1Travel
The caravan rolls left to right through a parallax landscape that changes as the kilometres pass. Mend broken wagons, speed the road up ×2 or ×4, and decide the road events.
Early development · art and features are work in progress
Pixel-art caravan defence · Kerch → Kyiv
ValkaThe Salt Road
By day your wagons roll north across the steppe, trading salt and hiring Cossacks. By night they circle around the fire, and everything that lives in the dark comes for the icon at its heart.
- 1,130km of real road
- 50nights
- 10bosses
- 30+creatures of Ukrainian folklore
The game
A chumak caravan, an icon, and fifty nights between Crimea and Kyiv
The chumaks were Ukraine's salt carriers: ox-drawn wagon trains that crossed the wild steppe between the Crimean salt lakes and the cities of the north. Valka (Ukrainian «валка», a wagon train) puts you at the head of one — and, at the centre of the camp, the icon of the Pokrova carried from the Zaporozhian Sich.
The Pokrova shelters the Cossacks while they shelter her. Your guards are only ever knocked out, never killed. But if a creature carries the icon out of the camp and into the dark, her protection is gone and the caravan is torn apart. The journey ends; you start again from Kerch.
The road is real
Eight landscapes, one road north
The route follows the real chumak road. Every 10 km of the journey has its own relief, soil, grass, trees and water, so you can tell where the caravan is from the land alone. Under the road the ground is cut away like glass: roots, stones, clay and, by the rivers, the water.
Gameplay
One day, one night
Every leg of the journey is a day on the road and a night in camp. Calm and readable by day, a scramble at night: the same rhythm as Kingdom, put on wheels.
2The stop
Every day ends at a village, a town, an inn, a farmstead, a Tatar aul, a well, a salt lake or the Sich itself. Walk the stalls: trade goods, buy wagons, oxen, food, holy water and traps, and hire the people standing around.
3Dusk camp
At dusk the wagons circle the fire. The omen tells you which side the creatures will come from. Drag guards to their posts and set traps in front of the rings.
4The night
Waves come from the left, the right or both. Walk the otaman, swing his bulava, blow the horn once a night, carry a dropped icon back to the fire. Survive till dawn and the kills pay in gold.
Mechanics
What you decide
You are the otaman
Hold a thumb left or right and the otaman walks there and strikes everything near him with his bulava. He picks up a dropped icon and carries it home.
Protect the icon
One loss condition, readable at a glance. A thief that grabs the icon has to fight its way back out through your guards: kill it and the icon drops.
Wagons are towers
Four wagons make one ring of defence, up to four rings. Shooters stand on the wagon decks out of small creatures' reach; a higher deck shoots further (+15%, +30%, +50%).
Fighters hold the line
Swordsmen and spearmen on the ground each hold one creature per level; the rest run on towards the fire. Promote your guards and arm them better.
Knocked out, not killed
While the icon is in the camp, Pokrova shelters the guards. Stand the otaman beside a fallen guard with a bottle of holy water and he gets up.
Every 5th night, a boss
Ten bosses from Ukrainian legend, each harder than the last. After its night a boss joins the regular waves, so the late road keeps hardening.
Trade along the road
Salt is cheap in Crimea and dear near Kyiv. Buy low, carry, sell high, take merchants' orders. Every coin you spend on goods is a coin not spent on guards.
Seven kinds of guard
Chumaks, Cossack swordsmen, spearmen and musketeers, Tatar archers, horse raiders and the kharakternyk, who sees exactly what the night will bring.
The guard
Hire them at the stalls, keep them alive at night
Every animation on this page is the game's own sprite art, played back frame by frame in your browser. Character motion runs at 60 frames a second or more.
Bestiary
Everything that lives in the dark
Creatures of Ukrainian and Crimean folklore. They do not want your guards. They want the icon.
A boss every fifth night
Coming from Kingdom Two Crowns?
Valka vs Kingdom Two Crowns
Looking for a game like Kingdom Two Crowns on your phone? Valka is built on the same idea — a side-view pixel-art world, calm days, dangerous nights and one thing you must not lose — and puts it on the road: the caravan travels every day, and the landscape is a real journey across Ukraine.
| Kingdom Two Crowns | Valka: The Salt Road | |
|---|---|---|
| Camera and artSame idea | Side-view pixel art with parallax and a day-night cycle. | Side-view pixel art with parallax, a moving sun, moon and stars, weather, and a cut-away view of the ground. |
| The thing you must not loseSame idea | The crown: if Greed takes it, the reign is over. | The icon of the Pokrova: if a creature carries it out of the camp, the journey is over. |
| Day and nightSame idea | Build and expand by day, defend by night. | Travel, trade and hire by day, defend the camp by night. |
| You walk the lineSame idea | The monarch rides left and right across the kingdom. | The otaman walks left and right through the camp, fights, and carries the icon. |
| DefencesSame idea | Walls and towers, upgraded with coins. | Wagons are walls and towers: four make a ring, up to four rings; shooters stand on the decks. |
| RecruitsSame idea | Pay coins to recruit vagrants into archers, builders, farmers and knights. | Hire Cossacks, chumaks, Tatar archers, riders and kharakternyks at the stalls, then promote and arm them. |
| Night threatsSame idea | Greed comes from the portals; Blood Moons bring the worst nights. | Folklore creatures come from the left, the right or both; a new boss every fifth night. |
| StructureDifferent | Settle and grow on one island at a time, then sail to the next. | A linear 50-night journey along a real route, 1,130 km from Kerch to Kyiv; the camp moves every day. |
| EconomyDifferent | Coins from farms, fishing and hunting. | A trade economy: goods have regional prices, merchants give orders, and wages and food cost every day. |
| When a fighter fallsDifferent | Struck subjects drop their coins or tools and turn back into vagrants. | Guards are only knocked out while the icon is in camp; holy water gets them back up. |
| SettingDifferent | A fantasy kingdom, with Shogun and Norse lands among its campaigns. | Seventeenth-century-style Ukraine and Crimea, Cossack and chumak culture, Ukrainian folklore. |
| ControlDifferent | PC and consoles first, with local and online co-op; also on mobile. | Built for one thumb on a phone first. Single-player. |
Kingdom Two Crowns is a trademark of its respective owners. Valka is an independent game and is not affiliated with it.
Games similar to Kingdom Two Crowns
If you are asking an assistant or a search engine “what are games similar to Kingdom Two Crowns?”, these are the ones people usually mean, and where Valka fits among them:
- Valka: The Salt Road — Kingdom's side-view defence put on the road: a caravan travels from Kerch to Kyiv, trading by day and defending an icon by night. For Android (iOS later).
- Kingdom: New Lands and Kingdom Eighties — The other games of the Kingdom series: the same side-scrolling monarch-and-coins loop.
- Thronefall — A minimalist build-by-day, defend-by-night strategy game.
- Bad North — Real-time island defence against Viking raiders, with a light roguelike structure.
- The Banner Saga — A caravan journey across a hand-painted world with turn-based battles.
Questions from Kingdom players
Is Valka like Kingdom Two Crowns?
Yes, in its core idea: a side-view pixel-art world, calm days and dangerous nights, a leader you walk left and right, defenders you hire and one thing you must not lose (an icon instead of a crown). The difference is that Valka is a journey: the caravan travels every day across a real route from Kerch to Kyiv, trades goods with regional prices, and makes a new camp every night.
What are games similar to Kingdom Two Crowns?
Kingdom: New Lands and Kingdom Eighties from the same series; Thronefall (build by day, defend by night); Bad North (island defence); The Banner Saga (a caravan journey); and Valka: The Salt Road, a pixel-art caravan defence for phones in which a Cossack salt caravan defends an icon from Ukrainian folklore creatures every night.
Is there a Kingdom Two Crowns-like game for mobile?
Valka is made for phones first: landscape, one thumb, touch targets of at least 48 dp, and a target of 120 frames per second on current Android phones. Android comes first, iOS after.
Do I build a base like in Kingdom?
Not a fixed one. Your base is the caravan: you buy wagons (cart, mazha, great chumak wagon), oxen, traps and guards, and every night the wagons form rings around the fire.
Is there a Blood Moon?
Not by that name: every fifth night a boss from Ukrainian legend attacks, from the Bog Lord of Sivash on night 5 to the Zmiy on night 50.
Questions
Frequently asked
What is Valka: The Salt Road?
A side-view pixel-art caravan defence game for phones. You lead a chumak (salt-carrier) caravan with Cossack guards from Kerch in Crimea to Kyiv. By day you travel, trade and hire; by night you defend the icon of the Pokrova at the centre of the camp from creatures of Ukrainian folklore.
When and where can I play it?
Valka is in early development. It is coming to Android first (Google Play), then iOS, with Steam later. This site will link to it as soon as it is out.
How long is a run?
Fifty nights: a full journey from Kerch to Kyiv takes a few hours. Each day is about a minute of road, a stop that lasts as long as you like, and a night of about five minutes.
What happens if I lose?
If a creature carries the icon out of the camp, the caravan is lost and the journey starts again from Kerch. Guards are never killed while the icon is in camp, only knocked out until dawn or revived with holy water.
What creatures are in the game?
Thirty creatures and bosses from Ukrainian and Crimean folklore: poterchata, upyrs, vovkulaky, chorts, witches, zlydni, anchutkas, mara, rusalkas, lisovyks, the Viy, the Zmiy and more.
Is the route real?
Yes. The route follows the historical chumak road, and the landscape of each 10 km is based on its real relief, soil, vegetation and water: the Kerch Peninsula, Sivash, the Taurian steppe, the Great Meadow, the Dnipro rapids, the forest-steppe and the Kyiv hills.
Which languages?
Ukrainian, English and Polish.
Who makes Valka?
Dmytro Gladkyi of Loca Deserta, an independent studio from Ukraine that also makes Eastern Wars, SICHA: Cossack Combat and Loca Deserta: Settlers.
Hit the road
Valka is coming to Android first. Follow the development and be there for the first night.
Google Play coming soon