The Smartest Strategy Game About Building A Skeleton Army Is Free On PC For A Short Time

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Skeletons in video games have it rough. For the most part, the best they can hope for is hanging around a gross crypt full of spiders and ghouls until some hero comes to scatter their bones or a necromancer makes them its servant. (It’s no wonder they’re always in such a mood for a fight.) Yet in a new addition to Amazon Prime’s free game collection, the skeletons have their revenge, with you as their leader.

In Necroking, you finally get a chance to stand up for skeleton-kind. As the titular Necroking — a skeleton with a fancy robe and crown — you get word that a nearby human king is plotting to enslave the undead for his own uses and set out to put a stop to it. That means bringing your bony army across a world map one tile at a time, collecting power and new allies along the way while fighting off anyone who gets in your way in unique turn-based battles.

Necroking finally gives the maligned skeletons of the world a starring role of their own.

Each move you make on the way to your destination costs bones, the game’s main resource. On the way to each stage’s boss, you can find special locations that let you merge two of your recruited skeletons into a new unit, buy new recruits from vendors, or spend currency you gain from defeating bosses for permanent upgrades. And, of course, some of these stops lead to battles.

When combat begins, you move from the world map for a unique setup with four columns separating you from your foes. Combat is set to a timer with turns following each other automatically, but you can also pause or adjust turn speed at any time. Every turn, you draw cards representing your skeleton pals and any items you’ve picked up. Each card costs mana, which you gain at the start of each turn, and souls, a finite resource that’s spent to summon units but refunded when they perish, limiting the size of your army.

You build your deck in Necroking by traveling a world map turn by turn.

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Units are limited in which column they can be placed in, and all have different effects. Some charge forward one column each turn, while others stay put. Most do melee attacks on any enemies in the same column, but others attack at range, passively generate souls, buff other units, or just soak up damage to keep your other skeletons safe. Enemies and allies have a power rating that determines how much damage they do, and in most cases, both sides will attack every turn. Defeating each boss, starting with the aforementioned jerk of a human king, moves you to a new map with its own enemies, all of whom have their own quirks to counter.

The combat itself all happens automatically, but Necroking is more active than a typical autobattler. Rather than setting unit formations and helping out from afar, you need to be on top of every turn, choosing which new units to add or which to sacrifice. Some cards let you heal or move your troops, along with other effects, and knowing when to use them is just as important as building up a strong skeleton army.

Combat in Necroking is strategic but not stressful.

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That pace makes Necroking perfect for when you want a strategy game that won’t leave you slowly agonizing over every turn, but doesn’t move so fast you can lose track of your options, either. It demands sound tactics without feeling punishing and somehow manages to feel more chill than stressful, despite all the undead battles going on. Along with its wonderful pixel art and pleasantly crunchy old-school soundtrack, that all makes Necroking a surprisingly vibey take on strategy and combat.

There are countless roguelike deckbuilders and turn-based tactics games out there, but nothing else feels like Necroking. It’s clever and original enough to offer something new even to seasoned strategy fans, and even if you miss it while it’s free, it’s still dirt cheap on Steam.