#INKULINATI YAZA SERIES#

You draw new units, pen in hand, or swipe enemies off the map, or crush them under your fist - but these actions are limited to the area around your Tiny, and if they get killed, that's the fight over.

So in Tiny vs Beast battles, in addition to your army of beasts, you have a Tiny Inkulinati, like a little marginaliasona, equipped with their own special actions. The two other kinds of battle give away what is particularly unique about Inkulinati: you aren't playing as an army of odd little creatures you're playing as the person drawing them. There is great joy in lining up units and obstacles for a tactical shove (except, of course, when it happens at my expense, in which case it's cheating, and terrible.)

If there is no empty space, they slide right off the battlefield, squealing as they go. There is a very real - and entirely intentional - strategy in that 'pushed' characters simply slide along until they encounter the first empty space in that direction. With no set turn order, there's no way of knowing who plans to act next, and you have to prioritise carefully: who is in the biggest risk in their current position? Can I put them to sleep? Can I kill them? Can I shove them out of the way? Or better: can I shove them off the map, or into encroaching fire? If all of one side's units are asleep, then the other side just keeps playing. Each side takes it in turns to play one unit - who can move within their range, and then act, before going to sleep. With its small health pools, smaller damage pools, and round-limiting apocalyptic threats, play in Inkulinati requires intentional turn taking and positioning to get the chaos desired. Watch on YouTube Here's an Inkulinati trailer to show it in action. It's your army of (up to) five versus the enemy army, and the first to eliminate the other wins - unless an apocalypse snares you both. It's easiest to explain how combat works with the most straightforward type of battle in Inkulinati: beast battles. I spent most of my time with Inkulinati's Journey Mode, a single-player campaign divided into acts where each notch on the road is a different kind of battle, or event. It's the weird and wonderful world of 'things people drew in the margins of manuscripts hundreds of years ago', weaponised. And that's before you get to the less coherent creatures. Foxes steal resources from their targets.

So rabbits have the helpful turn-skipping debuff of mooning their opponents.

#INKULINATI YAZA SERIES#

Availability: Out January 31 on PC, Mac, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S (Early Access).

This is, I promise you, very serious tactics, and arguably the heart of Inkulinati: thoughtfully tactical, and uncompromisingly absurd. Medieval marginalia strategy game Inkulinati holds the unique honour of being the only game to make me lament, out loud: 'Oh no, he's not in my butt range.' Overwhelmed in number, I was hoping to force a minotaur-esque beast on the opposing army to take a nap (and skip their turn) by using my rabbit swordsman to moon them. A rare balance of playfulness and genuine strategic depth, plucked from the margins of history.

Inkulinati yaza