Isekai: Waifu Overlord gameplay: village, battles and heroines

The village

The top of the Village screen shows your Income in coins per second and the next income Goal, the first of which is 500K per second. Each building pays on a short cycle — the Farm every 2 seconds, the Tavern every 6, the Adventurers' Guild every 10, the Market every 15, the Smithy every 20 — and keeps paying while you fight. New plots are bought with coins.

Every building has a level and an UPGRADE button whose price climbs with it, and some levels are milestones: at level 10 the Market shows an x2 Multiplier. Up to five heroines work in each building, with slots opening as it levels, plus up to three pets on the Pets tab; pets come from their own summon at the Temple, paid with paw-print tickets. A working girl lifts the building's income by a few per cent. Girls and buildings each carry two trait icons, and the right girl in the right building earns more.

The village also powers the fighting: through the Goddess' Blessing of Trinity, every income goal reached multiplies the hero's Health, Attack and Defense. Hourglass tickets skip ahead 10 minutes, one hour or five hours (a 10-minute skip costs 25 gems), the Farm wants watering once a day, and the village keeps earning offline up to a limit, which the Monthly Card extends by 24 hours.

The Expedition

The Expedition is a side-scrolling auto-battle. Sakuya runs each stage by herself: four waves, then a boss, fought against a timer of about half a minute. Stages are numbered by chapter — Beginner I 1-1 to 1-9, then 2-1 and on — and your strength is one figure, Squad Power.

Gear comes from the Anvil. Enemies drop hammers; each strike spends one and forges a random item, which you equip or sell, and AUTO mode strikes for you with filters for rarity and the bonus you want. Equipment comes in eight rarities: Poor Quality, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythic and Holy. Upgrading the anvil with coins shifts the odds:

• Level 1: Poor Quality 85%, Common 15%
• Level 2: Poor Quality 82%, Common 17%, Uncommon 1%
• Level 3: Poor Quality 75%, Common 23%, Uncommon 2%
• Level 4: Poor Quality 55%, Common 39%, Uncommon 5%, Rare 1%

Sakuya has ten gear slots, from necklace and helmet to weapon, gloves and a gem slot, and items roll Damage, Defense, Health, Attack Speed and Skill Damage.

Her class tree starts at Adventurer, whose Double Strike deals 200% damage to one target. From hero level 2 she can become an Archer, Warrior or Sorceress, and from level 10 come advanced classes such as Legendary Sniper, Shadow Assassin and Steadfast Valkyrie, with further columns at levels 20, 40 and 60. Each class has an active skill, like the Archer's Magic Arrow at 400% area damage, and passives. A reset costs 50 gems, or nothing with the Monthly Card.

Up to eight heroines join her as companions, three slots open early, each adding her own skill to the battle: Mirabella's Blessing restores health, Lily's Hail of Arrows hits an area. The Journey map holds the story chapters — Abandoned Temple, then Spark in the Forest, which needs Lumiera, and Rest Stop, which needs the stage 3-9 boss beaten — and a Dungeon opens from the battle screen.

Heroines, summons and dates

Heroines come in four rarities, shown by the card's colour: Rare (blue), Epic (purple), Legendary (gold) and Mythical, the rarity of the event heroine Lativia Lifiel. The first four join through the story — Lily, Nyakol and Maddie are Rare, Mirabella is Epic — and the rest come from the summon at the Temple. On the Blessing of the Goddess banner, SUMMON costs one ticket and SUMMON X5 five; a ticket costs 80 gems. The banner counts down with every pull, so a Legendary girl is guaranteed within 120 summons, and WISH picks a featured girl with a raised chance (“Rate Up!”). Each new girl arrives with a short story scene.

Each girl's panel has four tabs. Main: PROMOTE raises her level for an upgrade material — 10 for the first level, then 15, 20, 25 and up, plus a rarer gold star from level 9 — and her one skill grows with it. Skills: the Arcanum tree, where Arcanum of Golden Gates raises the profit of the building she works in and Arcanum of Infinite Economy the profit of all buildings of one element. Destiny: a five-star constellation that ASCEND unlocks with her own tokens, each star a bonus such as Whisper of Coins (+25% main skill power) or Time of Fate (+3% damage or +5% health). The fourth tab is Sympathy.

Sympathy is the relationship track: Stranger, Friend, Lover and Partner. A Rare girl needs 90, 180 and 360 hearts for the three Friend steps, 600, 900 and 1,200 for Lover and 1,500, 1,800 and 2,100 for Partner; an Epic girl's first step is 110. Lover stays locked until she is promoted to level 10. Hearts come from gifts in four tiers worth 10, 20, 40 and 100. The track pays materials, gems and hammers, and set tiers unlock Dates, which are story scenes.

Her scenes collect in the Gallery at the Temple, where locked slots open as you keep spending time with her. They are adult scenes: Steam rates the game Adult Only, and its content note lists sexual content, nudity, BDSM and crude language and states that every character is over 18 and consenting.

Money and the shop

The game is free to play. The browser version at isekaiwaifuoverlord.com sells, in US dollars:

• Crystals, the premium gems, from 250 for $4.99 to 2,875 for $49.99.
• Summon tickets: 4, 17, 45 or 92 for $4.99, $19.99, $49.99 or $99.99, with paw-print tickets for pets at the same prices.
• Bundles in Deals from $4.99 to $249.99.
• The Monthly Card, $19.99: 5 summon tickets and 250 gems at once, one ticket a day, 24 more hours of offline income, free class resets and automatic farm watering.
• The season Battle Pass, levelled by the stars that tasks pay: the free track is open to all, and the premium track costs $19.99, or $49.99 with 30 levels added.

Free players get a steady supply. Deals has one free bundle a day (a summon ticket, a paw ticket and 50 hammers); the Apostle's Tasks — daily, weekly and monthly lists such as logging in, summoning a girl or watering the farm — fill chests at 30, 60 and 100 points; and the tutorial hands out tickets, hammers and gems step by step. Registering the guest account with an e-mail address earns a reward too. Settings has a Promo Code field, but no code has been published so far; the free rewards that exist are on the promo codes page.