Despot's Game

About

Despot's Game is a single player casual strategy game. It was developed by Konfa Games and was released on September 29, 2022. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Roguelike, auto-battler, deep progression, gratuitous violence, pretzels!

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

63%

Audience ScoreBased on 309 reviews

gameplay7 positive mentions

stability11 negative mentions

The game offers a unique and fun roguelike auto-battler experience with great pixel art, animations, music, and dark humor.
Gameplay is strategic, addictive, and has strong replayability with evolving mechanics and different class builds.
The PC version and overall concept are highly praised, and the mobile version maintains the core appeal of the original game.

The mobile version suffers from frequent crashes, corrupted saves, and fatal bugs that block progression, especially with larger teams.
Controls and UI on mobile are poorly optimized, with small buttons and awkward touch interactions making gameplay frustrating.
The game is considered significantly overpriced for a mobile game, especially given it is a paid port with no account linking or content carryover from PC.

gameplay
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
29%
21%
The gameplay is praised for its fun, unique, and evolving mechanics, including strategic elements like class buffs, mutations, and a dynamic shop system. Players appreciate the dark humor, challenging roguelike features, and replayability, though some note early paywalls and occasional technical issues. Overall, the game is seen as engaging, strategic, and promising with appealing art and humor.
- “The mechanics are genius, diabolical and constantly updated/evolving.”
- “I finished the free levels quite fast, the game has a lot of interesting mechanics like hunger, same class buff & new ability if you get three of the same class, mutations, the shop system for new humans or weapons which determines the class, plug-ins, all in all very unique.”
- “Exciting gameplay where you really have to think ahead.”
- “No ability to watch videos and prolong gameplay, or continue PvP play.”
- “Crashing after 3 minutes of gameplay, didn't even see the real game potential... can it be fixed?”
- “Was watching gameplay on PC and was hoping it came to mobile.”
stability
11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from significant stability issues, including frequent bugs, freezes, and glitches that impact controls, loading, and gameplay. Many users find the controls unresponsive and experience persistent crashes or freezes, making the overall experience frustrating despite a promising concept.
- “It's a great concept, except the controls are buggy and it won't load my continued run more than half the time.”
- “Can you guys please fix the freeze bug. My units can't even move and got stuck on a level. It happens every time I have 20 units on my team. I've spent $20 for a buggy game.”
- “UI elements often wouldn't disappear, and room transitions were extremely buggy.”
graphics
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
57%
43%
The game features highly praised, polished pixel art and a stylish, top-down RPG visual style that many find appealing. While the graphics and art style receive consistent acclaim, some users note that mobile controls can feel awkward, and the overall experience could benefit from more content and better balance. Overall, the visuals are seen as a strong point that complements the gameplay well.
- “If you like roguelikes, stylish violence and very polished visuals, you won't regret getting the full version.”
- “The pixel graphics are amazing, though mobile controls need improvement.”
- “Amazing art style and gameplay, hope this game grows and devs don't stop working on it.”
humor
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
80%
20%
The game’s humor is praised for its dark, witty dialogue and fittingly bleak tone, which enhances the overall experience. Many find the quests and items amusing and engaging, though a few users feel the humor falls flat. Overall, the humor is a highlight but may not appeal to everyone.
- “Love the art, music, and dialogue; they serve the hilariously bleak premise and theme so well.”
- “Gameplay is really fun, and I love the dark humor.”
- “The items are awesome, both funny and intriguing; quests are funny, and gameplay runs very well.”
- “Not funny.”
music
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The music is highly praised for perfectly complementing the game's darkly comedic theme, with users describing the soundtrack as amazing and a standout feature alongside the art and dialogue.
- “Love the art, music and dialogue; serves the hilariously bleak premise/theme so well.”
- “Art and music are amazing.”
- “This is a fantastic soundtrack that comes with a free game!”
replayability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game offers strong replayability through a versatile class and perk system that keeps gameplay fresh and varied. While typical roguelike repetition is noted, enhancements in the paid version may address this. Overall, players find it fun and engaging across multiple playthroughs.
- “The class system works well, each serves a different purpose but can function in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways via a perk system that keeps things fresh and replayable.”
- “Good roguelike mechanics, with replayability, has the potential to be a bit repetitive, which might have been addressed in the paid version.”
- “Played on the Xbox, lovely game, loads of fun and replayability.”
monetization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67%
67%
Users appreciate that the game has no ads or microtransactions, valuing the full experience for a $20 price, but some find the upfront in-app purchase restrictive and suggest an ad-supported model to extend playtime without payment.
- “It's $20 because it's a whole game with no ads or microtransactions.”
- “I would buy the full game if it's not locked behind in-app purchases.”
- “Hi, I really love this game and have been playing it for a while now, but I'm having a hard time playing for long because of the 'buy full version' requirement. It's making me stop playing. Could you instead add ads to help continue the level and allow players who can't afford it to play longer?”
- “I would buy the full game if it were not an in-app purchase.”
optimization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from poor optimization on mobile devices, with small user interface elements and performance issues across various tested devices, resulting in an average port despite the game's overall quality.
- “I would pay for the whole game but it's not optimized for mobile.”
- “User interface is small plus some performance issues on the majority of devices that I extensively tested in my gaming lab. Otherwise, an average port but an amazing game.”
- “Game is not optimized for mobile.”
story
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The story is engaging and humorous, complemented by entertaining quests. Overall, it provides an enjoyable and smooth gameplay experience.
grinding
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding is seen as tedious, especially when progress does not carry over to another device, forcing players to start over to unlock features.