There Will Be Ink (v1.0.0.3)

Notebook-paper battlefields turn classroom doodles into scrappy tactical wars where stick soldiers trade rifle fire, rockets, and absurd superweapons among hand-drawn trees and craters. There Will Be Ink mixes the immediacy of a run-and-gun action game with the caution of a small-scale strategy game, asking players to think before sending units into open ground. Its deliberately rough pencil-and-ink presentation gives every fight a playful homemade charm, even when rain, smoke, and exploding buildings make the situation genuinely tense. The tone is funny and chaotic, but the standard campaigns demand patience rather than reckless heroics.

Players can directly possess any allied soldier on the field, shifting between rifle troops, snipers, medics, engineers, machine gunners, RPG specialists, and increasingly ridiculous unlocks such as jetpack-equipped laser units and flamethrowers. Cover matters: rocks, sandbags, trees, wreckage, and fresh shell holes all help soldiers survive, while rivers and changing weather can complicate movement and accuracy. Three campaigns provide 56 missions, and losses still award training credits that improve the army for later attempts, making difficult stages less punishing than they first appear. Anyone who prefers immediate shooting over careful positioning can select Arcade Mode, while local battles for up to eight people and Steam Remote Play Together support co-op or competitive sessions.

Replayability goes well beyond the authored missions thanks to adjustable random skirmishes, a campaign creator that builds escalating mission chains, and an editor for designing custom battlefields. The visual style is intentionally crude rather than polished, yet its enormous collection of enthusiastic drawings suits a game where a jetpack T-Rex can suddenly become part of a military operation. It feels like a lighter, more hands-on cousin to real-time tactics games such as Cannon Fodder, with a dash of stick-figure sandbox silliness. Tactical veterans will appreciate the positioning demands, while newcomers have a friendlier route through Arcade Mode and the flexible custom options.