Auto Necrochess - TV Tropes

After struggling to live with no job, a girl becomes a necromancer and tries to overthrow the King.

Auto Necrochess is a strategy auto battler created by Stopsignal, akin to other auto-battler titles like Super Auto Pets. You have to deploy units of undead in 3 lanes to send them into battle against the king's troops, with the goal of not just fighting them off and defending yourself from their units, but to get your troops to advance to the king's castle to damage it enough to get the king on the battlefield so you can eliminate him for good. You can not only spend coins to get more units, but to reroll the selection of units you can buy, or freeze individual units to buy on later rounds. As you progress through waves, you are able to roll higher tier units and items, going from Tier 1 to 4. However, enemies will also get stronger as turns pass, giving you the option of trying to rush through the waves to get to the king faster, or to stall and get more resources for a much more solid build. The game expects plenty of repeated plays to handle the randomized distribution of enemies and figuring out synergies between your own units.

The game was released on March 2023 as a browser game, and can be played on both itch.io and Newgrounds, although the game also has an .apk file to be playable on Android devices.

Auto Necrochess provides examples of:

• Adipose Rex: The king is notably fat, signifying the negative impact of his rule through implications of gluttony on top of his hoarded wealth.
• Aggressive Play Incentive: The King's stats always increase in HP every turn, and in strength every few turns, so the mechanic encourages you to burst down the castle's HP in order to deal with a weaker king, but you can ignore this to set up longer for a better array of minions, at the cost of facing against a stronger King.
• All or Nothing: The final battle against the King is described as this. Either you kill him and win the game, or you fail to kill him and he instantly defeats you.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: The King is oppressing his people with high taxes and harsher living, and his minions enforce his rule. Notably in the Game Over, it is stated that the victory feast from your loss is paid off with higher taxes on the populace.
• Asteroids Monster: Your Skull units can summon weaker versions of themselves on death.
• Barrage of Bats: The Bat Curse book can be used to cast bats on a chosen enemy in battle to damage them every step they take for a while. They can also disarm enemies of items they equip via replacing said equipment with themselves entirely.
• Big Bad: The King, whose rule has led to oppressive taxes and motivating the protagonist to end them. Killing him is the game's main objective.
• Changing Gameplay Priorities: Having higher numbers of undead units, whether by placed undead or by units summoned by other units, is more ideal for handling the increasing amount of enemies appearing and getting the castle's health to deplete quickly. After enough turns, stronger enemy units will arrive and make it more necessary to have stronger individual units as the enemies also run out of space to add more units, so quality begins to shine over quantity.
• Counter-Attack: Royalists are Tier 2 enemies that throw a bottle to damage your front-most unit if hit by a ranged attack.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The protagonist is using necromancy and summoning typical unholy beings like skeletons and succubi for the well-intentioned task of usurping the evil king, and this is portrayed as a completely good thing as a successful run shows those very skeletons giving money back to the poor citizens as the latter cheers without fear toward their undead heroes. Even if the witch herself ends up becoming undead as well.
• Dem Bones: A vast majority of your units are skeletons.
• Developer's Foresight: If you lose all health after eliminating the king, it is treated as a Mutual Kill and as such, the ending changes slightly to depict the necromancer being undead as her victory over the king is displayed, with her companion skull looking at her worryingly. The text accompanying the victory screen also changes to say "The Witch Won?" to lampshade the circumstances.
• Enemy Exchange Program: The Succubus can convert an enemy unit to your side with each attack, letting it turn the enemy units in front against the mooks behind them. The only enemies immune to this are the Princes and the King himself.
• Enemy Strength Groupings: Every time you go up a tier and access new units, new enemies are thrown into the battlefield that you have to contend with, gradually replacing weaker ones. Supporters are the only Tier 1 enemy, Snitches and Royalists are Tier 2 enemies, Guards are Tier 3 enemies, and the final Tier consists of Knights, Archers, and APCs. On the boss wave with the King himself are two 6/10 Princes with shields.
• Enemy Summoner: Snitches and APCs are able to summon more enemy units on death, the former summoning two 1/1 Idiots and the latter summoning two 3/3 Guards.
• The Evil Prince: Two princes who are the king's sons and stated to be assholes like him are the mini-bosses that accompany their father in the final battle on the top and bottom lane.
• Excuse Plot: The king's rule is unbearable to live in for the Player Character, so she becomes a necromancer witch to gather undead to siege his castle and eliminate the king.
• Fusion Dance: The main upgrade method for all of your units and spellbooks. Merging two Level 1 units makes a Level 2 unit and merging two Level 2 units creates a Level 3 unit.
• Gameplay Automation: As expected from an auto battler, the units themselves advance and fight automatically with no direct control over them at all. However, given that the game is entirely PvE, you do get an option to use spells to influence the battle as it progresses using spellbooks, though they can only be active at the front of each lane during set up.
• Gathering Steam: The Pigman gets higher stats every few steps, making it stronger the farther along it is on the battlefield. The Big-Boned skeleton temporarily gains higher attack during battles, getting stronger with every attack to the point where it can instantly take out any unit in one blow, letting it thrive off support that enables it to get more attacks in to optimize its potential.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: The Wizard and Excalibur units gain these when fully upgraded.
• The Goomba: The Supporter, a unit with 1 attack and 2 health, and mockingly called a bootlicker, and the first enemy type you deal with, and the only one before reaching the next tier.
• Heavily Armored Mook: The Knight is an enemy with not just the most health out of all normal enemies, but also has an equipped shield to reduce incoming damage. A Bat Curse on them will disarm their shield, however.
• Increasingly Lethal Enemy: The King gradually gains more health and attack as the turns increment before you begin the final battle against him by depleting his castle's health, so the longer you take to bring down the castle, the harder the final battle will be.
• Just Like Robin Hood: The motive of the witch in her attempt to remove the King's authority by force, and in the ending, taking his riches and food and giving much of it back to the needy citizens so the city can thrive again.
• Keystone Army: Technically, you are the only thing that keeps your army standing: no matter how many soldiers you still have, losing your last hitpoints ends the game and defeats them all. Loosing one crucial support unit in a lane can also result in all your others soldier's being crippled to the point they no longer stand a chance. The King's army also counts in the final battle : defeat the King before he destroys you, and even if his other soldiers manage to kill the witch later in the battle, it's considered a partial win.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Shields can be equipped to a unit to make them take 2 less damage from all attacks, though it doesn't enable units to No-Sell attacks, always taking 1 damage at most. Enemy Knights also carry a shield, letting them shrug off weaker enemies.
• Magic Cauldron: On top of being used by the witch aesthetically, it is used for rerolling your selection of units to buy.
• Magikarp Power: The Excalibur unit is a Tier 3 skeleton that uniquely gains doubled attack with each level-up instead of just +1, so if built up properly with items or units that grant permanent attack boosts, an Excalibur can double all of that up to twice, giving it potential to instantly kill any enemy from the get-go.
• Marvelous Milk: Milk is a consumable item you can buy to permanently boost the attack and health of any unit. The normal version gives +1/+1 to any unit, the large version at Tier 4 gives +2/+2 for any unit instead.
• Max-Level Bonus: Whenever you fully upgrade any unit or book, you will get an option to buy an extra unit, which is always a tier above your current one unless you're already at the maximum tier, so creating a Level 3 unit at Tier 2 will give you the option to buy a random Tier 3 unit, for example.
• The Medic: The Nurse is able to heal the unit in front whenever it gets hurt.
• Necromancer: The main protagonist herself, becoming one in order to create an undead army for overthrowing the corrupt king, as she believes that "necromancy is the only way to overthrow the establishment."
• One-Hit Kill: The King will cause an instant loss if he reaches your side regardless of the amount of health you have, where everyone else takes away only one heart.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The Milkman unit and Ratling summons have a skull icon in place of a normal health, indicating that they cannot gain extra health and will die after taking damage from any enemy. However, a Blessing can prevent their early demise.
• Orcus on His Throne: The king sits in his castle until you've depleted its health, at which point he comes out to fight you. This is despite the fact that he could defeat you on turn 1 by simply… going out and reaching your end of the board. Downplayed in that the King progressively gets more powerful, so one might infer that perhaps he could'nt insta-kill you by then.
• Our Kobolds Are Different: The Kobold is a Tier 4 unit that happens to be a Lizard Folk armed with a rifle to shoot the weakest enemy in its lane every few steps.
• The Power of Rock: Rockers are guitar-thrashing skeletons that bless any summoned unit in battle to make it invulnerable to the next hit they take. Blessing also increases the unit's next attack's power by one, except at level 3, where the attack power is doubled for the next attack!
• Production Throwback: Several units are a reference to the developer's older games. The Pigman unit is a nod to Trail of Pigs while the gun-wielding Kobold unit is a nod to Kobold Siege. The Imps are similar to the one that also appeared in the latter game, as well as an earlier one. Finally Auto Necrochess reuses the same soundtrack as one of Stopsignal's previous games: Manorvania, where you'd also fight an army of reanimated skeletons.
• Single-Use Shield: The Blessing spell will make a chosen unit take no damage from the next attack regardless of its power, and if the spell is fully upgraded, inflict doubl damage for one attack as well.
• Spell Levels: The spellbooks can be upgraded just like your normal battle units can, gaining extra perks when fully upgraded as well.
• Splash Damage: The Assassin is able to attack enemies if behind another attacking unit, and if upgraded, can hit multiple enemies at once with each ranged attack, though less damage is done to enemies farther back, enabling it to finish off weak enemies before they get any hits in themselves.
• Stone Wall: Vikings not only have low attack, but notably reset their attack every time they upgrade, averting the usual attack bonus gained from leveling up, but gain more HP with each upgrade. They still can benefit from buffs in-battle, giving it the potential to subvert this with proper support.
• Succubi and Incubi: You can summon Succubi as Tier 4 units that convert enemies to their side on hit. They gain a Single-Use Shield on first upgrade, and a maxed Succubus can charm 2 units at a time.
• Summon Magic: It is not only the nature of your necromancy magic, but the Bone Book provides a spell that lets you summon normal skeletons in the middle of battle. If the Bone Book is maxed out, it will summon Summoners instead, which summon Imp Devils themselves when they die.
• Support Party Member: Several units are there for support only, while some others can deal some damage as well.
  • The Blacksmith and Farmer will grant a permanent stat increase to the unit behind them between each turn, giving extra attack and health respectively. Unlike the following examples, they don't actually accompany you to battle.
  • Nurses will "healpunch" the unit at the front line for a limited numer of times, increasing their durability.
  • The Milkman gives extra stats to the unit behind it when killed in battle (and a Shield if fully upgraded).
  • The Bard and Rocker empower units summoned directly in battle.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: In a way. Certain units or unit configurations are especially effective at countering certain others.
  • Ranged units like the stoner, archer and kobold are good at thinning enemy ranks before you get in melee range, saving you some health; Stoners in particular are excellent at taking down snitches before they're a problem. However, they're weak against Royalists as their Riposte is triggered by ranged attacks, but not melee attacks.
  • Your Glass Cannon-like units are excellent against high health and/or high defence ennemies, but efficiently countered by barrages of weak units, who will deal some damage and against which the high attack value is wasted.
  • Flunky units are excellent against ordinary ennemies up to Castle guards, but tend to drop in efficiency against knights and castle archers. However, a Rocker's buff makes them viable again, and with a Bard's added buff they beacome fearsome agaisnt APCs.
• Vanilla Unit: The normal Skeleton, which has no battle abilities at all, but does give coins when upgraded, which is still valuable for the purpose of getting more units overall.
• Witch Classic: The main character herself, with purple Robe and Wizard Hat attire, a floating skull for a Familiar, and a Magic Cauldron to summon the undead.
• Worker Unit: The Mausoleum has no battle abilities but adds extra coins to your reserve between turns, which lets you buy more units or reroll more times, which can be vital given that there is no other passive way to increase money between turns. Farmers and Blacksmiths also don't fight but increase your units health and damage respectively.

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