Konkr is a turn-based strategy game by Michal Bureš.

Inspired by the brilliant simplicity of Sean O’Connor’s “Slay”, this game aspires to be a love letter to the concept of “easy to learn, hard to master”. It’s designed to be as simple, fast and intuitive to play as possible, but still provide a deeply strategic, almost chess-like experience, where every decision matters.

FAQ

When is the next update coming?

Hopefully soon 😉. This is a one-man hobby project, so I work on it when I have the spare time and motivation. You can join the discord server to chat and find out what I’m working on at the moment.

Multiplayer when?

Some kind of local or peer-to-peer multiplayer might be a thing in the not so far future, perhaps even a co-op campaign.

An online multiplayer against random players is not something I consider worth pursuing at the moment. I used to play kdice.com a lot back in the day, and it taught me that once you have multiple strangers around the table in a game like this, the game mechanics become largely irrelevant, and it just becomes a fairly toxic game of risk. All about politics, silent aliances, social dynamics and backstabbing. Which can be pretty engaging too I guess, but I don’t think I want to deal with that, plus there’s already enough games like this. If you still think that’s a shame, also consider how fun would it be to:

  • play this game without rewinds
  • wait for 5 other people to make their moves after every turn
  • have two rivals team up on you because they are friends in real life
  • have everyone rage quit on you the moment you start winning

Etc… You can tell I’m not a huge fan of the idea of competitive konkr multiplayer 🙂. Maybe at some point, but there’s a lot of other priorities that seem more appealing at the moment.

Is it open source? Can I contribute?

The game itself is currently not open source. What is open source:

Reach out to me if you’d like to contribute to the game! I would especially welcome any help from:

  • a sound designer
  • an artist, especially one with experience in UI design
  • a writer, to help me flesh out the AI chatter and overall lore and story of the game

But keep in mind this is not currently a for-profit project, so I can’t offer any compensation for your time.

Will it always remain free? How can I support the game?

The currently available features will always remain free on www.konkr.io.

At the moment, you can contribute by:

  • sending me a nice feedback message - that counts for more than you think!
  • spreading awareness about the game (tell your friends!)
  • donating on itch.io

I want to avoid ads or any of the predatory monetization practices that have become an unfortunate standard in the industry. As the game grows, I do eventually plan to support the development and maintenance of the game in two ways:

  • via a paid Steam release and/or mobile app
  • by locking some extra features or game modes behind a paid expansion pack

How was the game made?

The game itself is written in typescript, using version 3 of the Phaser game engine. It uses WebGL for rendering. It relies heavily on ImmutableJS for managing the game state, bringing together the benefits of immutability (great for the undo, rewind and replay features) and fast updates thanks to structural sharing.

Some favourite tools I use to enable smooth release, deployment, and maintenance of the game are:

Feel free to contact me on mike@konkr.io if you’d like to learn more!