I’ve been working on a tactical strategy game called Anomaly Grid in Godot 4.
The game is focused on territory control, unit merging, evolving battlefields, and tactical abilities.
Every tile on the map grows stronger over time, which constantly changes the balance of power and forces both sides to adapt their strategy.
Is it playable somewhere?
@phoenixdk It will be on Steam soon, I am also planning a demo version
Cool, looking forward to trying it.
It looks like a boardgame that you never take out and play, because you have to put about 20000 tokens out before you start 
@phoenixdk Thanks!! I hope the game lives up to your expectations. But you still have to wait a bit. I’m slowly finishing this game
Soon I will post a video on YouTube explaining the rules of the game.
I think you have a gem here. I find it really interesting from a game design perspective. At its core, it feels like something close to Risk, which is the closest comparison I can think of.
I would be glad to actually test your game design. I’m not sure about the skin of the game, though. Personally, I feel like the gameplay core is a bit overshadowed by the theme, but again, that’s just my opinion.
I think if you can prove that the design is actually fun, and it does look fun, not going to lie, then skinning it in a more digestible way visually and story-wise could give you a great strategy game.
@Neohex Thanks for the kind words!! The game’s visuals probably won’t change - the idea from the start was to make it colorful and eye-catching. I’m afraid there won’t be any story because I don’t really have an idea for one, nor do I know how to make it 
A simple framing narrative might be enough - maybe the game is about military forces, maybe it’s about competition on a cellular level, or the movements of refugees through contested zones. Just some thing to explain the overall metaphor and logic of the game.
@phoenixdk I might do something like that. From the beginning, I was thinking about a “rules” tab in the game where all the game rules would be explained.
Learn the complete rules of Anomaly Grid.
In this video I explain:
• Unit movement
• Capturing neutral tiles
• Combat mechanics
• Unit merging
• Score system
• Color progression
• Color upgrades
• Population bonuses
• Strategic penalties
I still think that you can actually put a good narrative to this fairly quikcly. You have tile base stradegical game. Tiles can be areas/nodes/computers tbh lots of themes can go with it, you can be a hacker trying to dominate the network grid, a medievel king trying to invidade a kingdom, or modern stradegist to try to win insugrnecy.
Core seems solid, it offers rather fun stradegical board, only thing is, beyond the idea, personally I don’t see myself to play it more then couple of minutes. Again this is my personal idea, even chess has a theme, with horse and pawns.
It’s obviously hard to say what a design will actually play like before trying it, but one thing that stands out is that it’s almost entirely positive feedback loops. In other words, when a player is getting ahead, they get bonuses for getting ahead, putting them further ahead. That’s even for all players, so it’s game mechanically fair, but it does tend to result in run-away victories where there is little real competition in the end-game.
This could be balanced with negative feedback loops (for instance, an upkeep that makes it more costly to have a larger army), or even randomness - both level the playing field for all players. For a “cards-face-up” strategy game though, I don’t think randomness is the way.
Looking forward to trying it
@phoenixdk The price on Steam is expected to be around $3-5, so not much. However, before purchasing, you’ll be able to play a demo that will feature basic gameplay without many modes and a score at the beginning of the game, which can be spent on abilities and colored square upgrades. So, if you’re happy with the basic version, you won’t necessarily have to pay for the game. Thanks for the kind words!
@Neohex What you think about this? :
Year 2050.
An unknown virus breached some of the world’s most secure computer systems.
Within days, it infected thousands of networks, data centers, and military systems.
Traditional security measures proved insufficient.
As the threat continued to grow, an experimental version of artificial intelligence was activated.
Its mission was simple.
Analyze.
Adapt.
Eliminate the threat.
To increase its chances of success, the system divided itself into multiple independent cores.
Each core evolves differently.
Each one gathers its own resources.
Each one fights for control over additional sectors of the network.
The infected areas must be reclaimed.
The virus must be stopped.
Operation initiated.
Connection established.
System initialization complete.
Welcome to Anomaly Grid.
Depends on how you want to portray it. Once you have the narrative, you can start playing with the visuals and terminology.
For example, you could call the power points “CPU” or use something that sounds more computer-like, such as RAM, Gbit, etc. Then you could slightly shift the box sprites or colors toward a more RGB, tech-inspired style, with background graphics that look like electronic copper wires.
You could also turn the overall campaign into some kind of level-based system, with different difficulty levels or harder opponents as the player progresses.
@Neohex I probably won’t do that, but thanks for the ideas !! 