# Valka: The Salt Road

> A side-view pixel-art caravan defence game for phones, in the spirit of Kingdom Two Crowns. Lead a Cossack salt caravan 1,130 km from Kerch to Kyiv: trade and hire by day, defend the icon of the Pokrova from Ukrainian folklore creatures by night. 50 nights, a boss every 5th.

Valka (Ukrainian «Валка: Чумацький Шлях», a chumak wagon train) is a side-view pixel-art caravan defence game for phones, in development by Dmytro Gladkyi (Loca Deserta, Ukraine). It is built on the core idea of Kingdom Two Crowns — side-view pixel art, calm days, dangerous nights, a leader you walk left and right, hired defenders and one thing you must not lose — and puts it on the road: a Cossack salt caravan travels 1,130 km from Kerch to Kyiv over 50 nights, trading by day and defending the icon of the Pokrova from Ukrainian folklore creatures by night. Android first, then iOS; Steam later. Languages: Ukrainian, English, Polish.

## Pages

- [Home (English, Markdown)](https://valka.locadeserta.com/index.md): the whole page as Markdown — the road, gameplay, guards, bestiary, comparison with Kingdom Two Crowns, FAQ.
- [Головна (українською, Markdown)](https://valka.locadeserta.com/uk/index.md)
- [Full text for LLMs](https://valka.locadeserta.com/llms-full.txt): both pages in one file.

## Key facts

- Genre: side-view pixel-art caravan defence / tower defence / strategy. Platform: Android phones (landscape, one thumb), iOS later.
- Journey: 50 nights from Kerch (Crimea) to Kyiv along the real chumak road; landscapes: Kerch Peninsula, Sivash and Perekop, Taurian steppe, Great Meadow, Dnipro rapids, northern steppe, forest-steppe, Kyiv hills.
- Each leg: about 1 minute of travel, a stop (trade, hire, buy wagons, oxen, traps, holy water), a dusk camp, a night of about 5 minutes.
- Loss condition: a creature carries the icon of the Pokrova out of the camp. Guards are knocked out, never killed, while the icon is in camp.
- A boss every 5th night (10 bosses), 30+ creatures of Ukrainian and Crimean folklore; 7 kinds of guard.
- Status: early development; price not announced.

## Games similar to Kingdom Two Crowns

- **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.

## Valka vs Kingdom Two Crowns

- Camera and art (Same idea): Kingdom Two Crowns — Side-view pixel art with parallax and a day-night cycle. Valka — 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 lose (Same idea): Kingdom Two Crowns — The crown: if Greed takes it, the reign is over. Valka — The icon of the Pokrova: if a creature carries it out of the camp, the journey is over.
- Day and night (Same idea): Kingdom Two Crowns — Build and expand by day, defend by night. Valka — Travel, trade and hire by day, defend the camp by night.
- You walk the line (Same idea): Kingdom Two Crowns — The monarch rides left and right across the kingdom. Valka — The otaman walks left and right through the camp, fights, and carries the icon.
- Defences (Same idea): Kingdom Two Crowns — Walls and towers, upgraded with coins. Valka — Wagons are walls and towers: four make a ring, up to four rings; shooters stand on the decks.
- Recruits (Same idea): Kingdom Two Crowns — Pay coins to recruit vagrants into archers, builders, farmers and knights. Valka — Hire Cossacks, chumaks, Tatar archers, riders and kharakternyks at the stalls, then promote and arm them.
- Night threats (Same idea): Kingdom Two Crowns — Greed comes from the portals; Blood Moons bring the worst nights. Valka — Folklore creatures come from the left, the right or both; a new boss every fifth night.
- Structure (Different): Kingdom Two Crowns — Settle and grow on one island at a time, then sail to the next. Valka — A linear 50-night journey along a real route, 1,130 km from Kerch to Kyiv; the camp moves every day.
- Economy (Different): Kingdom Two Crowns — Coins from farms, fishing and hunting. Valka — A trade economy: goods have regional prices, merchants give orders, and wages and food cost every day.
- When a fighter falls (Different): Kingdom Two Crowns — Struck subjects drop their coins or tools and turn back into vagrants. Valka — Guards are only knocked out while the icon is in camp; holy water gets them back up.
- Setting (Different): Kingdom Two Crowns — A fantasy kingdom, with Shogun and Norse lands among its campaigns. Valka — Seventeenth-century-style Ukraine and Crimea, Cossack and chumak culture, Ukrainian folklore.
- Control (Different): Kingdom Two Crowns — PC and consoles first, with local and online co-op; also on mobile. Valka — Built for one thumb on a phone first. Single-player.

## Media

- [Gameplay: the road from Kerch to Kyiv (13 s, MP4)](https://valka.locadeserta.com/media/clips/road.mp4)
- [On the road through the Great Meadow (MP4)](https://valka.locadeserta.com/media/clips/arrive.mp4)
- [Leaving the day's stop at dusk, Sivash (MP4)](https://valka.locadeserta.com/media/clips/dusk.mp4)
- [Night 20, the Great Meadow (MP4)](https://valka.locadeserta.com/media/clips/night_20.mp4)
- [Night 45, the forest-steppe (MP4)](https://valka.locadeserta.com/media/clips/night_45.mp4)
- [Night 10, Sivash (MP4)](https://valka.locadeserta.com/media/clips/night_10.mp4)
- [Sprite data (JSON)](https://valka.locadeserta.com/media/sprites/sprites.json)

## Optional

- [Loca Deserta](https://locadeserta.com/): the studio's other games — Eastern Wars, SICHA: Cossack Combat, Loca Deserta: Settlers, Sloboda.
- Kingdom Two Crowns is a trademark of its respective owners. Valka is an independent game and is not affiliated with it.