About the creator

From a gamer, for gamers

My name is Mikołaj Ślęzak and I have been playing games since I was seven. Powder & Crown is the game I have wanted to make since I was a child: the idea has been growing in me for almost 20 years.

At a glance

Creator: Mikołaj Ślęzak
Studio: a solo studio in Poland
Gaming: since the age of 7
The idea: almost 20 years in the making
A tribute to: Knights and Merchants, Command & Conquer and other RTS games

I. A childhood dream

The game I wanted to make as a kid

I have been playing games since I was seven, and from the start strategy games pulled me in the most. I played all kinds of them, from building settlements to great battles.

Powder & Crown is really an idea that has been growing in me for almost 20 years, and the fulfilment of a childhood dream: to create a game of my own.

It is a game from a gamer, for gamers. I am making it the way I would want to play it myself.

II. A tribute to the classics

Two games where it all began

As a real-time strategy game, Powder & Crown is above all a tribute to two titles that shaped me as a player.

In-game screenshot: a Coalition column marching in twos over a wooden bridge and down a willow-lined dirt road past a village with an orchard in bloom, with woods on both banks of the river — Plate I Spring in the Crown. The village goes about its own life while a Coalition column marches past.

The first tribute

Knights and Merchants

I took two things from it. The first is the squads: line infantry fights in squads of 12, drawn up four by three.

The second is a living world with its own inhabitants. The blacksmith works at his forge, merchants stand at their stalls, children run between the cottages, and out in the fields, depending on the season, the reapers or a ploughman with his ox are at work. When a battle starts near the village, people hide in their houses and the animals scatter.

In-game screenshot with the interface: a Coalition camp with tents, barracks, stables and a mint, saltpetre wagons on the road and troops at the rally point, with the production queues, the minimap and the Salvo bar — Plate II A skirmish between the Coalition and the Diktat: the camp, saltpetre wagons, the production queues and the minimap.

The second tribute

Command & Conquer

In Poland I only got to know the series, sadly, from Command & Conquer: Generals onwards. After that I played every game in the series and finished each one several times, on many difficulty levels.

That is where the nods to it come from: a tribute in the game’s intro, and then in the way you build your base and in the pace of the fighting.

And others

A tribute to other RTS series too

Among other real-time strategy games, I also pay tribute to these series:

Rise of Nations
Age of Empires
The Battle for Middle-earth I and II

Knights and Merchants, Command & Conquer, Rise of Nations, Age of Empires and The Battle for Middle-earth are trademarks of their respective owners. Powder & Crown is not affiliated with them.

III. History

As close to the sources as I can get

I have loved history since I was a child, so I got to know the period of the game closely: the year 1764 and the end of the Saxon era. I also dug into the story of the Wettins, the kings from Saxony, whom propaganda and the later “black legend” of the Saxon era painted in the darkest colours.

I have tried, and will keep trying, to make the game as authentic as possible. The game itself has a Chronicle: more than 100 entries on armies, weapons, people and places, with sources.

That is why, dear players, for now you have an arcade mode on phones, while on PC and macOS you will get a realistic mode: much bigger maps, larger squads and rules of combat drawn from the sources of the age.

About the realistic mode

IV. A game that exercises the mind

Strategy for younger and older players

With the phone version, I care about more than entertainment.

Younger players

I would like the game to build strategic thinking in younger players: planning a few steps ahead, reading the opponent’s moves and making sensible use of what you have.
Older players

I would also like it to help older people. Research suggests that strategy games can exercise the mind: in a 2008 study, older adults who played a real-time strategy game for about 23 hours improved in working memory, task switching and reasoning, among other things.
The study by Basak et al. (2008)

Free demo · in your browser

Take the field today

The tutorial and skirmishes between the Coalition and the Diktat, at three difficulty levels. The demo runs right here in your browser, on a computer or a phone: no sign-up, no install and no ads.

Start the demo What’s in the demo and how to play

About 20 MB to download before the first battle. Your saved battle stays in this browser.