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In Despot’s Game you’ll direct your team of humans — up to 49 humans can fit on your side of the battlefield — through increasingly challenging levels that are each broken into mazes of individual battle rooms that contain things like weapon shops, mutations, food shops and quest rooms. Courtesy tinyBuild
In Despot’s Game you’ll direct your team of humans — up to 49 humans can fit on your side of the battlefield — through increasingly challenging levels that are each broken into mazes of individual battle rooms that contain things like weapon shops, mutations, food shops and quest rooms. Courtesy tinyBuild
In Despot’s Game you’ll direct your team of humans — up to 49 humans can fit on your side of the battlefield — through increasingly challenging levels that are each broken into mazes of individual battle rooms that contain things like weapon shops, mutations, food shops and quest rooms. Courtesy tinyBuild
In Despot’s Game you’ll direct your team of humans — up to 49 humans can fit on your side of the battlefield — through increasingly challenging levels that are each broken into mazes of individual battle rooms that contain things like weapon shops, mutations, food shops and quest rooms. Courtesy tinyBuild
Always wanted to go on a dangerous quest filled with certain doom around every corner but just don’t have the reflexes to manage and would rather have someone else do the messy work?
Well, let me introduce you to Despot’s Game: Dystopian Battle Simulator, the latest entry into the world of auto-battler games where you send your hapless heroes on an adventure.
In Despot’s Game you’ll direct your team of humans — up to 49 humans can fit on your side of the battlefield — through increasingly challenging levels that are each broken into mazes of individual battle rooms that contain things like weapon shops, mutations, food shops and quest rooms.
In an unusual twist, you don’t have any direct hand in the combat. Instead, you’ll be recruiting humans along the way and equipping them with a load of weapons from one of several categories. Collecting multiple weapons from the same category unlocks bonuses and special abilities that help in each battle: Have enough shield guys and they’ll taunt the enemies into attacking them or have enough eggheads and they’ll construct a lightning tower to shock enemies from afar.
There’s also a wide array of fun weapons that range from swords, guns and magic rings to footballs, fridges and Doc Ock-style cyber tentacles.
You’re also able to arrange your humans into formations ahead of each battle with the game giving you an indicator of where the enemies will spawn. Putting your tough guys towards the front and your squishy shooters at the back is a good start, and there’s a button that automatically arranges your humans in case you don’t want to carefully arrange 30 guys.
Once you’re ready, hit the fight button and you’ll watch as your team of humans goes to battle against the room of baddies all on their own with strategies based on their weapons. It’s here where the game’s great pixel art shines with a bevy of cool-looking enemies and smooth, creative fighting animations.
On my first several playthroughs, I’d focus on just hoovering up as many humans and different weapons as possible and the first time I beat the final boss I had filled my team to the limit. But as you play, the strategy starts to become more apparent as you’ll have to carefully manage your money, weapons, upgrades and food on each run. Food is a particularly important resource where you need to have enough to feed your humans each time they change rooms or else they’ll suffer pretty severe penalties to their damage and defense. Let your guys go hungry for too long and they won’t last long.
In my more recent runs, I’ve tried to play the more thoughtful and strategic leader for my team. Instead of buying up every weapon at every opportunity, running up the amount of food I need for each room and treating my humans as disposable, I’ve focused in on a few weapon categories and upgrades that make them stronger.
Adding to that is a neat end game mode called King of the Hill where your final team will go up against other players’ final teams in repeated bouts to figure out where you sit among a group of about 80 other players. The best I’ve finished, so far, is about 40th.
It’s here where a lot of the pieces start to fit together to make for a satisfying challenge with plenty of replayability.
If You Play
Game: Despot’s Game: Dystopian Battle Simulator
Rating: 4/5
Platforms: PC, Mac, Xbox, iPad, Android tablets with versions coming for PlayStation and Switch
Price: $20 on PC, free with in-game purchases on mobile, included in Xbox Games Pass subscription
Release Date: Sept. 29, 2022
ESRB Rating: Teen
Matt Buxton is a freelance writer and gamer. He can be reached at matt.a.buxton@gmail.com.
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