Build and defend a nice little kingdom in microstrategy game Thronefall

A small-scale strategy game about building and defending little castle towns has debut on Steam in Early Access. Thronefall is a minimalist strategic experience from the developers of Islanders and Superflight, part of the booming genre of indie microstrategy.

Each round of Thronefall has you pick your king's weapons and equipment, like a bow or spear, and build up a little settlement to defend. That means placing walls and towers, sure, but also barracks to recruit various melee and ranged units you can place before each night falls and waves of enemies come to burn your town. The second layer of strategy is when and how much of your gold to spend on improving your kingdom's economy for further expansion.

"With Thronefall we tried to strip a classic strategy game from all unnecessary complexity, combining it with some healthy hack and slay. Build up your base during the day, defend it til your last breath at night," said developers Grizzly Games.

The early access version of Thronefall has four levels, each of which can have mutators applied to it for some nice variety. It also has "37 unlockable perks and weapons" for about "3-5 hours of core playtime." If you're like me that's probably 6+ hours as you go hunting for higher scores or tougher challenges in the levels available.

We first saw Thronefall earlier this year during Steam Next Fest, where the microstrategy demo caught our eye. Sean Martin compared it to games like The Battle of Polytopia, Kingdom Two Crowns, and Bad North for its small-scale focus on short rounds and playability, but praised its inclusion of using the monarch to fight on the frontlines and command troops as a welcome touch.

You can find Thronefall on Steam, where early user reviews are quite positive.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.