SAAM Tactics is a turn-based strategy game about catching creatures, raising them, and using them to claim a map made of hexagons.

You begin with one tile and a fairy who shows you what to do. Everything after that is up to you.

What you do

Look at the map and pick a tile to visit. Catch the creatures living there with a net. Bring them home to your ranch. Feed them, groom them, let them rest. Grooming gives you materials. Materials let you craft better nets and tools. Train your creatures to make them stronger. Send three of them into a battle for a neighboring tile. Win, and that tile is yours. Then pick the next one.

The creatures

There are 243 to find. Every one belongs to one of ten elements and takes the shape of one of nine animals, so a fire cat and a water cat are different creatures with different strengths.

Catching them takes the right net, and nets are made from the creatures you already have. That means the collection grows outward step by step, and you always know what to go looking for next.

Battles

Battles are turn-based, three creatures against three. Nothing happens until you decide what to do, so there is no reaction speed involved and no timer running.

Each creature has an element, and elements beat each other in a circle — water puts out fire, and so on. Choosing the right creature for the fight matters more than being quick.

If you would rather not fight, the game will do it for you. Switch on auto-battle and watch, speed it up, or skip ahead to the result.

The ranch

Your ranch is where the creatures live between trips out.

Grooming is hands-on and simple. Brush the fluffy ones, chisel the flaky ones, press the squishy ones. Each gives you a different material. Breeding happens on the pastures. Put two creatures together and you get an egg. Nest it and wait to see what hatches. Work keeps the rest of them busy. Hand a creature a pickaxe, a hatchet or a bucket and send it out to gather wood, water or stone. Training takes place at five training grounds, one for each ability.

Three ways to play

Relaxed — No opponents and no clock. Nothing attacks you, nothing is on a timer. Ranch, catch and claim at whatever pace suits you. Restore the World — The world is split in two and out of balance. Pick a side, push the border back to the middle, and hold it there. Conquer the World — Rival factions are after the same map you are. Claim more than they do, or push them off it entirely.

There are four difficulty levels, starting at Easy, and you unlock the next one by winning. The game only gets harder once you are ready for it.

If you have never played a game like this

That is who it was made for.

A guided introduction walks you through the first hour, one step at a time. Turn it off whenever you like, or turn it back on later. Every term the game uses is explained in an encyclopedia you can open at any time. Relaxed mode has no opponents at all, so nothing can go wrong while you are learning. Auto-battle will play the fights for you until you feel like playing them yourself. You can save at any moment, in any of three slots, and pause on any screen.

Details

Single-player and fully offline. Nothing to log into and nothing to sign up for. Mouse and keyboard. There is no game-pad support. Eleven languages, each a complete translation. Colorblind-safe colors with a distinct symbol for every element, adjustable text size and text speed, and a reduce-motion option. Runs on an ordinary computer — integrated graphics and 4 GB of memory are enough.