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Roguelikes might be the dominant force in the indie scene, but there are still some refreshing ideas here and there, and Drop Duchy looks like it will be another one. One of my favorites last year was Roots of Yggdrasil, and this one has vibes similar to those of that game. Developed by Sleepy Mill Studio, it introduces a unique military twist into the block puzzler games that have been around since the 1980s. I had a chance to try the game out with an early version of the demo, and I am impressed.

The concept of Drop Duchy is elegantly simple. Players must develop their fledgling duchy kingdom against vastly more powerful enemies, and the tutorial, while short, is well-designed to teach players the ropes. This simplicity ensures a comfortable and enjoyable gaming experience. The game is all about gathering as many resources as possible while minimizing damage to your kingdom.

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On a small grid, players have to move and rotate randomized blocks for maximum efficiency on the board. Each block has its biome or resource, and buildings exploit those biomes. For example, the farm turns Plain pieces into food resources and woodcutters for the forest biome. If you complete a row, you gain extra resources that will be carried onto the campaign map.

When all the pieces are played, or your battlefield is filled up, the mission ends, and you can advance along the player map. Resources are used to upgrade your cards for additional bonuses, and you need all the help you can get.

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The combat sections are when things become more complicated. Enemies must be placed on the map just as other pieces, and they gain military bonuses depending on the terrain. I made a rookie mistake on my first combat map by accidentally dropping a stack of plain blocks on top of an enemy militia unit, providing them with additional power that cost me the map.

You also have your army buildings, and once a combat map is complete, the battle section starts, which involves a very simplistic command system. You take your units, click on the enemy you want it to attack, and resolve the engagement. There’s nothing fancy about it; it’s mostly a numbers game. If you have units left standing while your enemy does not, you win the map with no damage. You will lose your base's total hit points if enemy units are still alive. I lost 16 points off my fort’s HP in my first combat test. If that goes down to zero, you lose the run and have to restart the typical roguelike style, although you can restore it by spending gold.

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I wish the combat had more depth or an auto-battle mode since the combat is on the simple side. Despite this, I appreciate Drop Duchy for what it is so far. The visuals are easy on the eyes, and the game is easy to understand. Despite being just an early sample of the game, it performs nicely, too. I did not encounter any bugs while playing, so I hope the full game’s release is as stable as my demo experience.

I played around with the demo on the Steam Deck for a while, which gave me mixed results. I expected as much because the demo isn’t optimized for handheld performance yet, and the developers likely have much higher priorities as they prepare the game for full release.

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Starting the game ran into a crash, although switching to Proton Experimental fixed that. There is no controller support in the demo despite it defaulting to the gamepad controller profile, and I got things working by switching to the Keyboard and Mouse trackpad profile. With that, the default controls worked as intended, although I had trouble working out how to scroll around the overworld map.

While I had low expectations about optimization on the Steam Deck, I was still surprised at how much power it took to play at a smooth framerate. Despite the nice visuals of Drop Duchy, I still required a full TDP to maintain a steady 60 frames per second. The power drain for a simple game like this was 12 to 14 watts, much higher than I expected. However, this is just a demo, and it's very possible these issues will be ironed out by release.

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Overall, I came away from Drop Duchy with positive feelings. The gameplay, with its relaxing nature, provides a stress-free experience. The full release will see multiple factions to unlock, so content should be plentiful for everyone. While there is no release date for Drop Duchy’s launch yet, I recommend watching this one.

Drop Duchy can be wishlisted on Steam and the demo is available now to try it for yourself.

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Michael Baker
As a British guy in his mid-thirties, Michael has played and reviewed games as long as he can remember. Narrative Designer at Grimlore Games 2019-2020 (Spellforce 3 franchise, Plarium Games 2023 as Lore Editor). His favourite game genres are strategy, RPG, simulation and RTS.
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