@blackscreen: no, it's not a bug. he takes a more direct path ;) @fnumb: there is no active penalty for repeating a level, however, as your heroes level increases, the difference toward the monsters level increases as well, so there is a small xp penalty. @patapon: shield maiden is an umbrella term for any warrior woman, be it with sword, spear, bow or dual daggers :p @all, regarding the strategy issues: the first normal missions are meant to make any player know the game and the details like skills, "juggling" and so on. later normal missions and rest of the campaigns, however, cannot be finished even with 50 level heroes, unless you actively manage your heroes and their skills.
@ceruleandragon: heroes have skills to heal the allies (warrior's prayer), to recover mana (spiritual healing), to protect from monster damage (heart of steel) and many more "utility" skills and from the middle of campaign on micromanaging them is absolutely necessary, not to mention relocating which on some levels is a valid strategy to win. i see you are a mod and also an experienced player - i respect that - but please check your facts before lashing out.
the respec button is in the skill tree, near the close button and it looks like this: "<<". the title was inspired equally by the slayer song and by manowar's "blackwind, fire and steel"
@Bshadow4: some people that early-tested this game didn't notice at first that they could actually upgrade things, so the button flashes to draw some attention.
@haaroon1052: battle of endor was the primary source of inspiration for this game. there are references to the old star wars movies and games with the destroyer that looks like a reverted nebulon b frigate, the "red squadron" dialog lines etc
wow, thanks a lot for playing and for the critics&comments :) the "rogue drones" bug was fixed and a version will be uploaded in a few hours, along with the kong highscores.
The game uses the sowpods wordlist, containing around 270k words; this is also the international wordlist for scrabble and indeed, it doesnt contain weekdays. Game modes are explained in the hint box, right before starting to play. Star shapes are parasites, they are dropped when making wrong words or words with less than 6 letters.
couple of problems that would make the game more enjoyable: turn sound-music on/off button and the arrows that fly exactly at the horizon line making them incredibly hard to spot.
The bosses are a bit complex, here it goes (as pair attack element - defense element): pirate boss[fire, water], kunoichi/lady assassin[wood, wood], shogun/blue guy [water, water], bow samurai [metal, water], spear/sword samurai [metal, earth], oni/demon [fire + wood, fire]. The rest of the specials - black ninja, ryu, ken and the normal pirate - have non-elemental attack/defense.
metal does double damage and has high chance of critical, earth has double defense and wood doesn't cost energy when transitioning to and from. there's a strategy guide link in the main menu for more.
there are several horrible bugs around: in level 13, after you finish the level and "retry" dialog appears, one of the red enemies touch you - you get killed, and you'll end up with 2 dialogs on screen; on level 16, i also had 2 dialogs on screen, one in the middle, one in the top left - even after quiting the game, the dialog still hovered there. oh, and it would be nice to know what is the "thunder" time...
 "Born of Fire TD"){kind=icon}
 "Chute Defence"){kind=icon}
 "Black Navy War"){kind=icon}
 "Ninjas!"){kind=icon}
 "That Word Game"){kind=icon}
 "Orbital Decay"){kind=icon}
 "Samurai Master"){kind=icon}
 "Amberial: Nebulosa Realms"){kind=icon}
 "BoomsticK"){kind=icon}