This moment to moment management

This moment to moment management

This moment to moment management is definitely more fiddly than I was hoping, however. Villagers feel like they have a bit less autonomy than they should—if you interrupt them in their work, say to Dark And Darker Gold  move them away from danger or help construct a new building, they'll then just stand around waiting for further orders instead of returning to their main job. Keeping track of their abilities is awkward—I couldn't even figure out how to view their character sheet in-game, and ended up renaming them all to things like "Brawler" and "Reed Liker" between maps so I could remember who was who.

—clicking around the map so you can follow your scout's exploring at the same time as maximising efficiency in your base and keeping your warriors alive as they clear out a nest of spiders. There should be plenty of depth there for strategy fans, but for me the very hands-on approach feels a little at odds with the dark management sim premise. Stressing out about keeping my people safe is fun, worrying about whether I've left someone standing idle somewhere less so.

Still, the section I play is very early on, and things may very well click more for me as more systems are layered on. I'm certainly interested to see more of Gord's dark and strange world, and a little roughness around the edges is perhaps to be expected in a game that's experimenting so much with genre. I'll be watching with interest in the run up to launch, planned for later this summer.

Aww: These dark fantasy warriors have the cutest widdle kitty faces

I did not have dark fantasy soulslike action RPG starring humanoid cats on my 2023 bingo card, but if you did, congratulations! Indie developers Astral Clocktower Studios are granting your wish and filling in that space with Kristala cheap Dark And Darker Gold , its in-development debut title where your absolutely adorable widdle warrior must master the magic of six sacred crystals to fight a terrible curse that has mutated the other creatures of the world into monsters.