For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Punko.io: Tower Defense, from Agonalea Games, on my iPhone 14 Pro.
It's a combination of a Roguelike and a Tower Defense game. it's always interesting to see which elements of a roguelike are used and how they're used in combination with tower defense. At first glance it may look similar to Kitty Keep, which we previously looked at https://youtu.be/aQNjKxIjSJg, but Punko.io: Tower Defense is not an idle game and each of the roguelike and tower defense elements are controlled more by the player than the computer.
The roguelike element of the game makes criticizing it a little difficult. one of the goals with that play style is repeatedly dying and working out what elements are repeated, learning how the loop works, and slowly making progress. But, seeing as Punko.io: Tower Defense starts off with telling us something wrong, i think it's fair to criticize the game's poor tutorial. Punko.io: Tower Defense starts straight into a level and we're soon instructed to choose a card or upgrade, but we can't upgrade as there's only 1 playable card. then the tutorial stops. if the game is going to have a tutorial, it should be correct, but for it to then stop and leave us alone is unfair to new/unfamiliar players. it may work on a console market which has more "seasoned" players but the mobile market is more casual. the game should at least ask if we want a tutorial, fix the first command, and offer some extra information to help new players.
The tutorial for the home menu is better than the gameplay one, but itself still has issues. near the end of the video i get a key, but at no point does the game tell me where or what to do with it. i thought i would be unlocking some sort of gatcha area but the forth unlock was evolution. i had to guess that the key unlocked a chest and that chest was in the shop. but i was surprised that i had two sets of keys for another chest. i can understand, to a point, why the gameplay may have less information, but the home menu aspect of the game needs to be better.
When it comes to equipment i'd argue that Punko.io: Tower Defense gives us too much information. the way the equipment aspect of the game works feels old and poorly executed. when you get 1 item, then it's fine, but as soon as you get more than one of the same item, it's difficult to manage. in the video i showed an example with shoes. i had one equipped and then got a second one. both were "good" quality. but there's no way to compare their basic stats. you have to look at one, remember, close, click on the second, and then compare. that might be manageable for HP stat, but both items have a long list of "Grade Skills" that unlock as you upgrade them, leaving us with much more to remember and making a quick task take longer. Many games have Quick Equip button that'll simply equip the items with the highest stats and that would work here. but the game needs to present the Grade Skills better.
Punko.io: Tower Defense's core gameplay loop is simple and effective. the character art is stylised and cool. graphically it's nice to look at, play, and it didn't heat up my phone. it mostly does ok with the Dynamic Island but at times it's off by a few pixels. for a lot of players it's a good game to have. but it's not the most approachable game, it feels like it was designed and made for a more experienced audience. the non-gameplay side of the game feels too basic and not as well designed as the rest of the experience and so sticks out because of that. i would recommend Punko.io: Tower Defense as no two runs would be the same, but it does need a little more work.
Version 1.0.0 Played.
