Arcana Siege

A road on top, a match-3 board below. Every tile colour fires a tower.

The Arcana are marching on the gate. You never place a tower; you fire them. Match red to blast the pack with the Fire tower, blue to slow the whole road with the Tide, grey to strike the enemy closest to the gate with the Blade, green to repair the gate. The colour picks the tower, the size picks the strength, and cascades multiply it. The board never runs out of moves, and the road runs on them: every move lets the enemies march a step closer, and while you think they only creep. Want no pressure at all? Turn on Calm mode.

Read the road, then the board

• Brutes wear armour that turns fire aside: switch to the Blade.
• Shieldbearers block the first hit, whatever its size: splash them open.
• Acolytes heal everything around them: strike them first.
• Broodmothers burst into Imps where they fall: kill them early.

Build your run

After every wave, draft one of three upgrade cards. Fill the Moon to call your ultimate. Special tiles become tower moves: a line clearer fires at every enemy on the road, the Wheel stuns them, the Star rains down.

Walk the Fool's journey

Twelve sieges across four realms, the Greenwood, the Sunscorched Road, the Moonlit Marsh and the Frozen Summit, each with a new enemy and a champion or one of the Arcana at its end: the Devil, the Tower, Death and Judgement. Gold from every siege, won or lost, buys permanent tower levels. A daily siege gives everyone the same board and modifier.

A run takes about five minutes. Best on a phone, in portrait; it also plays with a mouse.

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About this project. Arcana Siege is a design portfolio piece by Umut Eren Demirci. Every number was tuned by bots that play the real rules; the design documents (GDD, flowcharts, balance workbook, ad test and KPI plan) are at umuterendemirci.github.io. Built in Unity with an AI coding assistant (Claude): I designed the game, set the rules and tuning, and play-tested every build phase.

Credits. All characters, scenery and synthesized sounds are made in code for this game. Music (CC0, OpenGameArt): "Town Theme RPG" and "Battle Theme A" by cynicmusic, "A Legend Will Rise" by CodeManu, "Determined Pursuit" by Emma_MA, "Col Legno" by Vehicle, "Epic Boss Battle" by Juhani Junkala. Sound effects and effect textures (CC0) by Kenney.