Rune Territory Battle RPG

■ Ground belongs to whoever encloses it

Step off the safe outer wall into open land and a trail of light follows behind you. Make it back to solid ground, close the loop, and everything you fenced off is sealed as your territory. But you only ever take the smaller of the two sides you split apart — reach for a bigger prize and you spend that much longer exposed with nowhere to run.

Hold 80% of the board to clear the stage. The trouble is that your enemies are going for the same 80%.

■ The enemy plays exactly the same game

Foes here are not obstacles that simply chase you. They draw straight lines of their own, fence off ground, and harden it into territory just as you do. They follow the same rule about taking the smaller side. Two forces are carving up one board with an identical set of moves.

And they are not content with empty land. A raider will drive its line straight into territory you bled for, tearing your seal open as it passes, and whatever it cuts away becomes enemy ground. The corner you thought was safely yours turns the enemy's colour while you are looking elsewhere. Turtling is not an option on this board.

When enemy territory reaches 80%, you lose.

■ Strike back

Raiders leave themselves open.

- Cross the line — touch a foe's trail while it is still drawing and the whole claim collapses. Every ward it tore open is restored, and the foe gets nothing.
- Enclose and destroy — fence a foe inside your claim and it is annihilated. The most dangerous detours pay the best.
- Take it back — ground already lost can be enclosed again and purged, scoring extra for every tile you reclaim.

Get sealed inside an enemy claim yourself and it costs you a ward. Attack and defence run along the same single line, and reading which one you are on is the whole game.

■ Spells and relics

Four spells turn a losing board around: chaining lightning, a frost nova that locks foes in place, a meteor fall that seals the terrain it strikes, and a sanctum that expands your territory outward in one stroke. Each one takes over the screen when it lands.

Seven kinds of relics surface in open land — speed, frozen time, detonation, raw mana. Anything caught inside a claim is gathered automatically, so the wider you enclose, the more you walk away with.

■ Collect and master

- Codex — thirty entries covering seven foes, seven relics, four spells and twelve treasures, filling in as you meet them.
- Treasure hunting — twelve relics lie buried across the board and are unearthed the moment you seal the ground above them. Each has its own artwork and story.
- Honors — sixteen titles, with progress you can check at any time.
- Rites — per-stage objectives across seven types: coverage, kills, flawless runs, time limits and more.
- Runes — an upgrade chosen after every stage. Eleven of them compound over a run, so no two attempts play alike.

Every fifth stage, an archdemon that summons its own minions is waiting.

■ Craft

The whole game is drawn in the style of a gilded manuscript. Light propagating across ground as a seal takes hold, the pulse of enemy territory setting, the burst of a spell — all rendered live.

Music and sound are synthesised entirely in code. The score layers up as the board grows tense, the archdemon has a theme of its own, and there are around twenty distinct effects. Audio toggles from the top-right button at any time.

■ Also

- English and Japanese, switchable instantly from the top-left button.
- A tutorial covering every rule.
- Records are stored on your device.

Recent changes:
api version up