A Druids Duel

 Do you like strategy games? Do you like turn based strategy games? Do you remember a game called “Battle Chess”? How about the game Civilization? Risk?

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 You don’t have to answer “Yes” to any of those to enjoy A Druid’s Duel. The first game by Thoughtshelter Games, based out of Minnesota, A Druid’s Duel is a casual yet engaging turn based strategy game available on Steam February 25th. Good news for you Mac or Linux gamers as A Druid’s Duel is available for you via Steam as well! Thoughtshelter Games pitches their game as deceptively simple to play yet difficult master. After playing I can tell you it was a bit challenging to pick up at first and difficult to master would be a severe understatement. In all fairness I do believe that had more to do with me than the game itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F05vmWjFAE4&feature=youtu.be[width=650,h...


If This Then That
 I think in this case it’s best to draw comparisons to other games to give you an idea how A Druid’s Duel plays. Like chess, you have different pieces with different moves and abilities that you have to move around the field. Like Battle Chess you get to watch your Druids attack the other team. Like Civilization or even Risk you could have multiple enemies all looking to grab as much land and territory as possible. Make sense? Then you have the overall gist of the game.

 For full disclosure, I am terrible at strategy games and A Druid’s Duel was kicking my ass on the second level of the easiest playthrough. The sad thing was I felt like the game was deliberately taking it easy on me, akin to how I would let my kids “win” at a game. After my third or fourth attempt I clued in to what I needed to do!

 Here is where I realized: I am an idiot. I go into every game balls out, guns a-blazing! That is the “strategy” I took here and it failed. I was trying to win by simply having the most Druids on the board. It didn’t work and I kept losing. My ego was beating. I had to suck back, reload and come up with a new plan.

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Ssssshhhhhh!
 I am going to let you in on a not so secret secret that is found in the “How to Play” section: The more land you can claim the more mana you accumulate. The more mana you have allows you to place more or stronger Druids on the board. As well each Druid has a unique ability and those abilities cost more mana. The base Druid’s (Guardian) ability is a wolf that can scout and capture up to four enemy territories. Use him early and often! To shape shift into the wolf costs 10 mana which thankfully I usually had at the beginning of the game. Running that wolf out and capturing territory early gained me the mana to continue strengthening my army and my position. I was able to push the enemy back and win!

 Beyond unique abilities, each Druid type also has a unique move and attack pattern. Each can attack only in certain patterns or distances. I am still learning the nuances of that but much like chess you can set up guards or decoys to help protect your Druids or lure the enemy in.

 Territories come into play as well. Not just in how many you control but more importantly what kind. There are six seasons in the aptly named Realm of the Six Seasons and they are represented on the tiles of the game board. Each season represented on the tiles provide different amounts of mana. This changes the game from one of quantity to quality. Capture and hold those that provide the most mana and you will be able to have your way across the board. To top it off, the most powerful Waywalker Druids can add or delete territory within their field of movement, providing tiles to capture or stealing them from under your enemies feet.

Where do they keep coming from?
 I was grasping the concept of the abilities and the territories and I started to win handedly as I progressed through the campaign. I even contemplated moving up from the “Initiate” difficulty level to the next level named “Adept. I contemplated it but I swear I heard Han Solo whisper in my head “Great Kid! Don’t get cocky” and I backed off. I was glad I did.

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 The next level was a new chapter and instead of just one enemy to face now there were two. Again came failure after failure while feeling like the game was telling me “watch me and do what I do”. I swear I was but I just wasn’t doing something right. Like before I took a step back, came at it at with a different tactic and started to progress again through the campaign.

 I have stated before that I love a game with a good story. While I can’t comment on the whole story as I didn’t have time to play through all 130 levels (nor do I believe I possess the skills to get much farther than what I already have). The part of the story I did manage to get through was unfortunately rather predictable and not that memorable. That being said, the story does serve as a bit of a prelude to each encounter so I learned to quickly read it prior to jumping in.

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Ooh, shiny!
 What A Druid’s Duel does fantastically is casual strategy. The game is not as deep as Civ or Alpha Centauri but it is faster paced and you can play a level in under 30 minutes for the most part. I managed to get through a few in the beginning in under 10 minutes. Those of you that are actually good at strategy games could improve on my times significantly. The gameplay is solid. The music is soothing, appropriate and well done. It does tend to get a little repetitive so I turned it down after a while. The levels themselves are well crafted and the graphics reminded me of older cartoons. By that I mean the tiles and Druids appears to be handdrawn characters with just enough detail to trick your mind into thinking there is actually more. While the levels do tend to feel similar to one another the initial placement of tiles, enemies and controlled land made each level I played more challenging and diverse.

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I wish I had friends...
 When I received the invitation to review A Druid’s Duel I was given the opportunity to play against the individual who provided the press kit and game codes. I thought I should learn the ropes in single player first before attempting online humiliation. After being trounced on the easiest difficulty setting in single player I decided in self interest not to take him up on the offer.

 I did actually try to play the online multiplayer...just not against anyone who may have the remote possibility of knowing who I am. To enable online play in A Druid’s Duel, you must sign up for the games portal. This will give you access to the leaderboards, friends lists and news. I would say the portal would fall under the “nice to have” category and honestly most of what it does can be handled by Steam. Sadly though I was unable to find a match which, while good for my ego, was bad for the review. That being said, the game play would be relatively the same with the exception of added real human players, who would take no pity on me whatsoever.

Finish it!
 All in all, A Druid’s Duel is a well crafted, engaging, quick, and most importantly, fun casual game experience. If you have ten dollars burning a hole in your pocket and are looking for a game you can easily jump in and out of I can highly recommend it. I can see this being a great game to play while on a commute and all the while I was playing I kept thinking that A Druid’s Duel would be a great game on a tablet...so long as that tablet supported Steam at the moment. (hint hint Thoughtshelter!)

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