The following article is from Vergil's Game Talk, written by Lin Yancheng Vergil
overview
"Garden Raider" is a cartoon-style vertical tower defense game developed by Yojoy Game and published by Chengyou Technology, which will be launched on May 1, 2024 on the WeChat mini program, ranking 4th on the play list and within 20 on the popularity list.
The game is based on the traditional vertical tower defense, and integrates the recent popular backpack finishing gameplay, which has achieved very good results, and will be briefly analyzed next, not long, please feel free to eat.
fight
Overview of the rules
The basic structure of "Garden Force" is a more traditional side-scrolling tower defense, and the core gameplay and art performance are almost the same as the popular "King's Finger" and "Gun at the Zombies" in recent months, but some of the designs are slightly different: the battle is divided into 20 waves, and 10 and 20 are boss levels. Friendly characters will use equipped weapons to attack, stack armor, or trigger other effects, with each equipment taking its own CD. Character attacks in battle are fully automatic, and the player does not have any action points.
Basic Rules
At the start of each battle, there will be a steady stream of enemies from above, and if you defend against all enemies within the time limit of the level, you will win the battle, and if all your towers are destroyed, you will lose the battle. Killing enemies will give you experience points, and when the experience bar above you is full, 3 random buffs will pop up, and the player can choose one of them. If you want to refresh the buff or get it all, you need to watch the advertisement.
Unlike the prototype, "Garden Raiders" also adds backpack sorting gameplay to the battle.
To say something less off-topic: In October last year, a game on Steam called "Backpack Wars: The Treasure of Faucifa (the game started EA changed its name to "Backpack Brawl: The Treasure of Focifer" in March this year, and was officially launched), the game is a PVP auto-chess, players can buy equipment and put it in the backpack on the preparation interface, according to the combination of equipment and placement, different BDs can be achieved; After that, the PVP phase begins, where both players use the items in the pack to engage in turn-based auto-battles. In November of the same year, there was another PVE meat pigeon game called "Backpack Hero", which also gained good attention and word of mouth.
After the launch of these two games, the backpack organization mode, which is already popular in casual gameplay, has been pushed to a small peak again, and many manufacturers have also started a wave of learning craze while it is hot. You see, whether it's the activity gameplay of a mobile game or the core gameplay of a mini game, it's always right to pay more attention to Steam every day-
After digression, back to the backpack organizing rules of "Garden Raiders":
- Players can earn silver coins during battles
- At the end of each wave, go to the backpack page, and 3 items will spawn below (including equipment or backpack expansions)
- The backpack is 3X3 by default, and the items come in different sizes, and players need to put the existing items into the backpack before they can be brought into battle and take effect
- Items of the same type and level can be crafted up to level 4
- Some items can be placed in a way that activates additional effects, such as gloves, which increase the attack speed of adjacent physical weapons
- Clicking the refresh button will give you a new batch of items after spending 15 credits or watching a video, and items that were not previously placed in the backpack will disappear. The refresh algorithm here should be a guarantee, and players will refresh at least 1 backpack expansion grid within N times
- Once the rearmament is over, click Start War to start the next wave
system
overview
The peripheral system of the game is very "elemental" (it should be the main test core gameplay, the current data is very explosive, and the peripheral content will be gradually supplemented later), so it will not be divided into modules, such as cultivation, system, and activities, just talk about it briefly.
fight
Traditional main story dungeons, a single challenge consumes 5 stamina, and there are progress chests (diamonds, gold) according to the number of waves resisted 5 / 10 / 20. Stamina, Equipment Cards). Cleared dungeons can be scavenged, free 5 times a day, after which you need to watch ads.
equip
Core and only development modules:
- You can carry up to 8 pieces of equipment into battle, and only those 8 pieces of equipment will be refreshed during battle
- Clear the main story chapters to unlock more types of equipment
- Cultivation is also a standard CR mode, the first time it is unlocked, and then it is converted into equivalent fragments, and the upgrade consumes gold and fragments
- Equipment is divided into weapons and armor, weapons provide attack attributes and damage output in battle, and armor provides health attributes and stack for players in battle
- Equip four passive skills, unlocked at level 1 / 3 / 5 / 7
activity
At present, there are only daily challenges, that is, daily dungeons, which can be challenged 3 times a day to produce diamonds, gold coins, and equipment cards.
store
The shop content is also more traditional, divided into daily shops, treasure chests, and gold:
- Since the game is a pure IAA mode, the store does not include RMB purchases
- There are 6 slots in the daily shop, the first one is a diamond, and the rest are random equipment, which can be refreshed by looking at the advertisement
- Treasure chests are divided into ordinary and delicate, and can be drawn by watching advertisements or consuming diamonds
- Gold coins to watch ads or consume diamonds to buy
commercialization
overview
Since the product is a pure IAA model, you can only experience more content by watching ads like crazy. Judging from the fact that the product is firmly in fourth place in the list, you can also imagine how much ad watching content the game contains, and it is roughly estimated that at least half of my game time every day is watching ads.
The product has performed well so far, and we should be able to expect more content to be added in the future. For example, paid ad-free cards and the like......
In battle
Advertising points in the battle include:
- Double speed: Strictly speaking, this is not an advertising incentive. If you want to start the battle at double speed, you need to do social sharing, and you have shared only, whatever, this, one, field, battle, fight!!
- Refresh BUFF: All of them need to be watched for another batch, the number of restrictions is 3 and 10 respectively, if you want to reduce the difficulty of the dungeon, you need to watch at least 3 ads to get 6 more BUFFs, and the priority is medium to high
- Backpack refresh: Watching the refresh of the advertisement must come out of the level 2 equipment, the temptation is quite large, especially the backpack grid is limited, and the equipment is easy to get stuck when upgrading to 2 jumps and 3, at this time, it is more motivated to watch the advertisement to get a level 2 equipment...... Of course, since the player brought 8 kinds of equipment into the battle, it is also common to watch the advertisement and brush up the unwanted equipment, so there is a high probability to watch it again......
- Large backpack grid: Occasionally you can refresh an expansion grid of 3 squares, which must be obtained by watching ads. Since the backpack slot is the highest priority item to obtain, this is a must-see......
- Resurrection: I didn't play much, and I didn't die in battle, so I'm not sure if I watched the commercial resurrection. But if you think about it on your heels, you have to have it......
It is quite common for a battle of 20 waves to average 10-25 ads, and each segment is 30 seconds, which makes the already short battle time more prolonged. But on the other hand, being able to watch the ad so many times also shows the attractiveness of the core gameplay and the reasonable level design of the product.
system
Due to the very simple structure of the product, the advertising points of the peripheral system are basically related to resource acquisition (i.e., controlling the progress of the game), and the more anxious the player, the more they will want to see it, especially those who have some equipment stuck at a specific cultivation point or have enough fragments but not enough gold. Advertisements for peripheral systems include:
- Buy stamina
- Open treasure chests
- Buy gold
- Buy diamonds
- Refresh your store
epilogue
Finally, let's talk about the core battle - bullseye-like battles, although the duration of a single game is not short, the experience is refined and simple, players can focus on BD construction and battle verification, and experience one link after another; Whether it is the backpack organization gameplay of "Backpack Brawl" or "Backpack Hero", it is to package the player's BD process in a fresh form, which is very appropriate with the theme and art. It is true that making products is spent in continuous "imitation" and "addition", and "Garden Assault" can make a more reasonable combination of these two modes, adjust the combat structure that matches it in combination with the business model, and put on a fresh and concise art skin, which should be exchanged for a good game experience. But after all, it is an IAA product, and the large number of well-designed advertising content cuts the player's combat experience of more than 10 minutes in a single game, let alone enter the flow?
However, the above is more about some personal feelings, back to the product and user layer: the mini game is for pan-users or even non-game users, players want to play 2-3 games freshly, and the number of high-frequency advertising clicks has long been worth the ticket price, this design is understandable and very successful, and it is worth learning from everyone. I wish the "Garden Raider" product better and better, and then ...... It's a ball, let me buy an ad-free card.