Clash Royale

By -

I have a tendency to browse the app store every Thursday when it updates and grab at least one game to try.  Some weeks nothing catches my eye but most weeks there's at least one game that looks interesting enough to try out.

Clash Royale is the latest of these.  It pitches itself as real time strategy in a compact package where matches last around 2 minutes.  That's all I needed to know to try it.

I loved my first couple hours with the game.  I was playing these short little real time strategy battles, getting new cards that contain abilities or units, and customizing my deck for the next match.  The core of this game is solid and fun.

But then the F2P mechanics reared their ugly head.  The main progression in the game is done through opening chests to get new units and abilities or getting duplicates of ones you already have which will allow you to upgrade.  But, once you're out of "gems" you can only open chests in real time.  This means you click on one chest and then wait three or eight hours... and in some cases even longer.  It completely killed my momentum in the game.

Once I grabbed my "free chest" which respawns every couple hours and I did my daily "crown chest" challenge I was out of things to do.  I had a chest opening in real time and no real incentive to play any more.

I'm not always against F2P games, if they're done correctly they can be amazing.  Clash Royale is an example of the business model killing the game.  The core idea is sound but all the bullshit around it makes it worse.

After playing for about a week I'm deleting this from my phone and chances are I'll probably never revisit it again.

Comments

  1. MagsonMarch 17, 2016 at 2:01 PM

    I'm playing it and I'm in a 50-member clan who donates cards left and right, so it's actually pretty easy to get upgrades.

    but that said... yeah, it seems like you just play for a few minutes to push through enough victories to get your crown chest and then you're done for 24 hours. Not much to it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VoidMarch 17, 2016 at 2:05 PM

      I hate that there's no incentive to play beyond a few minutes. If there was I could see myself getting so hooked on this game.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently have.
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing games way ahead
Read more

What is Blaugust? 2023 Edition

By -
Image
I jumped right into the previous post without actually explaining Blaugust.  So... what is it?  Blaugust is an excuse to get people blogging... in August.  Hence, Blaugust! I'm not the best person to pitch it, but Blaugust is put on by a long time friend of mine, Belghast.  Here's what he had to say about Blaugust for the 2023 kickoff: Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. For years blogging has been dwindling, and in part, Blaugust was my attempt and reversing that course by compiling a bunch of veteran bloggers in one place and making it super easy to ask questions and get answers. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a result. Ea
Read more