It takes a lot to get me interested in anything tower-defensive these days, and I’m getting pretty grouchy about paper-based aesthetics, too, but “minimalist strategy game” Painted Kingdoms combines them to promising effect. It takes place in a living book, where each chapter is illustrated according to a different cultural heritage, extending from Europe to China.
As a roving general-hero, your job is to build a settlement by filling in the blank pages with your magic brush, giving rise to both fortifications and lovely wild spaces. Then, you must fight off waves of badniks who threaten to set the paper alight, reducing your pop-up terrain to ash.
