There Is Only Power

Truly great game, unfortunately looks like it might not be getting worked on anymore? Oh well, such a cool strategy game, challenging yet easy to keep playing!

I hope I don't insult you by this. This is a simple game yet super fun.

the addition of a "codex" or "book" were you could review allies and enemies to look at their stats and abilities would be nice

What fonts are used in the game? The tooltips of artifacts and enemies only show as empty boxes.

i think you should add a pause and save because if somebody needs to close the game for some reason he would lose all his progress and some people can't play continuously until the game ends so they would lose their progress 

So I took a look at the Game a few days ago and I must say I really like the gameplay and the thought that went into. Especially the token system coupled with the souls I like a lot and makes it fun to hoard power like a fantasy villain only to unleash it unto puny creatures, daring to face you.

But the illusion is a bit shattered by (and I hate to say this) bad balancing. I like, that in combat your units attack at last ... it forces the player to think how to prepare himself for even the weak encounters, as the damage done by any can rack up over the time.

Sadly at the same time it makes a lot of things useless, what you could do as player. Especially in your "limited" choice of units to pick. If you look at the summoning spells in the earth spell tree, I actually found not a single unit I could reliable use. Most die without anything done, at most soaking up just a bit of damage, but only to leave you with no mana left. It's a bit of shame, as you have (particular in the beginning) no real chance to support your own expensive units.  Or the offensive fire spells, that do more or less all the same ... just some slower, some weaker ... or overkill? Actually I never found  an enemy with more than 12 health ... so incinerate dealing 20 is a bit much ... sure there could be shield on the units, but so limit the game is right now, you are probably dead anyway, should NPCs have this much over you.

On the other hand a couple of spells/units are so good (*cough* gryphon) you can not lose with them ... and as I saw you are already aware you can run the game unlimited at the end if you get to a certain point. 

Therefor the choice of archetype isn't really relevant ... you just do the same with anybody and have the same result. Which really is a shame, I totally like the ideas of the possible classes ... first favorite was the battle-mage after having the weak lich at the start ... but the huge emphasis on health and mana gain through game overshadowed all the other classes after wards, that where more of a gimmick than actual helpful. Sadly even that didn't matter in the end. 

Some things come to my mind you could try out:

- Give more control over Unit position|Make 3 battle lines|Rework damage dealer position: That's actually big point right of the bat as most units are the bread and butter of any play-through. One problem is that units intended as meat shield can't really do their work, as most damage dealer are in the front row as well and the RNG will screw with you, that's for sure. Why having a unit that gets stronger with each attack ... when you just lose it anyway after one or two fights?

- nerf "counter" damage from weaker enemies|give high level units damage reduction like the undead/dragon: This really took me hard when i realized that a couple of peasants with sticks could topple my demons ... not only can a bunch of weak units whittle down a boss character, units that attack multiple enemies like demon and golem get hit by every single "counter" unit they attacked ... it hurts ... it really does.

- give zombies an single use reborn ability per fight: There is only one way to get zombies I think, but even this one is a bit ... weak, but fine as you get more. But if you add a more generic way to get zombies as the player they should have an ability to come back once after beaten in a battle. Just so they can do their work as meat shield.

- Give the Keelut counter ability: It should be a meat shield and it does, bot honestly it can't do much else ... even if the counter would do 1 dmg it would already be more useful.

- reduce cost of Kigatilik | give it damage reduction like undead: Actually in my first game i was so happy to summon this guy ... only to realized I lost. xD Sorry but like the game is right now, not even 20 HP would be enough for the huge cost ... well maybe ... but no.

- add ambush to (some) fire spells: Should you do something yourself, you want to do it right ... but as player you have honestly little choice at what to do with the enemy back-row ... where most damage dealer sit, like the mage that attacks the full row. Sure you could use sleep, or poison to get rid of one ... but what when there are two or three other units?

- let the player use inns more often when notoriety isn't to high: The real problem at the start is, that you can't heal your units so easily or better to say not to often before you run out of options.

- get gold for battles won: Money isn't too useful except for healing and buying artifacts/spells, but it can be hard to come by at the start. Going for farms early on and racking up notoriety through slaves isn't really an option if you want to get through the game.

- add potions | reusable items | add shops you can use multiple times if notoriety isn't too high: Just a small gold sink, maybe add some potions for all types of mana and of course health.

- let settlements rebel if put under slavery | let undead reign when you destroy settlements: Just a small tweak for longer game-play

- don't stop with raid parties: Not sure but at some level of notoriety you never encounter any raid parties. This is a shame as this works well to put pressure on the player. I don't mind the scaling it's actually okay if you know the game a bit. But for long game, maybe you could add raids with multiple waves to make it a bit more challenging. But this brings me to another problem ...

- buff enemy reinforcements: The funny thing is, if you play a bit and have some spells ready to buff your units ... you are happy when the enemy sends in another wave of souls for your bottle. Having the time of the first round to do your bidding is fine, but makes it much easier to beat new coming enemies than when you start from the first turn. Sadly I'm not 100% sure how to fix this ... if you give them the first shot it would be to strong ... just giving them armor would be weird.

- add some veteran-level to your units. Having a unit over the course of many battle should make them a bit stronger. Maybe rank them up/evolve them?

- pls don't let the pupil try to backstab you every single time: Really it hurts me all the time XD look, I beaten the whole island into submission and this puny guy tries to get me? When my group of monster is all around us? Shouldn't be so dumb.

- add some more artifacts | add incremental improvement to artifacts: Well just some  thought of what type of effects you could add - Mana cost reduced, increased number of units, artifacts with the ability of other archetypes (like how the battlemage gains mana by damage, because of his item, not from an ability). Scrolls that give spells - not in the spellbook. Also I could image it, that you find parts of the same item and with each piece the artifact gets stronger.

- add some attack, debuff, buff, summoning to every typ of mana. It's nice to have clear understanding what the spells do, just from the typ of mana you use, but it can also be unfair if you run out of specific mana, because you use this type of spell so much. Maybe you could rework the spellbook a bit? Like a table:

The x should showcase just some increments similar to what you have right now. The specification of every mana should stay the same, just open up more options.

Anyway I rant already way to much :) Hope you can take some inspiration from it. In the end I just want to thank you for this lovely piece of entertainment.

Game is alot of fun, played 2 games over a few hours and unlocked all the classes after winning my second run. 

The game seems to hitch during the larger encounters towards the late game, I thought it crashed on me several times during later fights which was scary.

You are probably aware but the artifacts screen bugs out when you get too many of them. Most of the artifacts are pretty pick and forget so it didn't really affect gameplay. 

After some point enemy parties stopped spawning and my notoriety bar seemed to bug out showing that I was way over the cap. Made me feel pretty bad picking the teleport and root spells.

The final fight also seemed very easy but maybe that was because I had completely snowballed at that point. 

Ill have to try out the other classes out later. 

had a bug where the game froze up on the artifact screen when getting artifacts from killing the worlok ambassador.  also this may  be dumb but how do i see the score list?  the game was fun even manage to win once after about six or seven tries.   by the way combining golems and the adrenaline power was pretty nice.  fun game.

There needs to be a "forfeit" option, for when you know you're going to lose but don't want to restart the game or wait to die.

Bug encountered: After attacking a wizard party, I was given 2 artifacts and 2 spells. I could continuously click and gain infinite artifacts, but I could never exit the screen and continue with the game. I could dismiss army units, summon army units, learn new spells, but no matter what, the artifact screen wouldn't go away. Should be a simply fix. Fantastic game overall.

enjoy the game but i keep running into a bug that makes me quit the game. when ever i beat a random encounter that would give 2 artifacts and 2 spells. It lets me take as many artifacts as i want but will never close the artifact select screen so i can't progress.  but great concept fun game

It's great and i think this could be a great  game on phones as well

Nice experiment here! Keep up the good work!

Fun bug: I had to close a game because the fight screen popped up with two raiding parties fighting each the other...I think they hit me at the same time, but I'm not sure. Ciao!

Will happily pay for a sequel or expanded version!

This is a very fun game.  Well done.  It is extremely hard but still a blast.  One suggestion would be - if you select a spell with only one possible option, just auto-apply it instead of making the user click anyway.  

Great little game.  Found it quite challenging.  Would be great to have more unlocks and permanent upgrades for each character after death to get a feeling of progression.  Card based combat is a great choice as well :D

hey man awesome little game!! Do you need any help with making sprites? im currently working in another game  called age of strategy and we use the same 32x32 format, do you need any help with making more mobs?

Great game, I don't think it's too hard you just have to learn what sites let you do what and be careful picking when to fight the end city.

It has a good premise but it's difficulty is insane. My first complaint is that raid parties and random enemies form way too quickly. The second is they are often too hard because you don't get enough time to get strong enough. I had ONE run that I did well as but I got overwhelmed by raid parties. My third complaint is that once you get into a named tile, you have to do one of the shown options even if it would be bad for you. My fourth complaint is that inns are only one time use and with all the battles you get into, that's a death sentence.  My last complaint is it seems only the Psychomancer is playable as the others are way underpowered in comparison, especially the Lich.

I completely forgot I had downloaded this game for a while, and now that I started trying to make videos again, I decided to go through old games I downloaded and found this one. I apparently never beat it until today, but regardless it's still a really fun game. 

I had a lot of fun with this game. I never managed to win but came really close

Finally, I won! So glad that I stumbled across this gem of a game. 

You mentioned making a sequel and if you polished the UI and made the game a little less random, this kind of game could be a big hit. Looking forward to it.