A Druid's Duel Demo

Competition is human nature, a fact that has become clear over the few short millennia we’ve been around. Lately, people found less destructive ways to compete against each other, such as sports and video games. Electronic sports are pretty big nowadays, especially in countries like South Korea and Japan, where cyber athletes are celebrities and they get huge salaries.

A Druid's Duel does not try to reinvent the wheel or take the industry by surprise, but it manages to attract attention and keep the players interested for decent periods of time. In essence, the game is nothing more than a turn-based strategy flick akin to chess, only it features a few powerful druids instead of the usual chess pieces. As a bonus, it is also possible to alter the board to fit your strategy better.

Hence, your role is to use an army of druids to take hold of the entire map, which is split into tiles that can be controlled by either one player or the other. The druids come in a variety of shapes and classes, depending on what you need them for. Archers have the possibility to hit enemies from a distance, but every unit can transform into something else if you spend enough mana.

Units are acquired using mana points as well, which means that it is your most precious resource. However, the gameplay works using different rules, which means that no matter how expensive your unit is, it can still be taken out in one hit by the enemy. Hence, the similarities to chess start to become more obvious, because luck has nothing to do with it and every piece is liable to get destroyed if you leave it exposed.

Obviously, all of these interesting mechanics would have no meaning if you couldn’t enjoy the game in multiplayer against other players. It is here that you fully understand what strategy is all about, because the AI is not exactly a master of improvisation. You can also alter the map and construct new pieces, as well as add tiles and remove those that annoy you.

All things being equal, A Druid's Duel is not a piece of genius, but it is pretty fun and intriguing to play. As such, if you fancy yourself a fan of strategy and tactics, this is one game that’s certainly worthy of a try.