Guilds Of Delenar

My spreadsheet instincts fired up the moment I saw the management layer in Guilds of Delenar: contracts to accept, wounded heroes to recover, rival guilds competing for town influence, and realm politics threading through it all. On paper, that is a satisfying knot of interlocking systems. The reality, as of the last available build, is that only a fraction of that ambition is actually implemented. You are buying a skeleton of something that could have been interesting, not a finished game. The tactical combat side is the most complete piece of the puzzle. Turn order runs off a Speed stat, and each hero gets three action points per turn. Positioning matters in a real way: move too far to reach an enemy and you burn all your AP on movement, leaving nothing for an attack. Terrain and party composition create genuine decisions on varied tilesets, and the multiple difficulty settings mean a newcomer can dial things down to learn the rhythm before the AI starts punishing greedy moves. Five starting classes were available at the time of Early Access launch, with plans for ten or more that, as far as the record shows, never arrived. The procedurally generated loot system gives equipment rolls some replay texture, and gear visually updates on character models, which is a small but appreciated touch for a game at this price tier. The guild management layer is where the distance between promise and delivery becomes uncomfortable. Contracts, hero wounds, guild rivalries, and even noble politics are listed as systems, but the Early Access build keeps the quest loop thin: go to location, fight, return, heal, repeat. Quest variety was flagged as a known gap by reviewers at launch, and the developer acknowledged that the UI needed significant polish. Steam records show the last developer update was posted more than five years ago. That is the critical fact here. This game entered Early Access in March 2019 and has not meaningfully progressed toward a full release. The community has noticed. Forum posts asking what happened to development have gone unanswered. For a strategy-RPG fan who wants to evaluate the combat loop, or who genuinely enjoys watching an indie concept in its rawest form, there is something to pick apart here. The action-point system is responsive, the loot hooks are functional, and the guild hall upgrade structure provides a basic progression spine. But the late-game depth that a management game lives or dies by simply does not exist yet, and there is no visible roadmap suggesting it will materialize. No mod ecosystem exists around a game with this small a footprint, so you cannot self-extend the experience the way you might with a Paradox title. The honest recommendation is narrow. If you are a collector of interesting indie prototypes, or you want a low-stakes tactical RPG where you control parties of up to five heroes across grid-based battlefields and do not mind that the management meta never fully clicks into place, you may get a few evenings out of it. Anyone expecting a feature-complete guild sim should wait indefinitely, and given the development silence, that wait may never end.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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