Within a Dead City

If you enjoyed the game, check out the expanded version on Steam! 4 more heroes, 3 more game modes, and a campaign to stop a goblin cult.

 Within a Dead City is a tiny 4X game about managing autonomous heroes as they search for gold and glory inside the cursed capital of a fallen empire. Grow your outpost, put bounties on monsters, and cast spells when your heroes confuse courage and recklessness. Heroes will act on their own accord: slaying monsters, raiding lairs, defending your guild hall, and exploring the old city. Try to keep them out of trouble - their greed can lead them to bite off more than they can chew.

Controls:

WASD / Arrow keys: move camera.
Q / Keypad - : Decrease game speed.
E / Keypad + : Increase game speed.
Left click: Selects a unit or building.
Right click: Deselects a unit or building.
1: (single tap) Select the Guild Hall, (double tap) zoom to the Guild Hall
2 - 8: (single tap): Select a hero, (double tap): zoom to a hero
Space / Enter: Pause game, brings up volume menu.

More details:
The Guild Hall is where you conduct most of your business.  You can perform the following actions at the Guild Hall.
BUILD: Build an alchemist's shop to sell healing potions to your heroes, a blacksmith that allows them to upgrade their weapons and armor, and a trading post that generates more income the  farther away it is placed. Guard houses will defend against monster attacks, and wizard towers generate Lore and add +100 Exp to all newly-trained units.
TRAIN: Train a stalwart Warrior (good at combat), a brave Ranger (speedier and likes to explore), a Merchant (bad at combat, but collects gold from trading posts and improves your buildings), or a Wizard (long-range glass cannon).
EXPAND: Increases the income level of your guild hall and adds an additional Hero slot. Your gold hall initially generates 10 gold in income per day and can support 2 heroes. Each expansion adds 10 to income and adds another hero slot. (The first Expand action adds two hero slots)
RESEARCH: Spend Lore (the book icon) gained from killing enemies or raiding monster lairs. You can research blueprints for the guard house or the wizard tower, or research two additional levels of weapons and armor for the blacksmith to sell. You can also research advanced spellcasting, unlocking the final three spells.
SPELLS: Spend Lore to cast powerful spells.
Heal: Fully heal all heroes.
Stoneskin: Adds 5 to all heroes' defense for a day and a half.
Heroic Amnesia: All heroes cancel their current mission and reconsiders their current circumstances.
Haste: All heroes gain 1 speed for a day and a half.
Gate: Summons all heroes (except Merchants) to a specified location.
Flatten Earth: Removes a mountain or water tile and replaces it with a grass tile.

Outside of the Guild Hall actions, you can also Offer Bounties on wandering monsters and monster lairs. These rewards will make heroes more inclined to take on a monster or destroy a monster lair. To offer a bounty, click on a monster or a monster lair, and click the button with the flag icon in the top-right corner. Bounties come in increments of 10 and are deducted from the guild treasury.

When a hero Destroys a Monster Lair, it will spawn three monsters that heroes will have to fight all at once. For this reason, heroes like to wait until they are strong enough before they try to destroy a lair. Still, they are greedy little heroes, and each 20 gold bounty on a lair adds 1 to a hero's level for purposes of accepting the 'destroy lair' quest.

If a hero is too low-level to destroy a monster lair, they might try to Raid a Monster Lair to steal from its gold and lore stash. There are also Unexplored Ruins scattered throughout the map that can be searched for a small gold or lore bonus, although monsters might be hiding in the ruins! 

The soundtrack for the game is available at https://joshgalecki.bandcamp.com/album/within-a-dead-city-soundtrack. There's a Discord server for all my games at https://discord.gg/2FRxtZf7UF where you can chat about strategy, learn about future development, and leave feedback. A press / streamer kit can be found at https://www.pixelatedplaygrounds.com/within-a-dead-city-press-kit.

This game was built as part of the Tiny Mass Games project, a game dev collective focused on making polished short-form games on two-month timelines. You can check out other TMG games at https://tinymassgames.itch.io/

If you enjoyed Within a Dead City, you may also enjoy some of my other games. I'd first recommend checking out Moondrop: https://joshuagalecki.itch.io/moondrop