Thronefall, the latest effort from publisher and developer GrizzlyGames, today enters Steam Early Access, preparing to crown its first rulers before hastily tasking them with defending their small kingdom.
Minimalism permeates Thronefall’s core gameplay loop which is split into two parts that, although completely separate, play an important role in achieving victory. During the day, you build up your kingdom by approaching predefined plots, holding the Spacebar, and watching miniature renditions of castles, houses, barracks, and walls pop rather satisfyingly into existence.
During the night, you have to fend off waves of attackers by putting your towers, walls, soldiers, and kingly avatar to good use. Aside from which buildings you construct, the only other things you control are the transition to nighttime and the avatar itself.
Riding a horse that to my eye almost resembles a capybara, you passively attack foes, drawing them onto you and relieving your faceless soldiers or towers of some pressure. Left-click and your chosen weapon’s active grants you a damage boost or healing powers.
After each wave, you earn gold from fallen foes and economy buildings such as houses, which you can then use to add new structures or upgrade your existing ones. A stronger castle grants additional boons, like passively upgrading a house each morning, or allowing you to emanate a healing aura.
Thronefall’s four levels can be completed rather quickly, but steadily unlocked perks alongside quests that challenge you to beat them under certain conditions fuel replayability and keep its minimalist recipe fresh.
While this won’t exactly see it devouring a ton of your time, a steady stream of new unlocks that add new units or powers encourage dipping back in to tackle that last new level that you couldn’t quite beat or replay old ones while using a different approach.
And, as much as it falls more on the relaxing side, I did catch myself cheering on my faceless soldiers during a desperate defense, despite knowing that, win or lose, both they and the kingdom I had worked to build over the past couple of minutes would be gone once the level wrapped up.
You can check out Thronefall on Steam, where you can also purchase it for the price of £6.99/€6.99/$6.99.
The full version is currently expected to launch after “six to twelve months of Early Access,” and the game’s price is confirmed to go up as additional content gets introduced.
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