Wargroove

Wargroove is what Chucklefish made when they decided to do a tactics game. If you’ve played anything else from them—Starbound, Stardew Valley, Risk of Rain—you know they have solid instincts about what makes a game work. This one’s no different.

It plays like Game Boy Advance-era Advance Wars—that’s the whole appeal. You move little armies around a grid, position units, manage resources, try to outthink what’s opposite you. If tactics are your thing, you already know you want to play this.

Four factions, different unit types and commanders, fifty-plus hours of campaign. But the map editor is where the real life happens. Build your own scenarios, share them, watch what the community does with the tools. That’s how things like this stay alive for years.

I’ve always liked games with pixel art that understands constraints instead of fighting them. Everything reads at a glance. The art serves the function. There’s something about the color palette and the animations that just works, even though it’s squares all the way down. It’s restraint. Most things aren’t doing that right now.

I went back and played Advance Wars again before this came out, the way you do. It still felt solid. Strategy doesn’t date the way action does. But it was good knowing someone had made something new in that space, actually cared about getting it right.