Pixel Frontier: Tactics (AppID: 3604500)

Pixel Frontier: Tactics is a turn-based strategy game with a difference. Instead of action points and cool-downs, your Heroes will roll dice every turn and spend the values they roll to use their abilities.

Victory in battle will require careful planning, both setting up your Heroes for success in the base with powerful equipment and upgrades; and preparing to defeat dangerous enemies with clever tactics and strategies on the battlefield itself.

Heroes come in 36 unique classes; Knights are experts in defence, using heavy armour and their rigorous martial training in battle, whereas Alchemists brew powerful and dangerous potions, but can have explosive accidents if they lose control of their experimental craft.

Each Hero class has access to 13+ unique abilities, with their own dice costs, effects and strategies. With over 450 abilities in total there is an incredible variety and depth of options to discover and master.

Each Hero will start with a few basic abilities and then unlock more as they increase in level. As they level up, you’ll also upgrade these abilities, changing their effects, costs and more, as well as upgrading your Hero’s dice to fit your new abilities. Each Hero is their own puzzle, and finding the right combinations of dice, abilities and Heroes will be your key to victory.

Gameplay in Pixel Frontier: Tactics is split into two main sections: the Base and Missions. Missions are fast-paced, high-stakes encounters with your enemies. Your Heroes may survive one or two defeats in combat, but in the Frontier, death is an ever-present danger.

Between missions, you’ll recruit more Heroes, level up after a successful mission, equip loot and buy equipment or upgrade your facilities. Then it’s straight back to the action. You’ll pick the missions, judging your team’s progress and capabilities as you go, with the Frontier as your sandbox. Beware however, that as your Heroes increase in level, you’ll need to send them on more and more difficult missions.

Initially, the game will have a structure similar to a roguelike, with each set of Heroes pushing as far as they can into the Frontier before being defeated. As you earn the experience, upgrades and equipment needed to conquer the Frontier’s greatest challenges, you’ll start to find stronger synergies between your Heroes, abilities and equipment, allowing you to master this unforgiving place.

The Frontier is filled with threats for you to face, with 6 unique areas posing their own challenges to your Heroes. Necromancers have made their home in the Crypt of the Undying, summoning hordes of undead creatures to assault the lands of the living. The Skittering Webwood has become corrupted by a dark presence, with flora and fauna alike attacking farmers and travellers. And something dark is rising beneath the surface of the Icthyd Coast, come to claim dominion over the land.

On top of the general threats these areas pose, the game features 30 unique bosses, each with three different levels, as a final challenge for your bravest Heroes. Defeating these will require you to adapt to their deadly abilities – forming new, specialised approaches to achieve the ultimate victory.

Looking for a more casual or shorter experience? You can take on the game however you like, with Short, Long and Full game lengths available to fit the way you want to play, as well as customisable combat speed, so you can set the pace of your missions to your liking.