Instead of just 10 heroes, Monster Strike has almost 1000 collectable monsters in the game ( source). With this massive set of monsters, they have created a system where players have much more excitement for the long run.Īs I’ve spoken about before, to alleviate the feeling of grinding it’s all about creating random spikes of progression. Monster Strike’s system with consuming & collecting monsters has a massive advantage in the long run compared to Smash Land. Leaving the Gatcha system out for Smash Land is a big risk, what remains is a far too simple economy that quickly becomes a grind. For a great overview of Gacha, read here. To upgrade your heroes you must collect hundreds of characters and consume them to give experience points to your heroes. Monster Strike takes cues from Japanese Gatcha games like Puzzles and Dragons. Smash Land’s system is far simpler than Monster Strike. As a result, the game really starts to require many, many battles before you can afford a single upgrade. The cost of each upgrade escalates very quickly. So the player collects gold from playing matches or collecting them from treasure hunts, and turns this gold into upgrades to their heroes. Smash Land also departs from Monster Strike in how upgrades are handled. Players just won’t have nearly as much to strategize about in the long run. My guess is that while Supercell’s game clearly scores points for understandability, it will seriously limit the long term replayability of the game compared to Monster Strike. You need a balance of elemental types on top of ensuring you’ve got strong special abilities that are complementary. In Monster Strike, the team you bring into battle requires far more strategy as you progress in the game. However, at what cost is this simplicity? In Smash Land the major differences between the characters are special abilities and their health to damage ratio. Its much easier to understand Smash Land compared to Monster Strike. Just comparing these two screens you can see the dramatic comparison between the games. Monster Strike contains far more variety of stats for each character: This is really where Smash Land departs from Monster Strike. Outside of the battle, players can also engage in upgrading their heroes stats. It’s a great battle system that is easy to get addicted to. Overall they’ve taken the best bits of Monster Strike and applied it to a more focused experience. Players feel smart and each shot is unpredictable. As a result each move can result in some “Post-Action Luck” which is critical for casual games. Like Peggle, physics is usually pretty easy to predict after the first shot, but after the first few collisions it becomes almost impossible to predict the outcome. On top of this, because of the nature of physics, Luck comes into play. The feeling of skill is strong - I can predict a few bumps and feel smart about setting up strong combos. Its easy to pick up and understand for any player. The gameplay is very strong for a mobile F2P game. Each character feels unique because of their special abilities which feels great. ![]() Overall the core battle feels smoother, cleaner and is much easier to understand than Monster Strike. For an overview of the mechanic, watch this video: ![]() The player then collects up to 10 different heroes, each with their own special ability. In Smash Land, the game is about lining up one of your characters so that it bounces between walls, enemy characters and your own characters as many times as possible. Almost like a game of pool, the game is mostly about predicting how balls on a flat surface will bump and move to create a preferred outcome. The core battle mechanic is a Physics-based RPG battle. Supercell decided to keep core battle game the same as Monster Strike. ![]() Has what remains kept what is required to be a successful game? Smash Land’s Core Battle But in Supercell’s simplification of a game that performs so well in Japan, has the game stayed intact? Similar to how Supercell started Clash of Clans with looking at Backyard Monsters, Supercell now looks to simplify the design of Monster Strike so that it could work in the Western markets. In December 2014 it took over Puzzles and Dragons’ top spot in the Japanese charts. Smash Land is based on “Monster Strike”, a massive mobile free to play game in Japan. The games that hit soft launch are games that Supercell genuinely believes have a shot at the Top Grossing charts. Each new game goes through rigorous internal feedback, and only the best games survive. Supercell is notoriously picky about what games that make it to soft launch. There is no doubt that Supercell’s soft launches are huge news for the mobile free to play industry. It’s been in soft launch phase in Canada and Australia since March 31st 2015 (About 2 months from this post). ![]() Supercell’s most recent soft launch is called Smash Land.
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