this game just feels like the basic elements of its design are just.. incorrect. i don't know how else to describe it. the primary mission of the player is to create certain specific symbols ("rituals") during the game, and the game heavily encourages pausing basically at all times when you're not moving pieces, meaning to actually succeed in the game, you have to move a piece, pause, move a piece, pause, move a piece, etc. etc. in a really exhausting and annoying loop.

the reason you need to keep it paused is because, if you don't, the enemies/"heroes" of the game will progress through your tower during the time you're thinking, kill your tyrant, and then the game starts over (with some things persisting between games in a roguelite-type setup). so it's a waste to spend your precious time in the game thinking. but then pause and unpausing just.. isn't fun! it's a really annoying way to engage with the mechanics and it feels awkward to go in and out every time.

of course, you're also doing match-4 gameplay to collect 8 different types of "resources" which you spend on reviving your creatures and building up your tower, but it's here where we come to the game's second main issue–it's just a complete mess of complexities. the tutorial drops an absurd amount of information on you at the start and hides even more in difficult-to-read pixel writing which you can read instead of, yknow, playing the game. two hours in the game (when i abandoned it after a few runs) and i never really figured out where my minions should go, or even how to level a specific minion... and if the game teaches you it somewhere, i couldn't figure it out, because it's just such a large mess of mechanics that i didn't know how to dig through it!!!

outside of the confusing gameplay, the game just isn't a winner in terms of art design. as mentioned before, i think the pixel style here is way too challenging to read–the puzzle pieces themselves are alright, but the dungeon, in-game text, and more just become a mess of "not enough pixels" to be easily readable. the music and sound design is incredibly forgettable and stock, i turned off the game audio about an hour in to put on music instead.

i dunno, maybe this gets better the longer you play it? you can complete "prophecies" while playing, which unlock items and parts of the tower that persist through different runs, but... the entire BASIS of this game just seems like a misfire. at no point while playing did i ever get a strong amount of feedback if i was playing well or poorly. at the very least, if this game still seems interesting to you and you wanna check it out, it seems like it has an active developer who listens to and responds to critique in some steam reviews i read–and based on those reviews, it seems like a lot of people do enjoy it. but i'm just not sure there's something you could do to fix a foundation like this for me... I'll leave it unrated since i only played two hours though, i don't think that's enough to really judge the game.