I've been caught up in a few F2P games for the past couple weeks. I'm writing this up mainly for myself, but since I haven't seen a dedicated F2P thread here, I thought to share.
I hope other Boritos will post their impressions of F2P games here as well, so we can all know what to play, and what to avoid.
Also, I need to admit that I’ve been avoiding F2P for ages because I would rather play console games, which have seemed more robust and engaging... but the truth is I’ve been pretty hooked on them now that I’ve tried a few.
Last caveat: I try to play these games on zero money for as long as I can stand it, and then I purchase IAP currency to see what kind of change it effects in the experience.
OK, on with it:
Way back when, I tried Tiny Tower and Smurf Village. These games were just maniacal little time wasters. I never spent any money on either one, and was surprised to find myself resenting the time spent just doing upkeep on the villages. I was checking in during train commutes to- and from-work (this was a couple years ago, when I worked in Japan), and again during lunch hour. I realized that I would rather be reading a book or watching a TV show or movie on the tiny iPod screen than wondering if any of my shelves were empty. Deleting these was tremendously liberating.
Battle Nations has grabbed me pretty hard, and it became the first F2P I've paid any money for. The art style is fun, and it's a little calm and hypnotic to do base management, and the combat is super light, but fun. Being able to sink time into this on my iPhone, iPad, and even on Mac has meant that it gets a lot of attention from me.
There are a few different resources in Battle Nations, with most of them being stuff you can mine, like steel and wood. Some of them are teeth or skulls you get from fallen opponents'. Some are ribbons you get from helping NPCs' bases, or your Friends' bases. (You can create your own network of friends by both parties agreeing to anonymously connect after any PvP fight.) There are prerequisites for almost all of them, such as being Level 1 or 3, or 20; or having soldiers' stripes.
One of the resources is Achievement score from all games from this publisher, Z2Live. As a consequence, I've also downloaded Trade Nations.
Trade Nations is not, by any stretch, a good game. It was the first game the company put out, it also has OS X and iOS clients, so I can take my actions there in about 30 seconds, and am slowly building up my score, so I can get better stuff in Battle Nations. But I feel a little like a clod. There is no mechanic for expanding your Friends Network, unlike Battle Nations, which allows any player encountered in PvP to be added. The only method for expansion is a separate Invite screen, for email and Facebook spamming of friends. No thanks.
Which is to say I am impressed at the integration of network expansion in Battle Nations. Also, it’s better paced; I was able to get about 2 hours of solid play into Battle Nations, experiencing a sense of progress and having fun, before I hit my first speedbump.
For the Z2 points, I also downloaded and played MetalStorm, Z2Live’s arcade jet fighter game. As far as I can tell, I’ve put more effort into this than most people on my GameCenter list. It is a wildly unbalanced arcade flyer, with what feels like a lift of Area88’s manga plotline. Unfortunately, I’m crap at it, and its in-game Coins can be used to respawn, much like old coin-op quarter-munchers encouraged players to keep going a little further. I’m not fond of this game at all right now. I feel like I was suckered into continuing, as the plane is restored, but Premium Weapons and Ammo are not; so if you think you can finish the mission with limited ammo, or the underpowered generic ammo, wheee.
What else... ?
I've been enjoying Clash of Clans; it's a pretty and fun "defense" game, where you are trying to invade other people's clan grounds, get their mana and money, preferably with a minimal level of expense of your own troops. The troops you can place have different AI goals, such as "any old thing" or "resources" or "defenses" when choosing their targets.
There's the whole opposite side of the game, where you set up your base to prevent it being invaded, by creating walls, buying and upgrading defenses, and reworking them after reviewing Replays of times other players have attacked you... Because the enemy attacks are all run without defender interaction; you set up your plan, the invader gets a half-minute or so to look at your layout before they have to choose to commit troops or move on to a different player's clan grounds (each search for a potential target costs a little gold).
The nice thing is that the IAP currency, Gems, are basically for speeding things up. The in-game currency of Mana and Gold seems intelligently balanced, and then you can purchase gems to speed up construction of the base or army. Gems also come in small amounts from in-game milestones, which is encouraging.
Which brings me to my one complaint here, and with other games I've been seeing: It shouldn't be called "Free to Play," it should be called "Free to Wait," because most of these games seem to ask for payment before the player can get on with their purchases.
Even Zombiewood, a cute little twin-stick shooter, allows for basic play and upgrades, but even when you've got a little cash to upgrade, the game forces a short wait (I've seen 8 minutes, 12, 18...). It is possible to play Zombiewood indefinitely, and progress well, without buying anything -- however, I’d almost qualify this as a “pay to score” game, as the Premium Weapons directly multiply players’ final scores, if they’re using the specified one for any given challenge. But you can upgrade basic weapons pretty easily, and the wait isn’t on the days or even hours scale for improvement.
Lastly, at least for now, I’ve been playing Happy Street. Everyone who sees it thinks it is some kind of Animal Crossing game, but it’s more akin to Tiny Tower, in that most of the “action” involves keeping stock on the shelves, and meeting the needs of the inhabitants: food, lodging, entertainment. The major advantage which this has over Tiny Tower is the ability to visit other friends’ Streets, so you can see the progress they’ve made, and help them along a little with their restocks, and get the IAP currency in small amounts for doing so.
So, what else is good? And what crap should be avoided?
And for anyone who has played any of the above, are there any major points I've missed, or misunderstood?
