Tainted Kingdom
Tainted Kingdom is a lean, tactical warfare game from Krinlabs, the creator of Sonny. You play a young nobleman assigned to a front-line unit in a lamentable war, only to find that your superiors are not who they seem. The gameplay is taut, playing out as a real-time dance of rock-paper-scissors match-ups. Do you have the skill to lead in battle?
The game alternates between a map of the battlefield and a diorama view of individual skirmishes. At the battlefield map, you can choose to attack an adjacent outpost, fortify one of your own, cultivate the land and get a bigger tax and population yield, or build troops. Building troops involves dropping a small, sunk-cost into a building that houses certain types of units, with accompanying upgrades, and then spending population and gold on those various options. Building a farm allows you to convert population into gold, or vice versa. The game's skirmishes involve spending a unit by dragging its icon onto one of three rows, the unit then walks across the screen, fighting any enemies it encounters. Your goal is to get a certain number of units across the screen safely, doing one point of damage to the enemy base, before you run out of deployment points which limit the number of troops you can enter into battle. All this is slightly more complex than what you're used to, more so than Sonny for example, but once you get your head around it, it's fast and easy.
Analysis: Tainted Kingdom is a solid game with great production values, yet it suffers from a few notable flaws: The game could be better balanced; the down-time buffer that keeps you from deploying soldiers at the same space consecutively could be slightly lower; and the blocking effect could be more lenient. The free hit allowed for by a soldier dying could have been done away with simply by letting troops walk past dying soldiers, as it is it's somewhat cheap. The plot is also left unresolved, like in Sonny, and it uses narrative devices that feel manipulative in the context of a game, where you expect to have some control over the course of events. It would also be nice to have surviving soldiers re-enter your ranks, rather than having to recruit everyone for a single skirmish each, which is kind of silly when you think about it. However, the mathematical poise of what remains under these scars is still striking, and the trade-offs you'll have to make on a moment-by-moment basis will keep you jamming the hot-keys. Play Tainted Kingdom.
Krinlabs is really good at making games that aren't fun
I still haven't figured out how to do mission 9 without using the hero. I quite like this game!
-blarg
Got it! The bonus for completing all the missions quickly and without a hero is pretty fun! :)
-blarg
Reminiscent of Sonny, no?
I can't seem to play the game at all. The game loads and then when you press play, it freezes up with the Armour games sword play. I am using firefox, will try microsoft.
The game is quite finishable without using a hero with a little bit of effort and planning. And worth it too, though it might be a slightly cheap shot at keeping options open for possible sequels (especially if the author does not have the attention span to stick with one project? But I might be wrong). I liked it.
I played it on firefox and finished it.
The only thing I really don't like about the game is that there is no easy way to restart the mission if you mess up. You have to just reload the page which takes a while.
Wait, let me see if I get this straight:
If *I* defeat an enemy encampment, I don't gain that territory, I have to attack it again on my next turn, right?
If *the enemy* defeats one of my encampments, they gain that territory right away?
Fine.
Or is it another bug like so many others in this game?
Nevermind, there is a 'back to menu' option in tiny letters in the bottom corner if you want to try the mission again quickly.
Argh, the more I play the more I find things I don't like.
If I select a troop to place, but don't place it before the end of the round, it's gone. It doesn't go back into the reserves, EVEN THOUGH IT WAS NEVER USED.
How did this get a 4/5?
Did any one manage to
I did, bonus: You can play the missions as "ancients2..
About the game:
* The videos are nicely done. However as someone who takes so much care in the visual mark up, I find the story to be extremly shallow and 0815-like.
* The game was interesting enough for me to play all 10 mission in deadly commander bonus. However the game enginge does come with flags. The gameplay, there are some assumptions I would have done that strangly weren't in place the gaming engine. I'd assume that ranges units shoot over other friendly units. Not so. I'd assume that priests heal friendly units. Not so, at least not when not dieing.
The crusaders give you 2 free hits per mission, just put them as fast as possible in 2nd then in 1st slot. They will always make it to the other side before it reacts.
The map stratetics are not so important, in principle this is a big paper-stone-scissors game, only 3 games taking place at once, and having 2 additional units...
In principle the paper-stone-scissors game works like this:
* Ranged units (hunter, priest, ancient snake) beat foot-warriors (knight, royal, ancient warrior, ancient mummy)
* Fast units (crusader, ancient assasin) beat Ranged units (hunter, priest, ancient snake)
* foot-warriors (knight, royal, ancient warrior, ancient mummy) beat fast units (crusader, ancient assasin)
At most from the general game make-up I'd say the game would greatly enhance if it has a story with more depth...
"The crusaders give you 2 free hits per mission, just put them as fast as possible in 2nd then in 1st slot. They will always make it to the other side before it reacts."
Three, if you start from the very bottom and go up (use the keyboard). Also, if you time it right, it will arrive in the exact same frame as the enemy's arrival, and the enemy will disappear. Yet another bug, I guess.
Actually, you can use hunters in slots 2 and 1, and they're even cheaper.
Several spots are winnable with this method and no fighting is necessary.
The only hard mission I found was mission 6 earning deadly commander. The rest was easy. I made deadly commander many cases for the first play. I never used the hero, I don't know how it looks like. :)
DUDE
someplease tip on how to get deadly commander on missions
3 and 6 please
wat am i supposed to do on mission 3 to get deadly commander am i supposed to attack first? defend then attack? build this and that? please tell me
Beating Mission 3 is surprisingly easy to beat in a single day without any hero, if you know the trick...
I'm still having trouble with mission 6, and I think that mission 9 has already been pretty much covered. I'd appreciate some tips on how to beat mission 6 with deadly commander
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