Highborn: A Rollicking Good Time

Turn-based strategy games hold a love/hate spot in my heart. When they’re great, I can easily lose myself in them for hours, days, or even weeks; and when they’re terrible, well, I regret it immediately. Highborn HD (and its little iPhone brother, Highborn) from Jet Set Games was thankfully in the former camp. From the moment I started playing, I was all in. Working my way through the first chapter, I easily spent several weeks playing and replaying the individual missions.

I originally bought Highborn HD several years ago for my iPad because I kept seeing it consistently top the purchase charts. The premise sounded entertaining, and the screenshots showed character.

Your first mission is essentially a tutorial (with all the requisite tutorial text). It introduces the Hero units (there are three: a knight, a rogue, and a wizard), the other pawn units, typical map objectives, and basic play style. What set the tutorial apart immediately from other games of this type was the self-deprecating humor in the writing. There were fun references to other games and pop culture, written in a way that acknowledges that no one WANTS to read the text so much as they want to play the game.

Each mission introduces new elements of strategy and complexity until by the end, you’re faced with a seemingly impossible task but feel equipped to handle it. I’ve only played the first chapter through in its entirety, but I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for a great game for the iPhone or iPad (and presumably Android).

The single player campaign is easily worth the price of admission for this game, but for those who love to show off their skills against other real people, there’s also a multiplayer mode. I haven’t actually used that, though, as none of my friends have the game yet (and I don’t particularly gaming with strangers). Maybe once I convince a few others in the office to pick it up, that will change.

When I originally bought the game, there was only one chapter and it was only available for iPhone and iPad. I’m excited to see that they’ve since added two more chapters, and also ported it to Steam for PC and Mac. Be sure to check out Highborn from Jet Set Games today!