When my colleague Kyle Orland submitted Tetrisweeper for a list of Ars' favorite 2024 games not from 2024, I told him, essentially: "Good for you, not for me." I'm a pedestrian Tetris player, at best, so the idea of managing a whole different game mechanic, while trying to clear lines and prevent stack-ups, sounded like taking a standardized test while baking a three-layer cake.
And yet, here I am, sneaking rounds of Drop Duchy (Steam, Epic, for Windows/Linux via Proton) into lunch breaks, weekend mornings, and other bits of downtime. Drop Duchy is similarly not just a Tetris-esque block-dropper. It also has you:
- Aligning terrain types for resources
- Placing both your troops and the enemy's
- Choosing which cards to upgrade, sell, and bring into battle
- Picking between terrain types to leave behind
- Upgrading a tech tree with achievements
- Picking the sequence of battles for maximum effectiveness
Drop Duchy is a quirky game, one that hasn't entirely fused together its various influences without some seams showing. But I keep returning to it, even as it beats me to a pulp on Normal mode, based on decisions I made five rounds ago. It feels like a medium-deep board game, played at triple speed, with someone across the table timing you on how fast you arrange your tiles.