This tiny little 2D, side-scrolling game had me at it's first seconds of shown gameplay. It was just so beautiful, so simple but yet so nerve-racking! I had no idea it used to be a flash game back in 2013, but damn, it has improved since then! The £7 was well spent on this game (but it's 35% off it on Steam so, go and buy it now!) and I can't wait to see what Noio & Licorice does in the future. Personally I have 30 hours on my steam account, but I've probably played it through library share (when Connor had the game and I didn't) for at least 10 more hours, but unfortunately that doesn't count. My record of days that I've survived is LXXVI (which is 76 days), before I gave up, (see advice No. 5 at the bottom of this review.).

 

You play as a King or Queen on your trustworthy (but lazy) horse. The crown and your purse are the only things that actually matter in the end. The night is coming closer and something evil lurks in the forest and you need protection - quick! With your first set of coins you have just enough to light a campfire, hire 2 peasants and make one hammer and one bow. Now you have a base, one builder and one archer. Home, someone to make walls, and someone to protect them. Once the night has passed, it's time to gather more resources, more peasants and expand your walls even further out. Your kingdom must be big and strong enough to on every 5th day, take the blood moons horde of monsters. The more days that pass, the more dangerous it will become. Your survival is entirely depending on how you spend your coins (and if your arches feel like staying by the walls).

 

For being a 2D game, it really has detailed graphics. The rocks are beautiful, the light from the fires are very accurate and the day-and-night cycle is probably what I adore the most about the pixel graphics. I think that just because it is 2D and pixels we see it as very simple, but since so much love and passion has been put in the graphics of this game - it makes the whole game experience so much more special. It's a sight you won't forget. And what do I say about the music? It's on point for this game. Harmonic, not too dramatical during the night, very soft and almost quiet music. It's unnoticeable when you listen to it, but when you close the game, it's suddenly so quiet, cold and boring. This is the kind of music I could fall asleep to, or listen to in the morning when I have my coffee. In fact, I used to find small streamers who won't have commentary gameplay, and just listen to the game in the background while I do stuff. Or I just set SplatterCatGaming's playlist on repeat.

 

 

 

1. Never send out your builders to cut trees or build walls if the sun has passed halfway. Just say goodbye.

 

2. Don't refill your equipment until you need it. You may lose almost all your archers after one night, just as you refilled the hammers. It's a waste of peasants, because they will run out eventually.

 

3. If you have made first tier farms and you are unsure if the walls can protect the farms, don't upgrade the fars to tier 2 yet. Because the farmers will stay around tier 2 farms, but walk back to base if it's only tier 1.

 

4. Concentrate on recruiting as many peasants as possible, because once you've expanded and deleted all camps, you can't get more people. It's worth it to expand until 1 tree separates you and the camp from each other and recruit 2 a day. And it actually is worth it making your knights and archers walk further to get to the portal, than expanding to you're next to the portal.

 

5. The faster you hit the portals, the better your chance is to survive longer. Even if you think you don't have enough people to stand your ground, it's better to try and get rid of the portals, maybe even if it takes you two knight attacks. Because otherwise you will come to a point where you've expanded so far, and so many walls are rekt, that it will take you more than 5 days to run around, rebuild, recruit and have your peasants walk back, grab equipment and walk back to the walls. And more than 5 days means that you won't have enough time to rebuild until next horde of assholes. Constant loop of death until you just get tired of trying and give up.