For The King - Turn-based strategy with cartoon graphics and "bagel" co-op. Turn-Based Strategy For The King Overview

For The King is a recently released Kickstarter project from IronOak studios. Turn-based strategy with co-op and visually pleasing graphics that will tell about the adventures of heroes fighting for their lands.

Game mechanics consists of two main aspects - turn-based combat and turn-based exploration of the world.

Turn based combat- created in the style of classic JRPGs. Choose the type of attack, action and use of items. Activate special skills to defeat the enemy.
You can stand against evil with friends in a cooperative . Help your comrades and support them in battles.

Character knowledge plays a major role in combat and exploration. After gaining a certain amount of knowledge, it can be spent in city libraries. New character skills can be unlocked in any order the player chooses. As they progress, players will find different blueprints for weapons and unusual items. Gather resources to craft weapons and necessary items.

Step by step exploration of the world- just like battles, it is built according to the canons of classic turn-based games. That's just the world of the game is completely random, and you can meet dangerous enemies and unexpected events on your way. So you need to spend action points strategically.

Exploring the world- one of the main features of the game. Players will explore unknown seas, explore new towns and villages, build shelters and make their way through hordes of enemies. In addition to the heroes' homelands, players will be able to visit other worlds that are home to dangerous enemies and unsolved mysteries.

Explore underground worlds, catacombs, mines and crypts. Explore the dungeons, players may come across endless treasures or danger, fear and death.

Players will begin their adventure in their hometown of Oarton.

All events and challenges change every day, the weather and the environment affects the world, and it will involve both good and bad effects for the environment. Players must be ready for anything, they are waiting for: sandstorms, landslides, storms and more.

Speed, Strength, Durability, Talent, Awareness and Vitality- the main features that will shape each character. Plus, everyone has their own main skill.

In co-op, players can choose their character and start exploring the world together.

FortheKing is a fairy tale for adults where cartoon characters fight mythical creatures like cyclops and minotaurs. At first glance, everything looks very nice, but in fact, more than once you will have to witness how your opponents fill everything around with blood or burn in flames. The game is currently in Steam Early Access.

The background of the game tells about the king, who did a lot of good for his people. Everything went like clockwork, until one day the king was killed. The country quickly plunged into chaos, ancient monsters crawled out from everywhere - in general, only some very powerful wizard could save the situation. There was such a wizard, but he, of course, disappeared. Your team will have to find it. As a matter of fact, both the backstory and the story campaign do not seriously try to tell about the events taking place in the long-suffering kingdom. There is no deep story in For the King yet. But there is a pretty nice open world, which gets a party of three characters.

There are about ten available options for creating a team, but only three are available from the start - a hunter, a scientist and a blacksmith. As you can understand, the trouble took the kingdom by surprise, so the most ordinary inhabitants will save it: not warriors or selective killers, but workers from the surroundings, who decided that it was their duty to protect the world. Each of the classes has its own advantages and disadvantages. So, the blacksmith plays the role of a tank, but with limited damage, the hunter breaks through armor well, and the scientist is a variation of the magician.

Despite the class division standard for role-playing games, the skills of the characters are given by their equipment. So, you can hand the staff to the scientist, and he will be able to heal the party and hurt the enemy. If you change this staff to a fire grimoire, you will have fireballs and smoke screens at your disposal. Each weapon found has its own abilities and characteristics, which adds a lot of tactical depth to For the King. Often you will have to change weapons right during the battle, as it will give you the ability you need in a particular situation.

There are a lot of opponents in the game, ranging from ordinary orcs and skeletons to Cthulhu-like mind controllers and liches.

The combat system in the game is built according to JRPG standards. You collide with the enemy, line up in two lines and deal damage to each other in the order determined by the initiative. It's a little frustrating that the damage is determined completely randomly. Each weapon has focus slots that are tested for luck. Depending on whether you are lucky, the impact force is calculated. These slots can be filled manually with focus points, but each character has very few of them, and they can only be restored by resting, which will take a whole day. How success is determined is not entirely clear, since misses happen very often, although the chance of hitting five failures twice in a row is very minimal. But this happens.

The whole game takes place on a small island, which is a hexagonal field. Each turn there is a speed test that will show how far you can go that day. But, as with weapons, you can spend focus points and move a couple of cells further.

Run alone and far awayFortheKing is quite dangerous, because any cell can meet a random enemy jumping out of an ambush. Fortunately, they are usually weaker than visible monsters.

Your characters move separately, so they cannot be combined into a standard party. If you suddenly start a battle, all the characters that are within a certain radius enter into it. That is, each hero can fight alone, but it is better not to do this.

For the King is a difficult game even by roguelike standards. The initial opponents are relatively simple, so you can relax. Wolves and all sorts of undead are not particularly dangerous. But it is enough to go further, and the real problems will begin. Even one Cyclops, over which the inscription "Level 3" is lit, is several times more difficult to defeat than enemies of a lower level. In addition, there are dungeons where you need to fight several battles in a row, not knowing who you will face.

The time limit makes the game even more difficult. Each task from the main quest chain needs to be completed very quickly, which does not give you time to level up characters. As a result, you have to go into battle against some evil creatures of the sea god almost with a hammer in your hands. I wish the game gave a little more time to complete such difficult missions.

Character development in the game is automatic. You gain levels, and the characteristics are distributed as needed for the selected class.

Even ordinary battles in the game are interesting due to the considerable number of opportunities to destroy the enemy. You can try dozens of different tactics and weapons. Alas, cool swords break very quickly, so you won’t be able to complete the game with just one thing. And the map is generated in a new way each time, which makes each of your attempts different from the previous ones. You won't be able to go through everything the first time, so you will have to try many times.

It is worth noting the unusual visual style of the game. Looking at cute six-eyed monsters that can kill a character with two hits, it is impossible not to be touched. But appearances, as you know, can be deceiving. There is still a lot of work to be done on For the King, but the game has a lot of potential, and it is quite suitable for you to try it now.

Before us today is the debut project of the young Canadian company IronOak Games - For The King. A roguelike strategy game with a procedurally generated world and classic board strategy gameplay. There is something from D&D (mostly dungeons and dragons). A typical "bagel", speaking in gaming slang. It won't be easy here. One life, one try. Lost, all over again. A message with a warning about this meets the players already at the start.

Funding for the game For The King was collected on Kickstarter (which, in general, is not surprising for such a debut). In the course of development, the preferences and desires of connoisseurs of role-playing turn-based “bagels” were taken into account. Apparently, we should expect a good cocktail of the best elements of D&D, Heroes of Might and Magic, as well as her like, in a modern creative design. Well, let's get down to the detailed analysis of the project.

Plot of For The King

We are ordinary citizens of the fabulous kingdom of Fairul. Suddenly, some forces of Chaos attack our state and brutally kill King Bronor. Queen Rasamona mourns, and with her, our whole country mourns. At the call of the queen and at the behest of their own patriotism, many residents come out to fight Chaos. For three of these, the player will have to go through the story campaign. These are ordinary citizens of different professions with their own unique characteristics, gameplay advantages and disadvantages. Everything here is according to the canons of a classic role-playing game.

Old school. No directed commercials and cinematic inserts for you. Text only. Between the main quests, the player is brought up to date with entire walls of text. They then tell the whole story about the kingdom, the wars of Chaos, etc. In addition, there are also plot dialogues. They are also submitted only in text, with the avatar of the speaking character.

As we progress through the story campaign, we carry out the orders of the queen, solve new emerging tasks and stuff like that. Each time we discover this world in a new way (procedural generation is very out of place here). Of course, there is a pumping of game characters.

Bottom line: the plot does not stand out with any special chips and literary devices. It is likely that many players will simply skip all this text in order to quickly get into action without bothering. Moreover, there is no localization here at all. English text only. Therefore, it is unlikely that everyone will appreciate it. If anyone is interested at all.

Graphics For The King

The picture of the game is nice, bright and cute. At the same time, the character and landscape models are quite simple. They are angular, low-detailed. Puppet, to put it simply. It looks like a game. But no. This project is clearly higher level.

Most of the time the player watches the map from above. Makes moves with characters in the selected areas, takes quests, moves from point A to point B, which are placed randomly. The lower part of the screen is occupied by character panels. There you can click on them to perform an action, monitor current parameters, available inventory, etc. At the top of the screen are health bars for everyone. During a meeting on the map with random opponents (wild animals, monsters, goblins and other game) or story antagonists, the camera drops to ground level. Then the player watches the fight up close. It is worth saying that such fights are animated badly. Although given the general graphic part, there is no need for it in a different way.

Bottom line: the game For The King is made simply, but tastefully. Not so often there are turn-based role-playing games with such a cute, pleasant picture. Of course, it would be possible to add details and work on models. But it will do.

Gameplay

The gameplay of For The King is typical of a turn-based, strategic role-playing game. You need to set up the three main characters and consistently complete the story ones. Characters belonging to different strata of society and professions have their own individual characteristics of pumping and owning weapons. You need to correctly distribute experience points and learn from your strategic mistakes (they will definitely be). We move along the plot, we take the necessary quests. The key, scripted quests remain unchanged, but the map on which they take place is procedurally generated and each time in a different way. Plus there are various random events as you progress through the maps. We make moves in the cells, plan further movement, let our protégés attack in turn. In addition to colorful forests, fields and villages, there are also traditional dragon dungeons.

Bottom line: connoisseurs of well-developed, turn-based RPG gameplay will find what they are looking for here.

Conclusion

Quite a worthy debut for a young Canadian studio. This RPG is not someone's clone in terms of setting. Interesting and original world. There are enough minuses in terms of the quality of execution, but making a discount on the first project, the rating is “good”. Fans of turn-based "bagels" are recommended to pass.

For The King system requirements

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 7
Processor: 1.4GHz dual core CPU
RAM: 4 GB RAM
Video Card: 256 MB GeForce 8800, Radeon 3850, or Intel HD 3000
DirectX: Versions 9.0c
Disk space: 2 GB

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows 7, 8, or 10
Processor: 2GHz quad core CPU
RAM: 8 GB RAM
Video card: 1 GB
DirectX: Versions 9.0c
Disk space: 2 GB