Mini-Reviews

Short descriptions of interesting features of some clash-likes:

  • LegendBorne: You need to “rescue” your troops. Suppose you unlock vampire bats. That’s nice, but you can’t train any until you “rescue” bats, by beating certain special bases. That’s fun at first, but pretty soon you max out and it’s done. Has 2 sides — good and evil — with different troops and leaders. This was before we realized how much extra work that was, that never pays off.
  • Compass Point: West: Beautiful old-western-style art and sound. Boom-Beach-style map (including computer bases and special missions: train and cow rescues). Unique buildings for your town. The troop selection is based on poker-cards you slowly acquire, then merge to make stronger versions. That gives big spenders a definite advantage, since the stronger versions cost the same points.
  • Titan Empires: Original features: impassable river squares (with a check so you can’t surround anything); a complicated clan war map (each enemy clan base has a point value and sometimes a bonus); clan-mate’s can reinforce one of your buildings for a day. Made in Wisconsin. Invented having a wide selection of heroes (like an ogre who’s special ability is making one big jump) with gambling chests for extra gear.
  • Space Miner Wars: Attacks are flying one fully controlled Asteroids-style spaceship, while their base sprays bullets. But the rest is standard clash-like (town hall, upgrades, storages, builders… ).
  • Dawn Of Steel: Another non-clash offense: 3-4 fully controllable robots, each with a special ability. Bases have monster-spawning defenses (mini-robot factories). Monetizes by selling you special robot weapons at each level for a few bucks. At first players were randomly given different entrance patterns for their bases (2 small gaps or 1 larger one). But everyone complained until they added the option to switch.
  • StarWars:Commander: Play as Rebel or Empire (everyone plays Empire) with very different forces. The big innovation is you get generic defensive towers and can put any weapon in them. Weapons get bonuses against troop types so you get to guess which army you fear most. Damage is low and troops are slow, so attacks need to worry about the time limit.
  • Samurai Seige: One of the first Clash of Clans imitators. Samurai-themed, sillier, more events and specials (I suspect this game convinced Clash of Clans to start adding events).
  • Lords and Castles: medieval-themed old-style clash-copy. Adds terrain elevation — troops walk slower uphill and weapons fire further downhill. Fun, but too much work. Uses the new “post-style” walls. Research is a tech-tree, which also unlocks things like “+25 walls”. Rare Heroes come from Gambling chests. For no reason, the heroes are historical politicians: Abraham Lincoln can duke it out with Catherine the Great or Gandhi. With no joke intended, US leader Trump’s ability is to strengthen walls.
  • SeigeFall: Boom Beach style area map. Attacks have a fully controllable hero and squads of troops. As you destroy buildings, you get points to summon more troops. Spells are from a pre-done semi-random card-draw (you get lots of so-so spells, which you may as well use). Walls come in just a few long sections. Weekly computer-controlled base quests.
  • Royal Revolt: Defense is a real tower-defense — you create a path lined with upgradable defensive towers and barriers, with waves of selectable troops. Attacking is a fully controllable hero, with squads of troops summoned through a refilling energy bar. Nice selection, and pretty fun. Strong pay-to-win component — several ways to spend gems during an attack (for example, you have a spell that costs gems to cast).
  • OlympusRising: Greek-themed copy of RoyalRevolt (made by the same company.)
  • Dungeon Keeper: place upgradable rooms in a dungeon, connected by carved-out hallways. Some defensive monsters. Attacks come from 4 fixed entrances. Some monsters can walk/shoot through walls. Reasonably fun. This is a clash-like port of a much older game. It was hated as a cash-grab, but it’s no different than any other clash-like.
  • Batman:Arkham Underworld: Similar to DungeonKeeper, your buildings are connected rooms and hallways, with two fixed “garages” as entrances. Later you can bust through a window. Terrific AI to make defending goons dive behind your placed sandbags or sofas. Gold is in a vault room, with a very heavy door. Your HQ has “you”, a super-villain, defending. Attacking is your fully-controllable super-villian, with the usual dumb clash-like army coming with. Limited spells. Boom-Beach style map. This was a Suicide Squad movie tie-in, and was much better than it needed to be.
  • Raid HQ: Attacks are non-clash-like. Each defensive room is a level by itself — a stationary bullet-hell. Things like: one big robot, lots of waves of troops, or a tough laser bunker. Nearby rooms may add extra bullets. Attacking has a team of 4: use only 1, but freely tag in and out. The heroes are gotten and upgraded using gambling-chests, but they’re fairly generous – you can find free “S-class” heroes. At first 1 path leads to the HQ, but eventually you have to split your defenses among several. Uses the Clash Royale victory chest system (get 3 victory chests, then wait hours for them to unlock).
  • Drop Assault: WarHammer 40K-themed Boom Beach-style game. Uses a point system for defenses: you get 50 defense points per level, and defenses cost different amounts. Build and use whatever defensive buildings you want. Extras can even be put in a storage area, at no cost to you. Adds a live player-vs-player area. Gambling chests for heroes, some of which could be upgraded to be far too powerful.
  • Transformers: Earth Wars: attack team is 5 non-controllable robots. Each robot carries a spell, using a Boom Beach energy system to cast and recast. Robots are won through gambling chests. There’s a whole system with levels and stars — basically a collectable hero game.