[b]alchemist of war[/b] kinda reminded me of [b]puzzle forge[/b] on mobile, but with cards instead of match-3 elements. it's closer to the first game with not much meat on it though, only even more basic and doesn't come close to [b]puzzle forge 2[/b] in any way.
the best thing one can do in case a war breaks out is make a killing not by actual killing, but by not taking sides and providing both parties with means of taking lives. that is what this [b]random/endless score attack card game[/b] is about, no campaign or anything.
each run gives you a random and most likely infinite deck and a 2x2 crafting area. place cards in the slots to [b]create any weapon (no demands like in [i]puzzle forge[/i])[/b], sell it, done. you can have up to 8 cards in your hand and no need to fill all 4 crafting slots. they're essentially crafting materials but customers don't care what you create from them.
cards can be regular, silver or gold, and background color and arrows pointing in various directions are also important. if a card has a blue arrow pointing to the right, placing the card on the left and putting a blue card next to it means more cash, as is filling the multiplier on top (the game, well, the achievements, refer to it as your level). keep doing this until one of the factions wins, then check the online scoreboard if you want to compete against random strangers on the internet.
early on it might seem like a good idea to conserve cards since new ones cost money, and also to keep higher values for later, but the higher the multiplier, the harder it is to keep the game going, and while it might be possible to run out of money and so new cards, it's highly unlikely.
[b]balancing the two factions in tug-of-war fashion is the key to a higher score[/b], as you're essentially prolonging the war by not providing enough weapons to either party to kill the other one. you can skip customers for 10 gold and the purple star with the number represents weapon power, tells you how much the bar will go in the direction indicated by the arrow. if one turn the weapon for a blue guy has 12, it'll favor the blue team by that much. then next turn crafting a weapon with a value of 13 will favor the reds by 1 because it has to counter the 12 first, but if the value is only 10, it'll be another 2 for the blues because it wasn't enough to negate the 12.
the problem was, [b]I had no idea how weapon power is calculated, but refer to the comments below for some insight from an actual smart person[/b]. the devs said they didn't want to simplify the game by explaining how it works, not that simplifying it any more would be possible, and that's what the help screen is for anyway.
holding left and right click do the same, they pick a card up to drag around. that is all the controls. graphics are cartoony, there are a bunch of different customers and weapons to make. audio is fine, the usual unmemorable but unintrusive variety. [b]some flavor text would've been nice[/b] though, tooltips or right click close-ups for amusing card descriptions and a few lines for each customer. [b]no mid-run saving[/b], going back to the menu or quitting forfeits the current progress.
settings only consist of separate volume sliders and theoretically language options, but only english is available. not that there's much to translate. the screen is accessible while playing as well. [b]no windowed mode[/b], alt+enter only produces a non-resizable window, have to edit the registry to change resolutions, and [b]the developer said they [i]'can't do anything'[/i] about it[/b]. getting sick of this now. unity used to have a config screen on startup if devs bothered to enable it, but unity decided it was too useful and removed it from newer versions, yet developers still don't bother to add resolutions and windowed mode to their games. it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lazy, or in this case might be down to incompetence, same result either way. windowed mode is a must for a game like this, as it doesn't require your full attention.
[b]it's a simple game, made even simpler by customers accepting any old crap you give them[/b], but some might find longevity in its randomness even if I never do, a couple hours tops is how long something like this can entertain me. excluding a working windowed mode, it's done mostly well for a mobile port and the price is about the same as the mobile version, but as is, [b]it's only worth checking out on sale, don't pay full price for something that doesn't fully work[/b].
