Despot's Game: Dystopian Battle Simulator

Not gonna lie, I DID expect a bit more, but at the end of the day it's an auto battler with some replayability, some different modifiers/modes, and an asynchronous multiplayer, where you fight other players' teams after you win the game (or in between in 1 mode) for ... nothing, really, bragging rights. There's a leaderboard. It's an interesting idea, and you can't fault Konfa Games for rehashing their one and only idea over and over again. They have built this "Despot" universe, but each game in it is vastly different, only keeping the pixel art, the puny humans, Spot and some of the unit designs you see in later games. In this game you will build teams based on your preferences and RNG. Each puny human can be outfitted with different weapons or gadgets, a certain amount of unique ones in each class increase the class synergy, unlocking powerful abilities. You have tanks, healers, fighters, ranged damage dealers, mages, and so on. Unfortunately, there is not a lot more to see, once you've actually won once. You can experiment with some different team comps, but at the end of the day you either focus on building a massive team and inevitably losing high XP humans to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ buggy (?) Mantraps (I swear, they have like double the HP of any other enemy on this floor, have no armor, but still take NO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ damage. And there's 3 (!) of them in Sprint Mode. Twice per run! I hate them. The real differences don't come from the shop, because eventually you can pretty much build whatever team you prefer, but from the mutators you pick up along the way, which can steer your run into a very distinct direction and cause you to pivot your current strategy if you find a good one. Or not. Up to you. Winning so far has unlocked new mutators and stuff for you to find, but unfortunately no new classes or even inter-class synergy effects. Your tanks will be your tanks, your fencers your fencers, you can't multi-class them or gain synergy effects by having x of one and y of another, so there are no unique interactions, which could have really helped the longevity and replayability here. As with their last game I see the appeal, and I think 20 bucks is justified, but it's really more of a pretty solid foundation. For example, every run has the same bosses and enemies, the same classes, the same upgrades you can do in between (more health, more damage, etc.), only the mutators vary, really. Even the events are very limited. There's like 2 event rooms in each biome, and only 1 of them appears, but that means that you will encounter the same room in every other run, same with the events after clearing a floor. I've already seen many events like 3 or 4 times now. Like I said, I wish they would have actually ... stuck with it? Expanded upon it. Focus on fewer puny humans, but more impactful strategies and synergies ... or build a low health, low damage swarm team, or a team entirely focused around summoning things without an actual tanky frontline, because so far I don't see a way of actually getting very far without tanks and healers, which takes away some of the supposed choice. Still, it's enjoyable, the pixel art is gorgeous, the humor is good, and the music is a banger, so I'd definitely give it a whirl. You CAN get a lot more out of it than like 5 hours as I did, but for me ... I know what it is now. I'm good.

Getting all of the achievements felt like a ball ache.... Loved the first 20-30 hours of gameplay, but when it became a grind to get all of the mutations I wanted to delete my irl system32 folder

топ

Classic review start with 'with there was a neutral button.' The game has one note and one vibe, the pink little fellas with their silly little costumes/abilities. That's the game and not much more to it, not to disparage it either. It's an auto-chess styled game with a rogue-lite progression system, and again, if you like the pink fellers, it should be great. I didn't get tickled much by these little fellers so the game wasn't good for me.

The core loop is fun and makes you wanna try different builds everytime you fail a run. I liked it! If autobattler is your cup of tea it is worth it, specially during a promo.

Максимально анальное управление на Стим деке. Пытаешься переключится между разными панельуами, персонажами и предметами и фиг поймёшь, что делать, просто наугад пытаешься понять.

Eu gosto de roguelike, gosto de autobattler então esse jogo de cara ja me agradou muito, estou me divertindo, fiz minha primeira run no momento da análise e ja recomendo demais peguei ele na promoção por menos de 10 reais o que faz valer mais ainda Recomendo

no matter how many chances ive given this game it never really clicked for me, the game got boring very quickly and every run ended in me just killing myself of boredoom

TFT정도의 게임성을 기대하며 들어왔지만, 리뷰에 적힌대로 딱 한판분량의 깊이를 가지고있는 게임

waited until I at least completed the game before reviewing, and then: The second act. Perfect game in terms of low stakes, high reward. Just enough story/narrative to keep it moving, enough complexity to keep you thinking about it in between sessions. Just really well made/considered and despite the tone of the flavour text, it respects the audience.