How Troopstorm works

The setting

Twenty years ago a rain of meteorites hit the continent of Varkan. Out of the craters came Aurium, a crystal that gives almost endless energy. The old countries fell apart, and the continent broke into territories held by rival armies, each fighting for every deposit.

You command the Free Legion: what is left of the old armies, volunteers and mercenaries who want Aurium to belong to everyone. Against you stands the Iron Dominion of General Kragov, a disciplined army that wants all of the crystal for itself. Both sides are drawn from the same box of toy soldiers: the Legion in olive green with orange bands, the Dominion in steel blue with red.

The loop

Your base is home. Every battle starts from it and comes back to it. Battles pay dollars; dollars raise your buildings and research new troops; a stronger base and better troops open harder bases on the map and more stars to win. Your commander level grows with experience from every fight and unlocks troops and cards along the way.

The battles

• Attack a base. On the war map you pick another commander's base. Skulls tell you how hard it is; the panel shows its defense, its garrison and the dollars to win. You choose up to six kinds of troops and a deck of cards, the convoy drives to the front, and you send your soldiers by hand, paying supplies for each. Destroy the headquarters to win; destroy every building before it for three stars.
• Survival. The siege: your base is attacked wave after wave, without end and ever harder. Twenty waves are written by hand, the rest follow a formula, and from wave 20 the Dominion sends its best troops under captains who rise in rank. Hold twenty waves and you earn dollars, once a day. Your best runs go on the leaderboard.
• Defend the base. Your base fights on its own: the barracks send their troops one by one and the headquarters sends scouts. You play the commander cards, which you earn from the enemies that fall. Weather and the hour of the day change the fight.
• Duel. In the Online world, a friendly fight between two friends, base against base, on a field that stretches between them. Eight minutes, with a score of wins, losses and draws.
• Live defense. When another commander attacks your base while you are in the game, an alarm rings. You can join the defense live, as it happens, with the cards and the crates of a defender.
• Surprise attacks. Once a day the Dominion may strike your base on its own. Answer the alarm, or let the base fight alone.

The troops

Ten kinds, researched at the Research center. Each needs its own barracks in the base, and up to six kinds come along on an attack.

• Rifleman: cheap, good in numbers, comes in a group of four.
• Machine gunner: slow and heavy, tears through infantry.
• Sniper: fires from far away, lying prone; his bullet goes through a line of soldiers.
• Grenadier: grenades over walls and sandbags, good against soldiers bunched together.
• RPG soldier: strong against vehicles and bunkers; his blast throws soldiers into the air.
• Medic: walks with the group and heals the wounded.
• Captain: the group's officer; the troops around him move faster and fight better.
• Special forces: three elite fighters with scoped carbines, short bursts, fast on their feet.
• Flamethrower: armored, with tanks on his back that burst when he falls; men on fire run from him.
• Gas trooper: a chemist whose poison spray lingers on the ground.

The commander cards

Cards cost no supplies. On defense you earn them from the enemies you bring down, at most three of a kind; on the attack you bring a deck. The ones that come by plane can be shot down by the enemy's flak gun.

• Rocket barrage: rockets on the spot you point at, breaking towers and bunkers before your troops get there.
• Rally point: a flag where your troops gather, then strike all at once. Plant it behind them and they fall back.
• Medkit: a green cross that heals the soldiers around it.
• Minefield: mines the enemy cannot see.
• Strike Team: paratroopers landed over walls, good against a maze base.
• Focus fire: every troop shoots at the building you point at.
• Heavy bomb: one big bomb from the air.
• Air strike: a plane's pass along a line of fire.
• Smoke grenade: a screen of smoke for ten seconds; nobody aims through it but the watchtower's sniper.
• Mobilize: in duels, a rally point for your whole army, garrison included, then one attack all at once.

The base

You place every building yourself, anywhere in your half of the field, turned as you like. Walls snap end to end; the enemy walks around them by any open path, however long, and breaks through the weakest one only if you close the base off completely.

• Headquarters: its level sets your build points and sends scouts to meet the enemy.
• Barracks: one per kind of troop, from the riflemen's barracks to the chemical depot. A barracks raised in level sends stronger troops, more often.
• Research center: new troops, the captain's ranks and each troop's look. The captain himself comes out of the headquarters, one at a time.
• Walls: wood at first, stone from level 5, concrete from 10, armored at 15. Plus sandbags, barbed wire and the Czech hedgehog.
• Bunker and Watchtower: they fire in front of them; the tower fires over walls.
• Flak gun: shoots down the rockets and planes sent into its zone.
• Artillery: a howitzer, a battery of mortars or a rocket launcher, switched for dollars.
• Decorations: lamps, poles and generators from the shop, for the look of it. A season dresses the whole base: winter, autumn, spring or desert.

Buildings take build points; upgrades take dollars. Tear down an upgraded building and every dollar put into it comes back.

The commander's road

Experience from battle raises your commander level, up to 50, through eleven ranks from recruit to Legend of the Front. Each level unlocks troops, cards or build points, and past level 20 every level pays dollars.

There are two currencies. Dollars come from battles and pay for buildings, upgrades and research. Gold is the rare one: it comes from missions, new stars on the map, siege records, ranks and medals, and it pays for the rarest research and for a boost before an attack.

The Online world

The game starts with a world on your device. The Online world is tied to an account, a name and a password, nothing more: your base, your money and your battles live on the server, so the same commander can play from any PC.

• Other commanders attack your base while you are away, and you attack theirs. Every battle that pays is replayed and checked on the server, so the result is the one that really happened.
• Leaderboards with trophies, leagues and seasons; the siege's records; your career.
• Friends, duels and an inbox for messages and gifts from the studio. There is no chat between players.
• Up to four separate worlds on one device, one of them the Online one.

Day, night and weather

Day and night follow the real clock. After dark a battle is fought at night and your base stands in the dark with its lamps lit; the sun rises and sets as it does in Romania, later in winter. The night deepens until midnight, stays darkest until five, then pales toward sunrise. A battle you start keeps your PC's hour; raids, sieges and duels set by the server keep Bucharest's.

The weather changes the battle's numbers, not only its look:

• Clear: full speed and range, real shadows and the clouds' shadows drifting over the field.
• Rain: infantry 15% slower, vehicles 30%. It grows as the battle goes on: the ground darkens, puddles fill the ruts, and a storm brings lightning.
• Fog: snipers and long guns lose 40% of their range, every other gun 10%.
• Snow: everyone 10% slower; snipers and long guns lose 20% of their range, the rest 5%.
• Night: nobody fires farther than 24 m, and enemies far from your soldiers and buildings show only as red silhouettes.

Where your base stands decides how often each comes: the Varkan Plains are mostly clear, the Eastern Marshes rain in half the battles, the Valley of Mists is foggy in half, and in the Frozen North it snows more often than not and never rains.

The controls

On a phone the same game will be played with one finger to move the camera, two to zoom, a tap to place and a long press for the names.

On your PC

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. About 114 MB to download, about 300 MB installed.
• Any graphics card or chip from the last ten years. Three quality levels, chosen on the first start: low for weak machines, medium for most laptops, high for the full look.
• English and Romanian, switched in Settings → Game → Language.
• The game saves as you play and updates itself.

Download for PC