Death Crown
Heavy is the RTS head
Many people grew up with teachers reminding them to Keep It Simple, Stupid. Nowadays, KISS is still an applicable concept in gaming, but it’s something that often gets lost as we gain more and more systems and assumed knowledge with each new generation of consoles, along with the technology that allows for substantially more complicated games. Well, Death Crown is a real-time strategy game with exactly three different buildings to choose from, an incredibly striking 1-bit art style, and that’s basically it.1
So, you might wonder, what are those three buildings that do so much? Mines to improve your income, a defensive structure that shoots at incoming units, and a building that makes new units. You simply have to choose where to build them and in what order, and then to pick where your units will be going. Most of the strategy is deciding exactly when to build which of your options, which enemies to focus your attacks on, and trying to gain control of three Black Crystals in each level – these power you up.
This is the activity in all three of Death Crown’s rather short campaigns, as well as within its Domination mode (basically skirmishes). If you’d prefer to play with a pal, you can do so either in co-op or Versus mode, but both options are local only, not online. All of these are fun, but the reality of the minimalist art means that you often find yourself lost in exactly what’s going on. The simplicity of the action also leads to difficulty that feels unfair, rather than an entertaining challenge, as AI commanders build at inhuman speeds.2 Death Crown is fun at first but rapidly shows the limitations of its own simple mechanics.