Monster Warlord (Android)

Time for another new format!  It has -nothing- to do with the fact that I haven't had time to play anything for review, nope, not at all...  Okay, it does.  But this sounded like a good idea anyways, so it's something I can throw in every now and then.  "...with benefits" are games that I have been picking up on the side here and there, getting a little action when I need it.  They are likely to be either casual games, or games that just don't have much story, so I can just pick them up for a few minutes when I get time.

...with benefits

Year: 2012 -- Developer: Gamevil -- Publisher: Android Marketplace

Monster Warlord is a Facebook-style casual game (for lack of better description).  You have "action" points to do a couple different things, but then you need to wait for them to recharge (or pay to recharge sooner).  It's driving mostly by still-shots and buttons to navigate and occupy your time for a few minutes at a time.  As you get "further" in the game, you increase your maximum points, which lets you play for a little longer as time goes on.

Considering there are a bunch of this type of game out there, this is really the only one that has really caught me so far.  The premise in this one is that you are a Monster Handler, a la Pokemon or Monster Rancher.  You start with 1 monster, and a handful of Action and Battle points.  You use Action points to do quests, at the press of a button.  They cost varying amounts of points, and reward accordingly.   Battle points can be used to attack other players.  It compares your attack value to their defense value and determines a win or lose. If you win, you gain a few extra points of experience, and a percent of their non-banked gold.  If you lose, you get 1XP and no gold.

As you level up and gain gold, you can buy more monsters (required to do higher level quests).  As you get higher level monsters, you can combine them and have a chance at an even higher-ranked monster.  The more strength you have in monsters, the more effectively you can battle.  You can also invest your gold into buildings that pay you an amount of money every hour.  Since many of the later monsters have upkeep (cost per hour), investing in these buildings is pretty important.

I think what keeps me coming back to this game is just that it's so simple, but there is a little strategy and complexity to it.  I can pick it up for literally 5 minutes, burn my points, but still feel accomplished.  I am able to know I just gained so many experience points, and completes so much of a quest.  Often, there are Boss Battles, which are monsters either summoned by the game or by other players.  They don't fight back, so you don't get experience, but they are great for farming gold.

Knowing that you are earning gold per hour, but others might be attacking you taking your "hard-earned" gold keeps you coming back as often as you can think about it just to dump your gold into the bank, keeping it out of the hands of other players.  If you keep your money low enough often enough, they start to realize you just aren't worth attacking.

Often, one of the catches to these games is that you feel limited if you don't dump real money into it.  While you definitely could make more progress if you "pay" for it, I generally haven't felt the -need- to drop money into it.  I will admit I have put a few bucks into it just to get a little bit further here and there, but I quickly realized how much that could add up, so I haven't done it in a while.  A dollar at a time doesn't seem like that much, but it's easy to just keep spending "just a buck".

There are also advanced tactics that I could try to get into.  Really trying to combine well, and focus on buying the right amount of monsters to win more battles, but that's not what I get out of this game.  If I spent much more time on it, it wouldn't be one of those on-the-side kind of things.

Considering I'm still actively leveling consistently, completing quests, and collecting monsters, I don't feel like I will be breaking this off any time soon.  It's just too easy to feel productive, but not feel like I need to invest a lot of time keeping the relationship afloat.  I will be reaping these benefits for a while to come.

        

So that's the first ...with benefits!  I'm not sure if they will all turn out to be this long, but they might.  Since they are games I have spent more time with, I feel the need to explain more about what I know about it.  Usually, I only know 10-20 minutes worth of the game, so I can only say so much.  Even with this game, I could probably just keep going, but I also never really plan on spending -too- much time with this blog.  That just isn't the point right now.