Online Saturday - Squad Busters - My First Hour, 10 Games 5 Wins. It's A Game Of The Year Contender

This Saturday i tried out a new Mobile multiplayer game called Squad Busters. It's from Supercell  and is a cross over with their other games. This means, characters from those games are in Squad Busters and can be on your team. I've never played a Supercell game before so i don't have much context as to who the characters are or what game they're from. It didn't matter. i honestly think this is something that fans can enjoy but also those, like me, can enjoy too.

Squad Busters is a PVP game where 10 teams face off against each other. the aim is to get the most emeralds. to do so you start with one character and have to defeat monsters to earn coins. earning coins means you can open chests and get more characters. once you get 3 of the same character, they fuse into one larger character meaning you can get more. every time you open a chest and get a new character, the price increases. Eventually you start attacking the larger monsters or other players to get money and emeralds. once one of your characters has no health, your team gets smaller but chests drop in price so you have a chance to rebuild your squad. each round is 4 minutes long and you're slowly pushed towards the center of the map. along the edges, prickly vines appear whilst in the center is a huge emerald mine. if you loose all your characters, you're out. if you survive until the end, the team with the most emeralds wins.

If that sounds a little complicated, don't worry. Squad Busters has a fantastic tutorial that'll introduce most of these concepts to you as you play. i'd argue the game is deceptively simple at first as it can need a lot of strategy. the players you can use in a level are limited to those you've collected, either via post game chests or from the shop. So if you don't have Gregg, you're unable to cut down the coin trees. There are characters that can heal your squad, characters that can summon monsters for your squad, characters that can attack at range, and characters who attack close up. which ones of these you get pick from the in-game chests as you build your team can have a big impact on your results.

As a mobile game, it was great that there was no additional download when the game started and there were no ads being forced upon us. the screen layout looked well designed for the #iPhone14pro screen with it's rounded corners and #DynamicIsland not being an issue at all. what's probably more impressive is how easy the controls are. when you move, you don't attack. when you don't move, you attack. it's nice and simple but more importantly it's effective and makes the game very accessible.

Squad Busters not only is a Free To Play Mobile Game of the Year Contender, it's also a Multiplayer Game of the Year Contender on any platform. Supercell have crafted a game that that's equally simple and strategic, accessible and deep, and i lamented in the video that it's only out on mobile as it would be a lot of fun on a pocketable portable or #Switch. 

Version 4.326.10 played

Mobile Friday - Dragon BUURRP! - I Can Recommend This Game Now, But There's Potential To Be Better

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Dragon BUURRP!, from developers Wemade Max.

The name grabbed my attention but it wasn't the reason why i chose to play it. the screenshots from the iOS store looked really cool. i used to play Monster Strike and this looked like something similar. so those two things together made me excited to give this a try.

It starts with a little story that was enough for me, tho it's strange we have to progress the story ourselves instead of it doing it manually. then we're straight into the game. it was a little much as on screen it's trying to tell us how to play as well as trying to tell us what each of the enemies do. all it needed was to separate them. thankfully the controls are simple and so is the premise, so it was easy to get into.

The tutorial goes silent until after the game. It's a shame as we're playing the full game so we're suddenly faced with the choice of three and it takes a second to understand what's happening. thankfully, this first level of the game is easy so i imagine it's harder to loose than win so what ever we pick is probably fine. I didn't know how long this first section was and it kept on going. the game could do better with this first time playing. 

the tutorial is one of the bigger problems with Dragon BUURRP!. the tutorial is basic and does the bare minimum. thankfully, the game is still very accessible and there doesn't seem to be any penalty for failing as it all goes towards earning money that can be spent to improve your character. after each run, the only thing kept is the money you earn. so when you do another run your character has the improved stats from levelling up but all the moves are back to zero.

 as we played we unlocked the ability to play as other dragons, challenge mode, and the tutorial introduced us to equipment. But after an hour it felt like there was still a lot left to be explained. it's possible the tutorial will address it later. the biggest example of this is at the end of the video where i looked at the main menu and all the notifications.

Even tho Dragon BUURRP! has these shortcomings, the basic gameplay is great. i had a lot of fun playing this. the graphics are good and the enemy design and introductions are clear standouts. the music is fine but i would've liked more variety. in the video i say i wanted something more epic for the boss battles, but what there is is fine. 

With a little work, the game as a whole could make a top 5 game of the year list easy. as it stands, just from the basic gameplay alone, it's top 10. but as i was playing it i kept thinking of ways the game could grow. i feel that there's a lot of potential with Dragon BUURRP!, it's a question of how well the developers will support the game. there have been a few patches already since release so i hope this will continue. i recommend it as it is, but it's also small enough that it's a game i can recommend you keep on your phone and come back to over and over again. 

Version 1.0.6 Played.