Chronic Logic has developed a reputation as one of the best "indie" developers in the field--among other things, they created Bridge Construction Set and Gish. In Kingdom Elemental, they return with a very different game: a tense, nicely polished game of tactical fantasy combat.
Before a 'round' starts, you purchase units--initially, you can choose from swordsmen and archers, but many other units get unlocked in later rounds. You place them on the map, and enemy units emerge (in a number of "waves" of attack). Combat is real-time, but pausable--and you will, in fact, be pausing frequently to order your units to move, or to use special powers (such as "taunt" for swordsmen, useful in preventing enemies from moving past to attack your more vulnerable archers, or "heal" for clerics).
At the end of each round, you're given the ability to unlock new units or powers for already unlocked units, so there's an RPG-like sense of progression. Naturally, you're faced with tougher enemies as the game goes on.
Each round takes just a few minutes to play, so in principle you can knock off a number during your lunch hour--but there's a strong temptation to play just one more round--and a edge-of-the-seat tenseness when your units get into trouble, as they will.
From our persepctive, one of the reasons we like indie games is that they're often quite different from what you find at Gamestop--more innovative and more creative. The downside is that they're often a lot rougher, too--not as balanced as you'd like, sometimes with awkward UI. That's not the case here: the developers have clearly spent quite a lot of time fine-tuning the game for just the right level of challenge (but play it on easy your first time!), and the UI is exceptionally easy to pick up and learn. Kingdom Elemental is an easy game to like.
