, this game is a must for you. The aesthetics are beautiful and controls feel smooth. I love raider’s interactions between them. The main mechanic of the Game is well executed, alongside with the RNG, which feels fair, though sometimes you would like to smash your keyboard because you’ve failed an 87% shot chance. I cannot wait to reach the goal of the game and unravel its secrets, alongside with its easter eggs. Thank you so much, again, OP Team. Looking forward to know what else you are capable of doing :)
– Real player with 22.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Difficult Games.
Great game, if you just like the combat in turn based tactical games, minus the over world and doing research.
Instead upgrades are droped, looted or crafted and permanent upgrades are made before the start of each run, making up for the rogue-light side of the game even when you die, you can use the currencey you made while playing to make meaningful upgrades.
Each biome has 3 levels on the 3rd level is a boss fight, as many other rogue-like/lights each biome has a theme and adjusting your gear and playstyle for each biome can make or break a run.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
Battle Barn: Tactics
Take your tactics to the next level! Battle your way through bite-sized combat until you hit the next zone. Strategize your way to victory with the ultimate team composition.
EVERY FOE CAN BE A FRIEND
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Every unit can be captured and controlled
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Hundreds of strategies and synergies with different units
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New units to capture in every zone
EVERY UNIT IS UNIQUE
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Animals move in their own patterns
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Dozens of moves and abilities
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Countless combinations of upgrades for each unit
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Funny Games.
Endhall
Endhall’s description - a ‘byte-sized roguelike’ - encompasses exactly what this game is.
It easily serves as a stepping stone for those unfamiliar with the genre, whilst still being enjoyable for those who are well-versed in it. The learning curve is not steep, but the game does a fine job of making you reflect on what you could have done better. It took me about 40 or so minutes to beat the game, which is completely fair given the price. A run consists of beating 9 stages, and a successful run could end up being about 15 or so minutes.
– Real player with 18.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Turn-Based Tactics Games.
Endhall is a turn based rogue like puzzle, with retro graphics and atmospheric chiptune inspired music.
The game in itself is quite simple (but there is no help, so I will describe it here): you play a robot fighting against other robots, you have 8 “health points” (labelled “energy meter”) and 4 “action points” (labelled “CPUs”). The action points are used to perform actions (like attacking, moving, etc.), and refill every turn; while health points decrease by various amounts when hit, or by one after the end of every turn (to prevent the player from camping) and are replenished by one for every ennemy death.
– Real player with 15.6 hrs in game
Inkulinati
Inkulinati is an ink-based strategy game straight from medieval manuscripts, where a rabbit’s bum can be deadlier than a dog’s sword.
Take your turn in Inkulinati duels filled with unexpected tactical depth (and humour!). Embark on an ever-changing journey, build your own bestiary, defeat medieval superstars and collect perks to unleash special powers.
Become a master of the Living Ink, grab your quill and build your unique strategy time after time so that you can be named the greatest Inkulinati of all time!
INKULINATI IS INSPIRED BY REAL-LIFE MEDIEVAL MARGINALIA
700 years in the making, finally these bizarre art pieces can come alive in a video game and show that medieval people also had their “memes” and that they laughed from the same silly things that we do today. You’ll see sword-wielding rabbits, dogs with spears, trumpets lodged in bottoms, human-eating snails, and more. Much, much more…
FIGHT LIKE AN INKULINATI
Inkulinati are a legendary group who battle one another on the pages of medieval manuscripts. They fight by drawing Beasts with the Living Ink. Thanks to this magical substance, those creatures come to life and an epic battle ensues.Move your Beasts across the battlefield, perform actions on or with them, make tactical use of obstacles and collect more Living Ink to draw new Beasts which allows you to gain an advantage over your opponent.
MULTIPLE DEADLY (AND BIZARRE) BEASTS TO UNLOCK
Donkeys playing trumpets with their bottoms, bishop cats vanquishing heretics with prayers, heavy but deadly snails that eat units alive, and more. Much, much more. They all have their special skills and are waiting for your command.
SPECIAL, BATTLE TIDE-TURNING ACTIONS PERFORMED BY THE INKULINATI
It’s not just your Beasts that can cause havoc and damage. Use your fists to smash your opponent’s units, draw obstacles to create barriers, relocate your units with a move of your finger, or explode your troops to create pure, pure chaos. Just remember - your opponent can do it too.
ADAPT YOUR TACTIC TO EVERY BATTLE
Each Inkulinati has its own army, with different Beasts, who in turn, have different abilities, strengths, and unfortunately, weaknesses (or fortunately - depending which side you’re on). But it’s not just the armies that can influence who will win any given duel. Each Battlefield is its own domain, with its own particular dangers that you should watch out for, and opportunities that you can use. You will have to use your wits and adapt your strategy to beat the opposing Inkulinati’s army on each specific Battlefield.
A SINGLE-PLAYER CAMPAIGN
Uncover the mystery and secrets of Inkulinati and face such opponents as Death, Dante Alighieri, and more. Go out into the world and start your adventure! Fight the biggest Inkulinati masters in the land, tame the untamed Beasts, build your ultimate army, try to bring back your Master from the clutches of death, and most importantly, finish your grand quest with the biggest party that the middle ages have ever seen! Howza!!!
CREATE AND DEVELOP YOUR OWN CHARACTER
As any aspiring Inkulinati Master, you will get to create your own Tiny-Inkulinati. During your journey you will learn the secret techniques of drawing new Beasts and Inkulinati Hand Actions, allowing you to choose the composition of your army. You can be a brave knight that has no fear and will send his loyal troops straight at his opponents. Or perhaps you would like to play with a bit more tact? In that case, you can be a nun who with the power of prayer can confuse her enemies and heal thy own servants. Those styles, and more, are waiting to be discovered and made your own. Express yourself!
EVERY BATTLE HAS ITS OWN STORY
To mark every battle in history books for all future generations to see, a procedurally generated text describes the dramatic (or hilarious) events in detail just above the battlefield.
LOCAL PVP BATTLES
Inkulinati will bring you back to the Golden Era of hot-seat mode.
Lifing
This game is an incredibly unique and complex roguelite deck builder. It does however have a few flaws right now, but despite that I still think it’s a solid game.
The lack of a tutorial for mechanics as well as there being no reference for what card symbols do/mean (there’s a tooltip when scrolling over a card but it only explains the first symbol) makes it very hard to get into.
Jumping from island to island feels fun, but the fights themselves could use some tweaking. So far there’s no way to tell where enemies or resources will spawn on an island. You can bounce to the next island and have no energy/draw resources spawn near you (energy is needed to play cards and you don’t draw cards naturally), which can end your run if your deck isn’t ready to deal with that. I’ve also had my farthest run ended instantly because I hopped onto a new island and the enemy guardian spawned directly next to me and was able to one shot my guardian (which is a game over), no way to survive at all for my guardian.
– Real player with 9.7 hrs in game
Short version; it’s not done. In theory the mechanics and assets are there for a game. Sadly it fails at a basic level. As in I don’t know how someone put in so much work, but ever actually got it working.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Spire of Sorcery
A party strategy with its very own style and identity.
The graphics are nice and well designed, and the music is great. Hopefully they add more of it later.
The interface feels like it was designed by a madman that completely ignored everything we know about mainstream gaming interfaces, and just branched it into its own evolutionary path. On the other hand, many games today have an interface that looks nearly identical, and here it’s finally different and fresh.
The spell and combat system is incredibly deep and flexible. You need to adapt your spells to your party, and figure out how to effectively combine them with potions and the environment, and even with other spells and effects. This game greatly rewards experimentation and exploration. There are many insane combinations to discover, and every party requires a different strategy and resource management. A murderhobo group plays very differently from a group that has a pacifist in it.
– Real player with 31.1 hrs in game
A game where you control only mages! If you are tired of extremely generic fighters who smell of sweaty socks and too much ale, and you are a cultured scholar who appreciates basking under arcane arts and good books, then this game might be for you :P That was the reason for me to try demo, then game’s uniqueness made me buy it and keep on journey.
Honestly, even the idea of “controlling only mages” is already so exciting and engaging to me. Now I know that this game is mostly strategy and all but there’s an attempt right here so I must interfere… story is not very infused with the game itself, I’d personally expect more passages that would drag me in. Don’t know what the devs are planning on release, but a good background story would be a huge game changer in my opinion. People who like magical powers tend to care about these, no? If there’s such plan (yes this is a big issue of indie developers but) adding just one voice actor who is going to narrate the story would be very pleasant.
– Real player with 21.3 hrs in game
Battle Star
I played almost 40h and want to keep going. As a f2p I like that you can get all the characters without spending any money. The graphics are good, sounddesign is catching and the turnbased combat is right up my ally. The only thing I might add is the option to change gear during missionselection. Other than that I would also like to see a male character who talks more (srly girls are not in shortage but where are the men?). That aside, the combat is exciting and story interesting (at least for me). I do love me a good grind (I did spend more of less 70% of my playtime grinding ressources) but that might not be the case for everyone. You can take it ez though. I recommend you try it out for yourself. Can’t wait for more exciting updates. ;)
– Real player with 141.8 hrs in game
Summary: This is a pretty awesome game if you like SRPGs!
Story: It exists. It’s not great, it’s not terrible, just whatever. Pretty generic anime-esque stuff, a group of female fighters trying to take down the evil bad guys.
Artstyle/UI: Very good! The characters are clean and distinct, the attacks are flashy without being over-the-top. UI is tight and shiny, and easy to navigate. It’s anime style in the artwork, but chibi “big head” characters in the actual gameplay. It’s not distracting though, it’s very cute. Some character artwork is sexualized with huge cleavage, but compared to a lot of games of this stripe, it’s not over-the-top. Many characters are just badass/cool without being scantily clad.
– Real player with 101.3 hrs in game
Dungeon Deathball
Fun tactics game. It plays like into-the-breach-lite.
What this game does better than into the breach:
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Every turn is more connected. Enemies can only move a small amount and won’t jump across the map and target something else unlike ITB.
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Enemies can be manipulated easily; A big part of mastering the game involves manipulating enemies which is really fun
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The orange monsters and goalies chases the ball
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Cyan monsters that chases players.
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You can stand in an enemies attack range to make them attack you the next turn
– Real player with 102.7 hrs in game
Quick note: My actual playtime at the time of writing this is closer to 8-10 hours, as I’ve been playing it since the first public demo on itch, months before Early Access release.
Dungeon Deathball is a compact, turn-based strategy game, in part inspired by Into the Breach - it shows you exactly what enemies are going to do next turn and also allows you to turn them against each other by pushing them around. Unlike ItB, it’s a very easy game to pick up and play a quick round or two while on a short break.
– Real player with 45.2 hrs in game
Fantasy Town Regional Manager
This game was not what I was expecting. I thought it would be something like SimCity where you endlessly expand your town. But this game isn’t meant for you to build a long term town right out of the gate. You are expected to create a town, accomplish some small goals and quests, earn upgrade points and then - when your town crashes and burns - unlock some upgrades and start over again.
I’ve played for 16 hours and have yet to fully unlock all of the upgrades. I have unlocked all of the buildings and it is starting to get a little repetitive but I can see this as a fun game to come back to after a break and play a few rounds to pass the time.
– Real player with 16.4 hrs in game
Fun, engaging, eases you into some interesting complexities
I love how vibrant the game is, which is thanks to the music, the cute colours, the little people moving about the buildings, and the amount of story it’s able to fit in with the newspaper and your own gameplay.
That’s all drawn me in, but what’s kept me playing is seeing more new buildings appear, then deciding how their placement might affect the satisfaction of each class of adventurers. It starts off simple enough but when you’re ready, you’re able to introduce modifiers that impact the way you play even further.
– Real player with 15.3 hrs in game
Alcheverse: Shadow from Gladview
The map of the island of Gigax is generated from scratch every time and it’ll be hard for Lumpy to complete his journey! In the map you’ll find ingredients like the Tentacle or the Star Shard, fight packs of Corrupted Alcheverse that will attack you, meet strange individuals like the Merchant or King Paxton, who will offer you extravagant trades!
Craft your Alcheverse by mixing different ingredients together and unlock all recipes. Each of these powerful creatures has 10 differents statistics that influence their performance in battle and an unique skill that gives each of them a characteristic play style! To get the most out of your team you’ll also need to use the Sinergies wisely. When two or more Alcheverse share a common ingredient you’ll gain a Synergy bonus that improves the creatures statistics!
Position your Alcheverse in the most strategic way and let them fight for you: automatic combat allows you to focus on the strategy rather than the reflexes. Unlock powerful Synergies to overcome the hardest fights! Beware, the game is challenging and it will take you time to learn all the best strategies and combos!
The town of Gladview is in danger! The greed of King Paxton led to the creation of the Corruption: a failed alchemy experiment that infects everything it touches! The Master alchemist Gullio was also Corrupted, and he’s the only one that can fix this mess! You are Lumpy, the alchemist apprentice that will make the journey to the Volcano of the island of Gigax to rescue Gullio. Will you be able to save the master and end the Corruption?