I've been playing this game for a few hours now, and at this point, I would likely recommend it to fans of turn-based strategy. I say "likely" only because it hasn't been very long yet. I think this game is unique, and I am enjoying it a lot so far.
Zero Order Tactics is a turn-based strategy that shares a link with auto-battlers in that both your units and the enemy's have scripts for walking across the battlefield and fighting. In general, one hit --> one kill (like in chess), so the main gameplay mechanic revolves around controlling the terrain to force units to navigate where you want them to. Every turn, friendly units advance right, and enemy units advance left--both in accordance to their movement speeds and their "preferred" terrain (as well as some other basic movement rules). Each unit has its own movement speed and attack area (e.g. archers can shoot in three fixed directions but not into an adjacent tile). Additionally, all units have terrain preferences. Normally, friendly units advance directly right, but they may move up-right or down-right if those tiles are more preferable. For example, horsemen prefer plains and avoid forests and swamps if possible. The player has access to spells and the ability to switch terrain tiles in order to influence troop movement/line of sight. They can also switch out one friendly unit for another once per turn. Killed/replaced units are returned to your hand to be played again.
All of these mechanics are direct and straightforward, but when combined, they allow for tons of interesting gameplay options. You can use a reversal spell to send an enemy away--or use it on a friendly to move them to safety. Swapping units is an interesting mechanic since units will find themselves in unfavorable terrain which is more advantageous for a different unit. You can replace a fast unit with a slow one to attack an enemy point-blank and then put the fast unit back on the battlefield in the backline. It's pretty clear that there are many possibilities that I haven't discovered yet, and I look forward to figuring out what I can do. Also, there seems to be a lot of content to unlock, so I believe this game is well worth the purchase on several fronts. If nothing else, it's very innovative. Its comparison to Into the Breach comes from the fact that it gives you near-perfect information and that it's mainly a defensive game, but it's pretty distinct otherwise.
There are a few things I would change and a few I'm neutral about. My biggest issue is that the character models are very small and the pixel art makes it difficult to distinguish their features. I don't know how this could be improved, but maybe a sharper resolution on the pixel characters would help? I'm no artist. At least the game makes it easy to see what units do and what passives they have. There are many subtle mechanics--such as the retention of tiles from the previous round--which are not made apparent to the player and can be a little frustrating to figure out on your own. Finally, after each battle, you are returned to a screen with tabs to let adjust your hand and allocate your run XP. These tabs should be reversed though. I can spend my XP after almost every battle, but the perks often affect what my hand looks like. The primary tab should be the skills tab, and the hand tab should be secondary. As you might have noticed, these issues are all minor.
To the dev: I ran into one bigger issue I don't know if you can solve. Upon letting my computer idle to sleep (while in a round), the game became windowed but did not recognize my mouse except in a small portion of the center of the screen--away from the options/exit buttons. As a result, I had to Alt+F4 more than once to close the game and reopen it. The game is unplayable when this happens, but to note, the small character models would make playing in windowed mode a challenge regardless of the mouse problem.
Here's my neutral take: I'm not hot on roguelite progression. It's a decent Skinner-box system, but mentally, the progression in a roguelike feels like the point of the game. When I get the characters to max level, my brain tells me I've beaten it and to put it down. Conversely, I don't really feel like I'm playing the game until everything is unlocked. As an example, I'm close to level 5 on the first hero--which will provide +3 mana to me at the start of each round. That's huge. It's like I can't give the game a fair shot until I have the powerful unlocks, but what am I doing until then? Intentionally losing to grind XP? Supposing I don't burn out, once all of the characters are leveled, I'll put the game down without using them at their full power. This is definitely a me problem, but if it's true for me, it might be true for others.
Overall, I think this is a great game and worth my time and money.
