Game Announcement: Slay

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 30, 2010

Wow. Now I remember why I keep slacking off when it comes to putting new games up on the website. It’s a lot of work! But I’m still trucking along, trying to get a new game up there each day this week. Today’s game is not in any way “new.” In fact, it’s a classic – the turn-based strategy game Slay.

I discovered Slay a few years ago as a recommendation from Steve Taylor of NinjaBee Games. At first, I wasn’t impressed – the graphics looked like they belonged in the 8-bit world (and indeed: The game first appeared back in the 8-bit era as an Atari ST game called “Battle Hex.”

The rules seemed ridiculously straightforward. A collection of hexes under your control generate income. With it you buy (and maintain) a soldier unit. A soldier unit protects the hexes it is near from another soldier unit of equal or less strength. The more powerful soldiers cost more upkeep, and any unit dies if their upkeep demands are not maintained. So lesser units can defeat a stronger unit by cutting off their territory.  Throw in castles, capitals,  and a rule that ruined capitals and dead units eventually become undergrowth (trees) that will spread and reduce your income from those hexes unless controlled, and that’s pretty much the whole game.

I thought it would hold my attention for… what? Maybe an hour? Hah! Silly me. I should have known better.

The latest version of the game includes tools to create new islands, easily add themes (if you get tired of the standard graphics), and to play against other players over the Internet. Just in case the AI on the hardest difficulty level isn’t hard enough for you (it clobbers me!).

If you are at all interested in turn-based strategy games, I recommend downloading a copy of Slay and giving it a try.  I think, like me, you’ll be pleasantly surprised…

Download Slay Here

Filed Under: Strategy Games - Comments: Comments are off for this article



top