Ship of Fools developer reveals a new turn-based strategy game, Don’t Kill Them All

Ship of Fools developer Finka games has announced its next title, Don’t Kill Them All, today alongside a Kickstarter campaign for the project.

Don’t Kill Them All is a turn-based strategy game with town-building elements thrown into the mix between major combat bouts. In it, you play as a counselor of sorts who aims to help a Clan or orcs better themselves by teaching them not to destroy everything in their path literally. It’s a bold plan, but one that will see the clan prosper if you can pair it with the powerful buff-providing buildings that can be built in their settlement.

Save Orcs from their own destructive nature and help them master their Passions in Don’t Kill Them All

The core gameplay in Don’t Kill Them All revolves around building up a single settlement and gaining resources for it from combat encounters. You explore the world one tile at a time and must fight whatever’s there, but recruit or preserve those you find to gather the most materials.

More supplies mean more bits and pieces to build with, and you can quickly advance your settlement and grow it into something no Orc could ever dream of without guidance. The gameplay loop continues like this as you chase bigger upgrades for the settlement and Orcs themselves, battling bigger and badder enemies as you uncover every inch of the world.

The spark that motivates you in Don’t Kill Them All is money—or possessions and resources, at the very least. You see, Orcs are fantastic at killing each other and committing all sorts of violence as they roam the world. The trouble is, this leaves them with nothing. They don’t even have food to help sustain themselves because they’ve burned it all in their raids.

This is where you come in. You can stop the Orcs from being too violent, helping them save some essential resources from every battle as they explore the world. These resources are your rewards from turn-based combat encounters in which Orcs utilize their violent nature for the betterment of their society.

Don’t think you can change generations of built-in Orc grumpiness overnight, though. Your Orcs all have Moods that must be maintained and improved for the best results in combat and while building.

As you gain resources and build up the settlement, you’ll see Orc Passions emerge. These are specializations for certain Orcs you can invest in to upgrade, helping your followers perform better in combat or at home while you’re away. For example, Baking allows Orcs to heal each other, even from death, and Gardening protects more resources in battle.

The artwork in Don’t Kill Them All resembles the developer’s last title, Ship of Fools, which is a great thing as far as I’m concerned. The team explains how they designed the Orcs first and built upon their messy yet perfect looks, which you can really see in the trailer.

At the time of writing, Finka Productions is looking for CAD$100,000/£58,292 to hit its goal on Kickstarter and fully fund Don’t Kill Them All. Of course, there are a variety of Pledges to choose from, with rewards that range from getting access to the game’s Discord server and being able to play the Closed Beta build to a Backer-exclusive physical edition, a plushie, and even the power to design your own Passion for the Orcs.

I think this campaign is quite interesting because it has stretch goals based on “achievements” being met. These aren’t a certain amount of cash raised, though. Instead, they’re Backer and follower numbers across social media. In a day and age when marketing is so important for indie games like Don’t Kill Them All, it feels like a good move to base additional features in your game on the growth of its following.