Skulls of the Shogun

Skulls of the Shogun is a turn-based strategy game. The player takes the role of the samurai Akamoto who is close to becoming Shogun - just to be murdered from behind. The next unpleasant surprise follows in the realm of the dead: there a few hundred years waiting time until entrance to endless rest is granted. Akamoto does not like that perspective and so he does what he knows best: using an army to get his way. The plot is told in humorous dialogues.

During battle, each player can give up to five orders to the own troops per round with the goal to beat the enemy army. Besides moving within a radius (there are no hex fields or similar restrictions to movement), each unit can do one action like attacking, picking up and using a health potion, using a shrine to invoke monks (there are several monk classes which can use different spells), conquering rice fields (used as a resource to buy reinforcements) or eating skulls of fallen enemies. The latter is an important tactical decision because after three eaten skulls the unit becomes a demon with two action points per round. Each battle begins with a given amount (usually about half a dozen) of units which are ranged, infantry or horsemen. In addition, each army also has a general who is very powerful (and gets three actions after a skull feast) but needs to be kept alive at all costs - a defeated general means an instant win for the other faction. The environment needs to be taken into consideration, e.g. certain landscape objects are instantly deadly when a unit is shoved into it, bushes reduce the effectiveness of ranged attacks or obstacles like avalanches need to be avoided.

This Windows Store release is not to be confused with the Steam release.