I, Nathan Reinauer, have a problem. Buried somewhere deep in my soul, I think I may have known it all along. I’ve tried to blame others, but I’m starting to believe it is, in fact, my fault. Yes, it’s time I face the music and finally admit it to the world: I’m bad at tower defense games.
Whew! It feels good to get that out in the open. I’ve played ‘em all: your Sentinels ($0.99), your Kingdom Rush’s (Free), your Anomaly’s ($1.99). In fact, Fieldrunners ($2.99) was one of the first iPhone games I ever bought. (And don’t even get me started on the sequel. I booted it up and it promptly spat in my face.) I’d enjoy them for a time, and then throw my phone down in frustration. Why is this game so damn hard?
That’s not to say I don’t like playing them, though. Au contraire–tower defense is one of my favorite genres, despite my immense suckitude. Which is why I jumped at the chance to review Bad Dinos ($2.99), the latest game from Insomniac (an incredibly fitting studio name, by the way. Didn’t they just release a game last week as well?). And, surprise, surprise: I’m terrible at it. Like the other games I mentioned, though, it’s pretty good in its own little way. Thankfully, it has one or two clever tricks up its sleeve, too.
As you could probably gather from the title, the game takes place in prehistoric times. Somewhere between 10,000 years ago and 200 million years ago, judging by the apparent coexistence of dinosaurs and cavemen. Visually the game is kinda like Ren & Stimpy meets The Flintstones, complete with fun little cartoon cutscenes between levels.
Gameplay-wise, it’s very similar to Kingdom Rush. Each map has specific points where you can place towers, which come in the usual variety of fast/splash damage/slowing/etc. You can then upgrade those towers as you play, with each one having it’s own unique upgrade tree. The titular bad dinos file in from various points on the edges of the map, and you have to destroy them before they descend on the modern stoneage family you’re trying to protect. Pretty standard stuff.
Of course, you can’t just slap a new theme on Kingdom Rush and expect to rake in millions. You need a gimmick, and Bad Dinos has a pretty great one. Under each enemy dinosaur is a green health bar, and when you get a dino’s health down to the red you can capture it with a net. Then, when things start to get overwhelming, you can release all your prehistoric prisoners, who then dutifully march upstream and eat their former brothers and sisters without a shred of remorse. Just as you’d expect, it feels really cool commanding your own little dino army. Kinda like Chris Pratt and his sweet raptor posse in Jurassic World.
As helpful as the capture-and-release mechanic is, though, the game is still pretty difficult (though I admit it doesn’t mean much coming from me, as we’ve already established). Often the levels seem to require a very specific strategy to win, and it’s pretty satisfying when you’ve finally figured it out. If you’ve done well enough to earn three stars on a level, you can spend them to upgrade your special abilities (like shortening the cool-down timer on your capture net) which adds a nice layer of incentive for playing smart.
Faithful readers, some of you may raise an eyebrow that I chose to review a game I knew I’d be kind of awful at. But I look at it like someone reviewing a new fitness center in town: you don’t need to be Mr. Universe to know if it’s a nice gym or not. You just need to enjoy working out. And I definitely enjoy working out my brain with games like this, planning my defenses and trying different combinations over and over until I get it right. I feel I can safely say that Bad Dinos isn’t re-inventing any (stone) wheels, but the One New Thing it does is pretty great. If you’re a fan of the genre, this should provide a nice challenge. For the average joe, however, there are just too many other similar games on the App Store to say for sure whether you’ll click with this particular brand of tower-based defending over any other.
As a game developer, I try to remember that people are CHOOSING to play my games, over everything else they can do.
Saying a user can't play while they have time but must wait until the game developer lets them seems self-defeating in the long run.
While i understand the psychology behind these decisions, i remain hopeful we can find other ways to make a living from our games.
Ah, the heady smell of idealism ;)
I hope you find a way because I feel like for every game that manages to take a step in the right direction there are several others that continue to be ham-fisted about IAPs. It's discouraging when I see so many that get it wrong because I enjoy mobile games just as much as I enjoy what I can play a console.
The thing is, locking a player out of content for a time, and then giving it back can be very good design, and can help make that content extra special. It is all about how you approach it. Energy systems work great with "core gamers" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean). But you have to build it right, and presentation is everything.
In what world does a gamer want to be locked out of a game until the developer says they can play again??
If you look at actual data and A/B tests instead of just asking "gamers" you'll see that yes, energy systems increase retention, and not just by a little. Whether or not a vocal minority finds it offensive is a completely different issue.
Are you sure it's not just because it's been forced on people so they've adopted it, leading to this mentality of checking back in on something because they got a notification? I would NEVER rather be told to stop playing and come back in an hour. In an hour, I'll be back at work. So energy makes me play a game less.
This idea is, it might make you play it less on a session by session basis, but it'll make you play it longer through more overall sessions. While you may argue against this kind of thing in the realm of personal preference, the vast, overwhelming statistical majority of data out there suggests otherwise.
Well the majority of people will always do some silly things. Personally I find this depressing but maybe it's just me.
It's like gamers have turned into Oliver Twist asking for some more. That's a pretty sad state of affairs when that becomes the expected behavior.
Eh, it's just another way people are enjoying content. I thought it was dumb as hell originally, then I put my pre-existing prejudices to the side and I've been having a good time playing games with energy systems for free for quite literally years now.
Put generalizations and preconceived notions to the side for a moment and you might be surprised as well.
Oh I know. Over the years I've played many, many games with energy systems. But after about two weeks they get extremely old and I move on to something better. I've certainly gave it every effort. I just think it's a terrible system generally designed to play on people who don't want to wait and shell out lots of cash to play a game.
I'm baffled that statistics would suggest that players would even be OK with any form of energy system. It's by far my least favourite thing about any form of F2P, and also by far the most intrusive. The only person I know who plays any game with an energy system is my brother, who plays Boom Beach. He would never be a part of a vocal crowd on the internet for any reason, but I can tell you that just because he puts up with the energy system doesn't mean he enjoys it. "&*#$!!! Stupid energy ran out again." Now maybe that energy system is forcing him to stretch his play sessions thinner and in bite-sized chunks, which will in effect keep him playing for a longer span of time than if he were able to play to his heart's content, but again it does not mean he likes it. On the contrary, he reluctantly deals with it because it's tacked onto a game he likes all the other aspects of.
Well, I feel it goes by an old adage I learned while working as an after school counselor: when playing a game with the group of children you want to stop playing right at the peak of enjoyment so they will want to play it again and again in the future. Personally, I like playing games for as long as I want, when I want. However, the energy system encourages you to play it for that short amount of time, which is hopefully the correct amount of time for you to really enjoy it, then takes the game away, encouraging you to come back at another time. It helps consumers enjoy the same content over a very long time, as long as it is in short enough bursts to be both entertaining and addicting (as you mentioned).
I appreciate your position and I understand your point, but fast food advertising during children's television programs is effective, does that make it right? I'm sure you'll agree that the term core gamers refers to those who came to gaming through consoles and pc's while the term casual gamers refers to people who have come to gaming through Facebook and mobile. I could be wrong but it seems to me your audience is derived mainly from the former. That's why your articles are getting the reaction we see. But you already knew that.
Sure, it'd make me play longer over overall sessions, except that I'd rather find a different *game* that lets me *play* because games are for *fun*.
:(
I'm not coming back because you try to make me play that way, I'm coming back if it's fun... timers are not fun...
:/
Something people rarely think about when they talk about energy systems and "core" gamers - Hearthstone has an "energy" system (quests for gold). WoW has ALWAYS had an "energy" system - a time-based gating mechanic (raids). It doesn't gate the ENTIRE game though.
Yep I'm sure. Big data-driven F2P games don't run on gut feelings. Those companies have more analysts than developers and they don't put stuff in their games that'll hurt usage or retention. Everything is A/B tested in minutiae.
MMO's. And games like MMO's. Like Destiny. There are literally millions who play that game on console daily (I think the last stats showed 20+ million individual user accounts overall and about 3+ million unique users daily).
Destiny shuts gamers out after a bit and make them wait a day to play again?
Destiny isn't an MMO though, at least not in the conventional sense of the term...
Destiny isn't an MMO, you're correct. Which is why I said 'games LIKE MMO's. Like Destiny'.
Yep. Trials of Osiris can only be played Friday-Tuesday. Special PVP events can only be played when they are active (like Iron Banner). The weekly raids and nightfalls can be played multiple times, but the loot (the whole point of doing the weekly events) can only be claimed once.
This game was interesting but it was more the shooting gallery feel to it that bugged me felt like an old school arcade gun game where eneime ai was basicly pop in and out of cover but barely shoot. Its like the enimes had a death wish poping up to say some gibberish witch in interpreted as please oh please shoot me in the face.
What I don't get is when games like Marvel Avengers Alliance and Future Fight give out so much energy that I've never run out of it. Why even bother having an energy system?!? They can't be making money from people buying currency to refill energy, can they?! Just sell me a game, you know? Not a portable arcade where I need to keep pumping quarters into it. Well done, Midnightstar Team. I'm hoping to jump back into it now that I can play anytime.
I'm genuinely amazed that Future Fight is getting so much praise for its system because I haven't come across a game that restricts so much in years.
It's possibly the most frustrating I've come across between grinding and just running out of energy while grinding.
And yet I enjoy actually playing quite a lot but the reality is its really a very well disguised collector game with timers.
Excellent design but Implosion is a far better choice of game.
I'm perfectly okay with timers in general and find item, character timers a doddle and very manageable but that game, man, even with all the achievement based time given away, is just way too much waiting and grinding the same battles over and over.
It's a strange one that one because people go mental over RR3 and injustice when both are actually substantially less restrictive than it as the timers are item/character specific.
Netmarble have definitely nailed the perception element down or else everybody had the super easy soft launch version and levelled up very high with a good energy bank.
The international release definitely ain't an easy version to start out on though and is very close to just being deleted at this stage.
I didn't even mind the one in Midnight Star but I have to say the dev made the right decision to remove it in relation to the tune of game it is because it didn't really suit the game or the type of play it gets anyway so well done Tim and team.
I appreciate the comments made in the blog. Thanks for the article!
Energy system with watch ad to bypass is the future
Why not just tell the gamer the value of the add they're watching and let the gamer decide how many to watch up front for how long they want to play? I mean developers get money for us watching ads so why not just equate that to game playing time. I load the game and want to play for 45 minutes. The games says ok that's 10 ads. I watch the ads and the game unlocks for 45 minutes. Or better yet the developer says I want $5.00 for my game. You can pay me now and play it forever or watch some ads to get some play time. But once the ads ads up to $5.00 bam the game unlocks from that moment on. I'll bet a lot of people wouldn't mind watching those ads if they saw a counter going down and knew once it hit zero they'd never have to see them again.
I actually stepped away from Final Fantasy Record Keeper because of the energy system. I think the game itself is great. However, I don't want to be restricted to 10-15 minutes of gameplay then have to wait an hour plus to play again. I even throw money on F2P games that I feel are fair in how they handle it. However, games that have energy systems have NEVER had me spend a single cent on them. I refuse. If you want me to pay to play I refuse. If you want to let me play and buy cosmetics, fine. If you want $20 up front like Chaos Rings 3, SOLD! However, don't ask me to buy more stamina to play a game. Hell, if FFRK would let me pay $10 to remove the stamina meter I would have already. I'm not paying for a temporary fix to have to pay again later.