Now Playing : Boom Beach

I've actually been knee deep in this title for about a week now, wanted to get a good feel for it before posting. Well that and I've simply been to busy enjoying it to bother posting, heh!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/boom-beach/id672150402?mt=8
Free, 71mb download, Universal

All right. This here is a title from the same folks who made Clash of Clans, and it plays really similar. Resource collecting, attacking npcs, attacking players, base defense, the basics of what made CoC work remain unchanged. What makes this worth playing then? All of everything else that HAS been changed.

You can guide/control your assault forces for starters with the use of flairs. Enemies can only attack you from one direction, the beach which allows for actual thought when building your defense. When you attack you have ground forces and a offshore ship that fires everything from artillery to flares and medical kits and more. Interestingly Supercell opted for not letting you buy additional construction slots so at any one time the most you will be able to do is build/upgrade one building, upgrade one unit and load up your assault ships with ground pounders. This forces you to decide each time you finish one project. Do you want to work on defense next or resource building?

The biggest change for me would have to be the map. In CoC you had a trail of npc combat that once completed was finished and done. In BB there are small villages all over the map for starters. These villages when in your control generate coin, stone, wood or iron depending on their type. Now as for the coin generators when they are taken from you its a random chance whether it'll be a npc or another player. Either case, you attack, you win, you take it back. Lumber/Stone/Iron villages are different however. When you unlock one on your map you are assigned another player randomly. Each time one of you takes it from the other, the village level ups. When it level ups new weapon defenses appear and existing ones upgrade. Eventually your bound to hit a point where you just can't take it back and this isn't a problem. Leave it alone for afew days and you'll have the option to have a new opponent assigned to you. This also works for any coin village with a player occupying it. Wait and replace if their just to hard. Upgrading your radar increases the explorable range of your map but be warned, the higher your radar level the higher the level of npcs and players who appear on your map. Lastly, chests randomly appear on the map that reward iap gems.

Regarding pvp, successfully defending your base or even killing a good portion of the players assault forces when you fail to defend have a chance of rewading iap gems for your efforts. Assaulting npcs and players always have a chance of resources, crystals, trophies and iap gems. Trophies are your world ranking currency. Their earned by winning and lost by failing to defend from the enemy.

Crystals. Crystals are a separate currency in the game that are used to build idols. Idols add buffs to your base, soldiers and so on. There are four types of idols, each with its own crystal color and within each type of idol there are three qualities of each color.

When attacking player bases, this isn't like CoC where attacking resource buildings gave you resources. Your one and only goal is to kill their headquarters. Do so, and you get your just reward.

There... is a shield system in place like CoC of some sort but its not visable and no one really is sure how long it lasts between attacks from players. All we do know is that the more active you are against fellow players, the more often you will be attacked by them in return.

The same CoC achievement / reward system is in place here. Hit the goals, get iap gems.

There is no social aspect to this game currently. No msg system, no clan chat, nothing. Which in my opinion they need to add asap.

The npc enemy has afew 'headquarter' outposts. Killing these is challenging and the rewards are plentiful. Additionally once knocked out occasionally limited time events appear there. These events involve attacking, winning, the enemy upgrading and you attacking again. A sort of see how far you can win sort of thing. Each time you re-attack them the difficulty increases and so do the rewards.

Graphically the game is full 3d, trees swaying and waves breaking on the shore in particular will catch your attention.

Sound? Its a modern war game, sounds are on par with what you'd expect.

Great controls!

Random tips :
. Knock down trees to expand your building area.
. You only lose troops during an attack if they die during the attack.
. Your offshore ship has an energy currency of its own, killing enemy buildings replenishes it. So does upgrading the ship itself back at your base.
. Villages you control will periodically offer resources as tribute.
. Iap currency is strictly used for starting construction and speeding it up. There are no iap buildings so there is no need to horde your iap gems.
. Beating a player causes them to vanish from your map.
. Upgrade your vault. It protects a fixed amount of your resources from player attack and additionally protects a percentage of whats not covered by the vault's fixed amount.
. Do not build your base defenses flush against one another. If you do a player can attack between the two and damage both. Of course... if you see npcs/players making this mistake... :)
. Watch the tree line when laying out your defense. Most of the trees can be navigated through by attacking players with flares. Note : use the trees when your attacking players to circumvent their defenses heh.
. Watch the replays from other players attacking you whether you defend successfully or not. Good way of identifying weaknesses in your defense.
. Always build idols when they are available. The buff they give is random. Once complete, decide if you want to keep it or reclaim it in to better crystals or get rid of one of your currently placed ones.
. If you try to stay online too long to avoid being attacked the game will eventually make you attackable.

So, I'm really really enjoying this game, two thumbs up. Full gamecenter support present.
o/