eric song blog

Monopoly-like Digital Boardgame. I am playing the beta, and not a final product. Around 3 years ago, a Korean friend of mine introduced me to craze that was happening on f2p mobile - Everybody's Marble. I didn't understand the text but the gameplay was simple enough, using the monopoly formula with a few changes where players can pay the fines but also contest the property and overtake it. Landing ultimate times on the property you can upgrade it, making it harder to overtake - up to a 'hotel' level where it can no longer be taken (3 upgrade The 'go' money is based on how many properties you have - it is a fine balancing act of buying as many properties and upgrading them, but having enough in the bank in case you land on an opponents. There's a few other things like roll to move places, minigames where you can win money etc - but the core was simple and any mainstream player who has played monopoly would easily understand how to play. To win, take your opponent's money, or earn 2 monopolies (2 streets of where you own all the property) or have the most money at the end of the turn limit. Thematically was very close to those monopoly city themes, go to France and get all the famous French landmarks, and customisable avatars, in true cartoonish/East friendly style. However, I was wondering when there would be a version in the West.

Pirates Dice is a Western themed version, using pirates in cel-shaded comic style. The board is a bunch of islands where you are sailing a ship to. They've added a lot of the meta-systems seen today in f2p - card collection to upgrade heroes/abilities and account based level progression.

Core: Turn limited, 3 players. To Win, get 2 monopolies, eliminate opponents by taking their gold to 0, or have the most gold at the end of the turn limits. Board has; a 'jail', a day/night cycle guard (in the day it is strong, and will remove one of your crew members, at night you can bust them out), a random buff/nerf, 2 utilities (2 properties that cannot be fought for, so first one there can take it for the game), a teleporter to choose where you want to go, and a random blind pick game. Pirates offer stats (atk/def which are added to the dice roll), and abilities that can be passive or active. They have a cost to be placed in your crew, so higher strength pirates cost more to have in your crew than lower. They also have combination benefits if you have the right pirates in your crew.

Meta/Progression: Level your account by playing games. A level up earns your pirate a stat change, and also increase your crew count, allowing you to expand your crew and get bonuses or add stats. It's fun trying out new pirates and abilities (although paying to recharge on a timer is a wierd thing), the best I have found is getting crew combination pirates and getting a passive that helps you all game rather than active abilities. Each pirate can be upgraded if you have enough cards of that pirate - much like those systems found in common f2p ccgs (clash royale etc). There are PVE and PVP tracks, with VS friends and ranked play coming soon. Match Making times for PVP was surprisingly quick for a small beta and Australian times - so I wonder if there is logic in there to throw bots when no one is found.

Monetisation/Currency: There are many currencies - energy to play, gold to spend on upgrades, gems for chests/speeding timers, and bolt for daily spins. Energy replenishes over time, Gems are earned through account level ups, and daily logins, but otherwise bought. You can only find pirates if you are lucky through a daily spin but primarily they are found in chests that are bought for gems (also there’s a free daily chest). Getting x amount of a pirate allows you to upgrade it, getting better stats and abilities. When entering a game, you can buy pre-game boosts for gold, (eg. first roll is always a double) and are really useful and always worth buying since the advantage helps, and one can be given to you for free for watching an ad. You then can be a pre-game pirate which adds a crew member for stats (and is usually stolen first by the guard so it doesn't affect your bonuses/abilities for at least one fight) - and like boosts, always worth buying. These however are on cooldowns and timers can be removed using gems (and then paid for with gold to use). Game is rather generous in gem flow but maybe this is only in the beta. Had a good time collecting pirates and found a good combination - would like to see if I can replicate this luck and combo in a final build.

Card based RPG. Really simple design that takes from multiple genres and systems and really ties it in together.

The core gameplay in combat revolves around picking out cards, however the deck is predefined by your character class, and what items they have equipped. For example, a magic class with have magic attacks, and by equipping physical based attack items you can hybrid types of attacks. There is two types of attacks, magic and physical. There's also blocking, and other effects (quick strike, unblockable, draw a card on hit etc) - but that's all the major combat complexity there is. A very streamlined and understandable system. Enemies will generally show you their next move, so you have to make a decision based on your hand pulled from your deck (enemies get first strike unless you have a card to do so) - a great design choice for empowering the player to make good decisions. A lot of the game revolves around RNG, and there is an element of rougelike (permadeath, randomised dungeons), however the dungeon objectives and some room tiles are the same.

Moving in the dungeon is a great use of the card like mechanic. From a hand of dungeon cards, you can pick up to three, place a room tile, enemy or gold. You do not control the hero, but instead lead it with the placement of gold (they like shiny things), enemies and rooms they can move into. Since your hand is random, each dungeon even in a replay feels very different. A player can optimise and plan a little ahead depending on what tiles they've placed before. This dungeon card system is a great way to put together dungeon crawling with card based mechanics, and really fun when you can plan ahead. The variation of dungeons, with bosses make some dungeons hard in the early game so providing a layout where you can grind low level mobs to get equipment is important - if you have the hand for it. Successful dungeon runs will give a permanent perk to the hero that completed - so keeping your heroes alive for the perks is a good idea.... if you can manage it.

Progression is in the form of building and upgrading your castle, which allows for new classes to choose into dungeons, buffs and droppable/equipable loot. Since the player will unlock all of these anyway, it's just smaller decisions for the player to progress through without penalties - there is an expectation that the graveyard will be full of heroes. Each dungeon the player goes, the character resets in level and items and will have to regear each time. At the end of a run, it is all converted to gold for the upgrades in your castle.

Team based, objective driven FPS. Similar to TF2 in genre, but with a fresh and innovative layer on top. I've been playing this game for the last couple of weeks with friends, and been really enjoying the game (I was a big fan of TF2). There's a lot of things about Overwatch I love, besides just the fluid mechanical aspect of moving and shooting.

Character Design: Each character is wonderfully crafted; style, voice acting, silhouette and purpose. Each play a little differently (as you'd expect in a class based shooter), have a role in the team, and unique skills. There's a learning curve to each character, and their skills are complemented in design, and even synergise with other characters. They are categorised into archetypes - assault, defence, tank and support (much like the trifecta of dps/tank/heal but further granulated). Each of the characters within the archetype share a basic silhouette size, for example thanks will have a larger frame and bigger hitbox and a visual expectation of their role.

The style of each character, how they move and shoot is fluid but somehow different. Lucio, the skating DJ doesn't have headbob since he is skating, and feels like there's some interia, which feels different to the hulking ape Winston who has his left hand cycling like how'd you expect an ape to move. This attention to detail might be unnoticed by the majority but it's this level of polish that make you love the characters without even realising.

Voice acting matches the style of visuals of the character. One of my favourite character design is Junkrat, the wisecrackin' Australian, and the one liners are great. One map takes place in a movie theatre and his line "I have a feeling that this movie is gonna.... bomb" - perfect summary of the character design. It's not easy to create a character in visuals, but moreso finding that fit in the audio department that cements that Blizzard quality. Not only just the voice acting, but the audio in general is amazing, and is so vitally important in gameplay, needing to hear the enemy footsteps since there is no radar, but also when the momentum shifting ultimates are being deployed.

The way skills work in this game, on a per character basis, from both a character synergy and team synergy allows for epic plays and momentum swings. McCree, the revolver western guy, can fanhammer his revolver to create a high burst of dmaage, but the trade off is high recoil and bloom. His other skill of flashbang allows for the fanhammer to hit since it is a short range, short timed stun but enough to fanhammer. This combo leads to deadly close range encounters, and to top it off, his last skill allows a short dodge with a full reload of the gun. The interplay between fanhammer, stun and dodge reload, has a level of learning curve in the usuage of the skills, but also recognising the best level patterns to use this. His ultimate, dead eye, is a channeled skill that requires line of sight of enemies before allowing a one shot kill. He announces it's high noon that the enemies can hear, which normally leads to a scattering, so finding a vantage point and timing to use it is important. However, if there is another character that can CC the enemy, for example Mei or Zarya, who can keep the enemy in place, leads to an easier execution of the dead eye. These team compositions and synergies are so important in creating momentum swings.

Momentum Swings: What makes a game fun? This is a question that tries to solved in different ways, depending on different genres and designer intentions. In a team based game, the ability to swing the tide in your favour and the epic comebacks, is what makes the game fun and matches memorable. The ultimates that need to be charged and deployed, or even the solo assault that manages to strike from the back or disrupt their reinforcements, allows for the momentum to swing in your favour. There is time limit on most of the maps that require attack/defence, but even when the time has reached 0, there is still overtime where the game continues as long as the enemy is on the objective. This leads to a rush of the enemies to secure, and often making overtime a hectic climax to the buildup of the game, ultimates are deployed, teams are forced to fight in close quarters, and often the momentum is swung in overtime. This feeling of changing the outcome in the dying seconds of the game gives a high both sides, since it's at this moment where everything is used to the last ounce. Even as a losing team, you can have a good game because of this moment.

Marketing: This game has been in development for a long time, even as far back as TITAN. The marketing materials for this game has been high quality. From cosplay kits, to animated shorts and comics explaining the world of Overwatch and character back stories, as fleshed out the universe without the use of campaign or ingame cinematics (instead opting for the core gameplay in the game, and if the player is interested in finding the materials online). The way that this material has trickled out, has kept interest in the game even though the trailer was announced over 500+ days ago (which is an incredibly long time), has shown how strong their marketing plan and materials have been to create interest and a fanbase for the game.

Level Design: For the most part, maps are pretty decent. There are clear choke points for team fighting, and big spaces for objectives. Between each of the major objectives are side routes that can be accessed for surprise attacks from behind, or distraction. Some are only accessible but some characters due to their skills sets, Lucio for example can wallrun, or Reaper who can teleport short distances, might be only able to get to a ledge on the other side. Hanzo and Genji can run up walls, accessing windows otherwise impossible by other characters. There are still discoveries being made on different maps, and this in turn changes the attacking/defending meta. Not all levels are perfect, some maps have problems of chokepoints and being overrun, that sometimes it's better to allow the first point to be taken since it's easier to defend the second chokepoint and not worth the risk of dying on the first point and accounting for the time for respawn and running back.

Play of the Game / Stats: POTG are replays of moments of the game where something happened that changed momentum (usually) - from multikills to a clutch resurrection. This system isn't perfect, but it subtly teaches new players the moments in when to use their ultimates, or syngeries betwen teams. The cards at the end of the match (eg. highest kill streak, most heals etc) show who contributed a lot to the team, and can be voted on by players. It's a good feeling to see that you did well, but other people recognise it. There isn't a KDR stat style screen, and this is a good thing since it's team game and having this would reinforce a style of play that doesn't fit the genre. Having career stats and your own averages shows a little indication of how you are going with that character.

Progression: Progression is a profile based level, that unlocks portrait frames. Every level gives you a loot box, a blind box style of getting cosmetics. Of course you can pay for the boxes (more revenue from the fans and optional). I'm sure there is a promotion/prestige system when a player reaches max level, haven't met anyone online yet that has reached this point. Progression is mostly in career stats which you can see, and seeing your averages. This keeps the game fair and doesn't suffer from p2w syndrome, and I think is a good choice for this style of game (learning from TF2 and the mistakes of hats/crafting gear). I still think there can be work done in the blind box system (getting coins from duplicates etc), but I'm mostly happy in how it's only cosmetics that really determine progression, and still holds that fuck yeah feeling when opening a box and finding a legendary skin.

Frantic FPS. Movement and shooting feels superb for the style of shooter; a frantic and arcady shooter that requires players to strafe and jump, and switch targets often (strafing and shooting was core of Doom).

They reinforce this pillar of design with Glory Kills, a modern take and solution to the problem of modern shooters with regenerating health and hiding behind cover (which changes the pacing of action sequences). Glory Kills are animations of killing blows and require the player to be in melee range, bringing them into the fray of action - the reward is health and ammo. This adds an element of risk/reward, with the player having to make a decision based on the situation and dangers to execute a GK. Since health is a value that moves around a lot, it adds to the frantic set pieces and arena styled level design. This is a great solution for this style of FPS where regenerating health and hiding in cover doesn’t fit the pacing and pillar of this shooter.

Chainsaw is a melee weapon that can instagib depending on amount of ammo (big demons cannot be chainsawed) and in doing so, will drop tonnes of ammo. This interplay for health from GK, and chainsaw for ammo, is a nice ballet of moving to avoid damage, shooting, and getting in melee range to collect.

Upgrades are collectables throughout the campaign, and decisions can be made from the the player for their style of play (do I want to aim with a scope or fire rockets - allows for variability in each weapon archetype), but also unlocks challenges. There are challenges exist for most types of upgrades, they are sub goals that are given to the player, and for completionist whom might change their play style to fulfill them - but it is never too hard. Runes are upgrades that enhance your character (eg. find more ammo, higher jumps, faster GKs) and those challenges are related to the rune, weapon challenges are earnt through the total unlocking of a weapon and teach the player how to optimally use their weapons - all these challenges expand the player knowledge of the game and ways to interact without the use of tutorials and heavy text. Great systems that make sense.

Level Design is fantastic. Not just from environmental/artistic merit, but the design of the corridors and arenas and set pieces are fun (dying and replaying doesn’t feel too punishing since you can still complete your challenges this way) - and different difficulty settings have different spawn waves (tailored to what mode you are playing and not just number changes). There a few platform jumps and puzzles, but plenty of action. These platform jumping pieces have a subtle green glow to where you should jump and mantle, not enough to be in your face overpowering (press x to climb!) but enough that doesn’t leave the player clueless.

In between action/set pieces there are times where it slows down so you can explore and get those collectibles. With locked areas and the doomesque use of keys, you revisit areas in the level and fight these set pieces in different angles and different ways - a good reuse of content without the linearity of modern shooters.

The 3D Map mode is awesome too.

Music. It is DOOM. Mick Gordon really captures the essence of original doom music. Sound is amazing too, and somehow there are sequences and mixing that marry the music and sound, the tempo of shotgun reloading and a musical thump behind it, or glory kills after glory kills and the humming of a noise mixed with the music. I don’t know what musical music they used here, but it sounds great. Even from the first 3 minutes and the intro.

4x grand strat from paradox.

Stellaris is a strong framework for a 4x space grand strategy game. There are a bunch of features that are great ideas, but haven’t been executed or polished in a way that the full usefulness of the feature really shines. Some of these features address issues that I find as fun/loop problems as your empire progresses. There is mod support for the game, so there mods that can edit and fix some of the problems, but hopefully some of the popular mods will be rolled into the base game.

Sectors: As your empire grows, you will start to have more colonies to manage. At some point, they will be self sufficient colonies, but for the most part in the early and mid game, you will be micromanaging them carefully. The problem I find with this genre of games is the level of micromanagement needed, and decisions that have to be made aren’t neccesarily heavy and important ones, but instead smaller decisions that turn smaller cogs in the big machine.

By default, you have access to 5 colonies as a max before hitting an debuff to your economy for having too many. Placing colonies into sectors remedy this empire problem, by allowing the AI control those colonies within the sector for you. You can assign a leader to the sector, and ask for focuses (eg. energy, mineral, research focus - implying what that sector should focus and generate), whether you allow for tile redevelopment and how much you want to tax from the sector. Resources left untaxed are left in the sector for development. This idea is something I was looking for in Civ5, since for the most part, the fun for me is in the exploration and decision making for tech and expansion, not necessarily what buildings to build. I wrote about this before in my previous blog a few years ago - for a system that worked similar to this. The trade off is that most likely the AI won’t play optimally as a good player would, but then again if you are role playing then it might make sense (just look at who is running for government positions in Aus/US). It alleviates some of the monotonous micromanagement and allows the player to focus on bigger picture things - at least for me.

Technology: Usually tech trees are static and are have hard link dependencies on each other. You can choose what to research and move up in the tech tree. Usually there’s a tech order you go through based on what environment you spawn in, your empire benefits or what winning condition you want to achieve. Thematically, it might also not make sense, in Civ5 you can research the internet before computers. Since we have a perception of history, we can have a frame of reference for these anachronisms. Sci fi has the benefit of being fictional based on reality, with some inferences to what we know, but for the most part it’s built on past cliches. Beyond Earth was riddled with this problem for the player as the learning curve is steeper since there is really no understanding of the technology, or how that interweave, and the tech tree in BE was painful to understand.

Stellaris does a better job of the tech tree understanding and choices you make, and having a different feel each play through using randomness. Techs are still dependent on each other (and can be available based on game events), but for the most part, players are given a choice of 3 techs to research. Each time research is complete, new choices of 3 techs appear; you may need 2 of the 3 presented to you, but you have to make a decision since it might be the case that when research is complete, and 3 random techs are drawn, the one you needed isn’t there. Sometimes you’ll be presented with a super rare tech, but the benefit might not be fully apparent for that stage of the empire, but you don’t know when you’ll see it next so you have to make decision whether to hold off your plans now, and invest for the future, or not. These decisions are interesting. Also the fact that if you research laser weapon systems, they have different names, but the icon clearly shows that this is level 1, 2, or 3 of the system, means you understand how they are ordered, which is a huge benefit over the confusion that BE has. There is no big tree shown to you, and instead technology feels more natural and organic in the way you progress through the game.

Space Marine Isometric DualStick Shooter Bullet Hell. Similar to Helldivers, but far more relaxing and loot driven. Made by the Finnish developers Housemarque, they’ve had a history with this genre in the Zombie Nation series.

Loot: Loot system is great. I love loot. I love the way you get loot in this game. On every level, there’s respawn points, which you can use to respawn into when you wipe. However, killing the respawn point gives you a loot buff, and as long as you don’t die, you can stack multiple loot buffs. It’s the classic risk and reward thing, but done in really fun way.

Class Upgrades: The class of your character (classic tank/damage/healer) determines class upgrades. There are major nodes that earn you a new ability/additional ability power, and minor nodes between that just increase numbers - but there is a choice between two. There is some player decision here, but thankfully you can respec between levels, which allows for you to try new things. There just isn’t a multitude of combinations and level caps at 30, and there’s just enough nodes that you can fully upgrade 2 paths and the final path only has 1 point it in.

Weapon Upgrades: Weapons can be upgraded in two ways, with the  socket system, and the reroll system. I like what they did in the reroll system, you can reroll each of the weapons stats individually, and the cost of the resource remains the same. Every weapon you find that you dismantle gives you some sort of resource, so even finding crappy gear helps you empower that ultimate piece you have found. There’s no stat locking like in Diablo 3/Division system, and it means that my higher quality, low level weapon can still be competitive until I get something of high quality (at least until the end game).

Sockets: Weapons come with sockets, and have bonuses in certain sockets that have the right coloured gem put into it. This means that your weapon can be built to optimise through the sockets which would be the best choice, but you can also socket it any way you want (just negating the socket bonuses).  Gems have the typical 3 of same rank to upgrade to higher rank. Good thing about gems is that when you dismantle weapon, you get the gems back. As you get high level guns, the amount of sockets increase and having the gems refunded is a godsend.

Shooting: Shooting is hectic, and with is avoiding the bullet hell from enemies. It’s more forgiving than helldivers in that sense since there’s no friendly fire (and no more trolling).

Lane based game, similar to Clash Royale - developed by Kiloo, best known for subway surfers. I don’t think it will gain attraction and grow to the extremes of Clash Royale, there are a few problems with the genre that Clash Royale solved - but I do like the faction god and having a complete set of cards from the get go (avoiding the upgrading per unit metagame, and what feels like the p2w part of the game). I’ve been playing for a few days and haven’t progressed to far, so my research only extends past the tutorial funnel and a few pvp matches.

Winning condition - Spellbinders uses a hard hitpoint value to determine a win/loss. Clash uses crown system, and is a better solution since the player can feel like they played well against their opponent through it.

Cards - unlocking all the units in the faction is great - because it feels fairer. However, not being able to choose a loadout, which is a strength of CR isn’t present here, and therefore you can’t optimise and play around with different decks. To unlock other cards, you need to unlock the faction leader (leading to monetisation). Each faction also have unique units, but most of the deck is the same archetype of units.

Cards in combat - As you have all the cards in the faction, and no loadout, and having the choice of 4 cards out of faction’s 10 means I have a lesser chance of getting what I need/want, whereas CR I have a deck of 8 and 4 in my hand (which I know should synergise in some way since I’ve made my deck). It feels far more frustrating in SB for this reason, especially since you may get many high cost cards in your hand but a curated deck might go for a greater number of low cost units.

Boosts - speaking of fairer, the game then looks the other way and uses boosts systems to monetise over the metagame upgrade monetisation systems. You can buy mana/faction leader boosts (consumables), and also mercenaries.  The game also doesn’t seem to tell you when the opponent has used a boost, and without a replay system, how do you know if you performed poorly on equal level, or they’ve used boosts to they could have pumped out units faster?

Upgrades - instead of upgrading unit cards, you can upgrade your faction leader. Max health, mana, boost charges. They’ve simply removed the feeling of power from the units to the faction leader, and with added boost, it seems at odds with making it feel fairer. Overall, I think having an upgrade system per unit (CR upgrade system) is stronger since it’s a persistent upgrade (over boosts) and only useful if you choose to card the card, as opposed to a faction leader upgrade (however, upgrading levels in CR also gives you this advantage, so kind of nullifies in comparison).

Guild Feature - SB doesn’t have one. Not sure if this would be rolled in, but CR definitely feels like Supercell wanted to push for community with guilds and replay features rolled in softlaunch, which is the right idea. However, SB goes for a personalised comparison in the weekly leagues, instead of a trophy count. Leagues just show your number of wins in a week, whereas trophy is an estimated ELO, which is far more useful for a player to know how well they are going. (ie. if the top player has 100 wins, it might feel like they are a good player, but they might have played 400, having a 25% win percentage, but a top player with 3000 trophy ELO means they have high level deck and some semblance of strategy)

Interesting semi-idle like game. There is much more onus on the player to interact during a cycle of doing something since there is diminishing returns, and fights are round based where you can change skills.

Narrative: begins strong in the beginning of the game, wrapping it around boxing matches and that lifestyle - "Rocky simulator" - with plenty of nods to pop culture. Mystery, troubled past, death father and twists as you progress through the story. However, there isn't enough variation in conversations and text, and repetitive (and unskippable) dialogue leads to a big immersion break. Once you have a routine of a loop going, you want to skip most of the text, so having variation might have a cost benefit that doesn’t make sense, but at least a fast skip text option would have been great.

Upgrades: require points that are awarded at the end of matches. These upgrades come as passive buffs, or skills/passives used in your skill bar. There is implied synergies between some of these upgrades (which is great!) - but once you pick a path you are locked into certain skill builds (and even locked out of upgrades - bad!). Upgrade costs grow and cap to a certain point, but unlocking upgrades comes slow at the end, and thus choosing upgrades are important and there is no way to undo mistakes or try new builds without restarting.

Combat: happens in rounds, where you can retool your skill bar depending on the situation of the fight/opponent. In the beginning it can be interesting to have variation, but soon in the mid game you don’t have the need to change those skills. It’s an illusion of choice, since there are clear winners on moves over others, particularly when you have chosen a path (eg. if you chose way of the tiger, you unlock a stance which has clear benefits over a neutral stance, so while it is a player decision, it’s not really a meaningful one).

Progression: between the early and mid parts, the game advises you to try different routines if you aren't progressing. Progression in the early game is measured by a league, but it gets interesting once you progress and have an idea what you need to do, and how to optimise. The mid game gets a little stale because of the slow upgrade system progression, and trying to rise up in the leagues which happens to rely on a few factors of chance, your upgrades and your stat points (which ideally you are boosting almost every day because of decay).

Amazingly crafted world and art direction. Music matches the tone and atmosphere set by this built world, and first minute of the game introduction of hyper coloured palette mixed with black grasping imagery creates the another-world mixture of the fantastical grounded by fear. The story of the developer is something that resonates through the theme and visual stylings of the game.

UI: The lack of information and narrative forces players to figure out how to play it, and the game being a large part of exploration this helps reinforce that feeling.

Tutorials: It is not new player friendly and breaks the norms of on screen/text tutorials, instead of using iconography, images and level design to explain things. This enhances that feeling of discovery and exploration, not just in the world space, but also as a player, controlling, upgrading, progressing.

Combat: Stringing combos and dashing are core combat parts of the game, and understanding the timing against enemy patterns to avoid damage is a big part of survival. However, the dashing and attacking feels a bit clunky, and doesn't fit my player intention. You will notice it when trying to string together dash combos in the dash room after buying the upgrade. Could be my timing was off, but  this is something that the fellow players on forums have noted.

Spoiler: ------------------------------ It is a short game, around 6 hours long, there are some difficult parts especially the bosses if you haven't bought the useful upgrades first, but there I would suggest to keep exploring the game since there's more hidden around after completing the main game.

Civ-lite game on mobile. They have made a complex game surprising simple and keeping the core of the reasons why I like Civ; exploring, light army management, upgrading towns and researching technology.

It's score based and limited at 30 turns, so it tries to avoid the problem I have with Civ games of owning too many cities and having to micromanage them to reach my long term goal. There is still some micromanagement here but since resources are fairly limited and used for unit building, construction or technology research, meaningful decisions must be made within the turn limits. Your long term goal is figuring out how you can maximise your points instead of trying to work and weave your way through different tech trees for winning conditions.

The difference in the Civs are on a tech tree level with their starting tech, and what kind of resources seeds around them - which makes sense since it's the byproduct of simplification, but it would be nice to have some variation between factions. Graphics are nice low-fi style, and UI works for the platform - I play in portrait on an iphone 5.

lTug of war game (stemming from the Starcraft UMS/Arcade maps of similar nature) - although I’ve heard it as pvp tower defence (which I think it is not but that’s another discussion).

Tug of war is a genre I love to play, and have played various versions of it through the starcraft 2 years. I also pitched a designer at my previous company for a similar gametype on mobile, but there were a lot of design questions and issues that I felt needed to be answered so I shelved it. Later on, the company also tried a similar game type that went to production but was cancelled because those design questions were never answered by that team.

CR does a good job at addressing these issues:

Create pacing to the game ie. having the feeling of an Early / Mid / Late game. Double Elixer + Sudden death does a great job of that, while keeping the rounds shorter than 5 minutes.

Solve stale mates of equally strong pushing armies. Traditionally, ToW is won by destroying a central building. Upgrade/Hero systems tried to solve it this way. However, the Crowns system (by extension the side towers + central building) solve this in unison with having a timed match.

Variation of your deck. Lots of variation here, and not just units (or heroes). CR has houses that spawn units, static defenses, targeted spells, allowing for great synergy and uses between each of the types.

Deck building eliminates the need to create buildings like in typical tug of war and instead puts importance of the placement of troops (since the choosing of troops is done before the match starts). The strategy changes from choosing what units to build/counter to when do I use what units I have.

Arenas introduce cards in a trickle instead of bulk. This eliminates the overload of information for a new player and eases the learning curve. The Meta changes due to these cards as you rise up arena, keeping it fresh every 200 or so trophies

You can play as much as you want (no energy system in F2P!) but you can feel like you are optimally playing with the daily crown chest + 4 slots for chests openings, with a timer that adds to player retention and multiple sessions a day.

They soft launched with clan feature + replay feature. They are both heavy features, and usually features that are saved after global. It was important enough to be in soft launch and it reaps many rewards: gives new players an easy place to go and see high level games allowing them to see what units will be available and how strong they will get, increased pvp competitiveness (esp. with clans system), and has a rotating meta as people watch high level games and adjust decks accordingly.

Space Trucker - buy, upgrade your ship and complete quests.

Narrative: non-memorable narrative, and characters. Far more interesting to weave your own story as a space trucker, aligning yourself with different factions as you trade and travel through the galaxy.

Quests: autogenerated each time player enters a station, as well as bounty leads. Quests seem bland. Lack of introduction to the factions in the world - who the fuck and why are they there? What do they stand for? Who should I join. My main quest - why is there no player agency or motivation to what I need to do?

Combat: on a single plane, although smaller ships may move vertically up and down on this plane to give the illusion of 3d space. It is similar to AC:BF ship combat, moving a vehicle with a large turning circle to fire the broadsides. Ships have different setups for guns based on hardpoints, similar to how a paperdoll with more/less gear would have. It shares a lot of common roots with dungeon hack and slash but presenting it differently. Combat controls are intuitive to a degree, the single plane with camera can be confusing (but it might be with the lack of invert camera?). I'm still on the first system but I heard there's more gameplay unlocked after being able to jump to the next sector. You also need time to play with each weapon type/class to see how it works. Targetting AI can be controlled on the guns (for example, your want your missles to hit fighters only). Overall, the gameplay is enough and the combat is fun but highly repetitive.

Style/Music: space is awesome! and RB emphasises on the space-cowboy starwars/firefly-ness by having country-esque guitar slides in the soundtrack. It also takes queues based on what you are doing (eg. travelling, combat, mining etc) and takes songs from there, so you can add your own tracks to have your own experience in the world.

Interesting Interactive Piece. No click-through tutorials, assumes player knowledge of interfaces. Not many things to click, focuses player. Keyword: Immersive eg. Read me files tell the player how to play, Dbchecker shows player process in how much data they have seen and what I think is key plot points in the volumes missing text.

Premise: game already starts with you having a search case "murder" - creating player interest and pushing them into the core loop. Narrative: told in a non-conventional method, where the player gets bite sized pieces based on their search term (which is limited to the first 5 queries). You find search terms through watching videos since they are all transcript/keyword linked together in some way.

(Spoiler) Length : ---------------------Running time is 2-3 hours, however can be abrupt once some search terms (or % of db/plot points discovered?), where you get a chat message and taken to the credit sequence of the game. I didn't really know the full story or what just happened and seemed disjointing in the experience, but could be a way in how the game creates meta around by getting players discussing the game based on where it left them.