Death Crown
Review

Death Crown (2013) is a minimalist strategy game where you play Death commanding her legions and punishing humanity. You play in a world of hexagons to place buildings and send troops to attack or defend as you try and defeat the opposing castle.

There's a single-player campaign to work through, along with the one-vs-one multiplayer. You play by making choices about where to deploy structures and troops. To do this you need mines to get gold which enables you to buy further troops and buildings. Things start as simply as they look, but as you upgrade troops and buildings more depth and layers are revealed through strategies to gain territories and scenarios that offer more upgrade options via the black crystals.

The visual style uses just two colours and is reminiscent of the old Spectrum and Commodore 64 graphics. This matches the streamlined gameplay. Everything is very simple: you only have barracks producing troops, mines producing gold, and towers protecting your buildings. Every building is integral to your success.

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Death Crown 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 7 weeks ago.