I haven’t had a chance to write a preview in a while. I’m glad I got this opportunity with this Inkulinati preview. We are facing a different game. Inkulinati, an early access title from Yaza Games, is a new rogue-lite strategy game built on medieval art. Inkulinati, a strategy game based on the Middle Ages, was a great relief for me in these days when I was overwhelmed by action games.
Strategy game Inkulinati preview
To be honest, it was a bit difficult for me to figure out the game, but with patience I got there. As I said, Inkulinati is a different game. We have heroes called Inkulinati and we manage their duels. You can think of turn-based construction a bit like chess. Our goal is to take down our opponent while resisting our opponent’s soldiers.
You start Inkulinati with a tutorial. I’m glad they included it. In this chapter, you learn how to place your soldiers on the field using the icons at the bottom of the screen, how your hero draws them (yes, that’s not a typo, he draws his soldiers into the battlefield) and the mechanics.
We have to protect our Inkulinati and take down our opponent by using our soldiers such as dogs, rabbits and donkeys. Each animal has its own special weapon. The dog holds a spear, the rabbit shoots arrows, etc. Don’t get the idea that this is an action game. Because it is completely designed for you to strategize.
When you start a duel, you need to place each soldier in the field in a certain position so that you can make your moves correctly. For example, when I first started, I thought I would move my archer forward and take down the opposing soldiers as they approached me. However, I soon realized that this was a very wrong move.
When you start, you have an army of three. You are one of them. But as you progress, you discover new abilities and soldiers and create different tactics. As your army develops over time, you unlock a variety of weapons and creatures that are even more advanced and can be quite entertaining by doing various combos together. For example, the donkey has a weapon that takes up the entire screen: the Fart.
In addition to your soldiers, you can also use your Inkulinati, who have greater powers, to push enemies off the page or hit them. Using these powers at the right time and against the right opponent is crucial to the accuracy of your strategy. If you use it to protect one of your soldiers, you may miss the chance to destroy the enemy Inkulinati, or if you use it to defend yourself with a lot of health, you may lose your soldiers and proceed to absolute defeat.
This is because of how the Inkulinati’s maps are set up. Each one contains several horizontal lines with obstacles like barrels or ladders to move between stacks of lines. Every time a unit moves away from these lines, they are instantly killed, including the smaller Inkulinati avatars that act as the player’s health bar and powerhouse in matches.
When we look at Ilkulinati, which is available in early access, if we ignore its mistakes, it is a very successful. While some of the mistakes you make during the game make you angry, sometimes you can get into the “How did I beat you” mode.
In these days when we give indie games a chance, the first sentence on the game’s Steam page will help you understand the production much better: “Inkulinati is an ink-based strategy straight from medieval manuscripts, where a rabbit’s bum can be deadlier than a dog’s sword. Become a master of the Living Ink, build your own bestiary, defeat medieval superstars and collect perks to unleash hidden powers.”
The early access game will reach full release in the coming days for PC, Nintendo Switch, XBox One, XBox Series X/S. And here is the Steam link on the game.
