Shogun Showdown – General Guide

General Guide for New Players

By Misc. (Macerator).

Strategies

Aim to kill the ranged or dashing enemies with a single combo, as they are harder to kite and will often have their attack queued the same turn you kill the melee units in front of them.

Melee enemies can be consistently baited into attacks that you can dodge by staying in the furthest cell in range until they prepare to attack, then moving away. This allows you to use enemies as barriers for ranged or dashing enemies, as well as to push them backwards, as they retreat after missing.

Building a Deck

Most of your tiles should be working around one or two “main tiles” that can deal enough damage to kill the toughest enemies (5 in normal mode, 6 in hard mode). We can then sort tiles into different categories (a specific tile does not have a single category, though they work better in some):

  • Main Damage: Tiles that do most of the effective killing.
  • Secondary Damage: Tiles able to deal enough damage to kill the stronger enemies, though using several of them is required as they don’t deal as much damage as your main tiles.
  • Utility, Effects and Stalling: This category contains any tile that helps you wait while your main tiles are on cooldown.
  • Setup Tiles: These tiles’ purpose is to allow you to land your main damage more effectively.

Broken Build Setups

Some combinations of tiles flat out break the balance of the game as it currently is. Examples below:

  • Smoke Bomb with Free Play and 0-1 cooldown makes you invulnerable to ALL enemies (except on rare occation Spear-Guys).
  • A Shuriken with the Ice effect can “stun-lock” enemies, especially with a low cooldown <2.
  • A high damage Arrow with Double-Strike can “1-shot” most enemies in the arena.

FAQ

Are enemy spawn locations preset or randomized?

Enemy spawning positions are randomly generated, but the probability distribution on the grid is not uniform (for example, the probability for two enemies to spawn next to each other is lower than the probability that they will spawn further apart). So, in short it has randomness to it, but it is not just “completely random”.

How do Tiles that move you past an enemy interact with Backstab?

Tiles that would move you past an enemy (Shadow Dash, Smoke Bomb) count where the enemy is facing based on your starting possision for the purpose of Backstab or other directional effects.

Note: Currently bugged, and uses the destination you end at instead.

Terminology

  • Armory: Shows the tiles unlocked with meta-progression by the player. The player can then find, and add these tiles to their build during a run.
  • Build: The tiles a player has during a run.
  • Run: A single playthrough of the game, from start till win or loss.
  • Tile: The attacks and moves that the player uses in their queue.
    • Attack: A tile that damages enemies.
    • Movement: A tile that moves or flips the player.
  • Queue: The box above the player and enemies, showing their prepared tiles. The player’s queue can hold a maximum of 3 tiles. Adding a tile to the queue takes a turn, but rearranging or removing tiles does not.
  • Arena(?): The set of cells you are battling in, consisting of 5 to 9 cells based on Location.
    • Cell: Each cell can hold a single unit (player or enemy), as well as an infinite amount of features like traps. Unless using a tile, the player travels one cell when moving.
  • Location: A set of 3 Hours, followed by a Boss fight. Determines number of cells, boss, and background art.
  • Hour: A round of combat within a Run. Each hour has a certain number of Waves. After each hour, the player is given a Rewards Screen with a new tile or tile upgrade to add.
    • Wave: Enemies are added to the board for each wave.
  • Tile Upgrade: Modifications that improve or add new effects to attack tiles.
    • Effect: Tile upgrades that grant an extra mechanic (ex. poison, electric), shown by changing the tile’s color.
  • Boss Fight(?): After the last hour of each location is a boss fight.
  • Special Move: A character specific ability that is used when the player tries to move forwards when blocked by an enemy. (ex. Swap, Push)
  • Actions: Things that take a turn. Both the player and enemies follow these rules (unless noted otherwise). Keybindings for actions shown in the image below.
    • Queuing: Add an attack tile to the Queue. Done by clicking on a tile, or by clicking and dragging a tile to the queue.
    • Preparing: Enemy-only action where the attack queue blinks and shakes.
    • Execute: Perform all the actions in the attack queue, in order from bottom to top. Done by pressing the spacebar or right mouse button.
    • Move: Moving one cell left or right. Done by pressing A/D, the left or right arrow keys or up/down scroll wheel.
    • Flip: Turn to face the opposite direction. Done by pressing W, the up arrow key or middle mouse button.
    • Wait: Do nothing for a turn. Done by pressing S, the down arrow key or L/R mouse buttons simultaneously.

How to Play (Arena)

From the main menu, the player can access a practice Arena by selecting the “How to play” option. The player is then shown a series of informative message boxes, and is instructed to kill a dummy and 1-2 Tanks gradually throughout the tutorial.

  • To practice, the player can spawn up to 1 of each enemy unlimited times and up to 2 of each later on(while the player has normal tile cooldown). However once the player progresses past an enemy set, it can no longer be spawned.
  • In the beginning of the tutorial arena, player tiles refresh automatically regardless of their cooldown.
  • The player is always healed when dropping below 6 health.
Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 1251 Articles
Volodymyr Azimoff has been passionate about video games for many years, and over the past decades he has managed to turn his main hobby of life into a profession. It is important to note that this is not the first successful project for Volodymyr. Right now he is the owner of several other sites on gaming topics. Surprisingly, this workaholic finds free time for his family, playing games on his favorite consoles and watching TV series.

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