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Despot’s Game: Dystopian Army Builder Preview for Steam

Despot’s Game, Developed by Konfa Games and published by tinyBuild, is a roguelike game, unlike anyone I have ever played. Imagine a game where you as the player must unlock the easy mode for the game. Have you ever heard of anything like that? Well, Despot’s Game has a unique feature where you must die three times to unlock the easy mode. This game will frustrate you right from the start and has a lot to offer. 

Well, when you do unlock easy mode, you have three options from easy mode, normal mode, hard mode, hunger games, and other modes that you must obtain through progression. There is a classic mode that will give you all the basic classic items to get through your run.  The game’s progression system is based around you dying over and over. Like many roguelike titles and with this dying process you gain items that will help you on later runs as you get through the game. That is the progression of this title where you slowly start to build up items to make it through the game. 

Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder Preview for Steam

To start, you will have some basic items with a sword, crossbow, and a tower item. You start with some fighters, little pink guys, and you equip them with items. You go into a room, and you move them into a layout which you prefer to have them in. Then you watch them fight the enemy at the end of this fight you could get a reward such as a point to help you with a tree-like system to give you a bonus during battle. Also, you can use these points you gain in the shop to buy more fighters for your little army and weapons for these fighters. The loadouts are important in this game as there are different classes based on the weapons that are given to the fighters. Such as the shooters class, which has a shooter weapon to take on the enemies, but when you have two fighters with let’s say two orange shooters, they will gain powers to take on the enemy. This is dependent on how you combine your classes in the best possible manner. Also, the classes range from tanks, medical, warrior classes as these fighters have different weapons that put them in these classes. These fighters will die, so don’t come too attached as Despot’s Game does not hold your hand as you will be frustrated. 

Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder Preview for Steam

There is a food mechanic as well as the larger the army you have the more food that will need to be consumed as this adds a survival aspect to it. I enjoyed this game, but I feel it becomes too frustrating at times and the strategy is picked for you. If you don’t go for a particular strategy the game wants you to be in, you will die. Despot’s Game has great concepts but needs to be updated and balanced. Especially the difficulties need to be adjusted so people can ease into the game it’s great they are trying to be different, but they are going too far in my sense. Such as easy mode not being unlocked from the beginning. I feel many people might be frustrated from the start and quit the title.

Overall, Despot’s Game has some promise with a great concept but needs to be fleshed out more. I hope to check out this title more in the future through further development from the developers.  

Check Out the Despot’s Game Trailer:

Despot’s Game: Dystopian Army Builder is available for $14.99 for PC via Steam Early Access.

Related: tinyBuild Releases Despot’s Game: Dystopian Army Builder on Steam Early Access

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Gaming has always been an outlet for me to interact with different people and explore all kinds of possibilities. I play a wide variety of games always willing to try different mechanics and storylines that developers are trying to create for their games. I grew up delving into MW2 and World of Warcraft, I miss the Wrath of The Lich King days, and as I have gotten older I have found a love for RPGs and strategy games, my favorites being The Witcher 3 and Total War. Always looking forward to the next great game.