January Supercell released their new project, Clash Royale, at soft launch. The synchronous multiplayer and recognizable setting of Clash of Clans quickly attracted a lot of users to the game, instantly bringing in not only $ 2 million, but also high-quality data for analytics. Read the mechanics’ analysis further in the post.
It should be noted that now almost all companies have one or two research projects for synchronous multiplayer, but at the moment no one has released anything worthwhile. Whether it’s the case
About company
In general, Supercell needs no introduction – each quarter / year analytical review contains information about the revenues, audience and ratings of the Finnish industry giant (the company is headquartered in Helsinki). It is noteworthy that Like Palanan (CEO of Supercell) & Co. does not release mid-range games. The guys work exclusively for hits. In just the last 3 years, the company has curtailed 5 projects at the soft launch stage, some of which looked very much even nothing. You may remember Smash Land (2015), Spooky Pop (2014), Battle Buddies (2012).
About the game
Clash Royale is primarily a MOBA – Card Battler, with full synchronous multiplayer. Not the kind of MOBA that Valve and RIOT taught us. It is impossible to control each character here, and to win due to micro control. In a new hit, the player exercises macro control by choosing the type of troops and the respawn point on the map.
Synchronous multiplayer
The developers managed to make a powerful enough tool for synchronizing actions without lags. To do this, they transferred all the game logic to the client, and pass only one parameter – the id of the army and the coordinates of the respawn. Everything else is calculated on the user’s device.
Setting
What to beat around the bush – Clash of Clans. The most popular game in the world, the most recognizable IP, a huge army of fans, over 100 million players for cross-promos. The game looks like its older brother, only before we watched the battle against the NPC base, and now against a real person, with emotions, drive, experiences.
And so, the main mechanic is arena combat (MOBA). Each card has a cost to use, which is measured, as in CoCr, by an elixir. For 2.8 seconds, 1 unit of elixir is restored. The maximum player can collect 10 units of elixir, after which the set stops.
All troops are divided by value into Common, Rare and Epic and by type of use into Trooper, Spell and Building. Among the cards there are tanks, dodgers and magicians familiar to us, who in turn are nukes’, dedeshniks, support, etc. More about cards later.
The main task of the arena battle is to destroy the opponent’s base, which consists of 2 defense towers, and the king’s castle. The winner is the one who has an advantage in the number of towers at the end of the timer.
Game match
As you know, the main problem with mobile MOBA is long, often drawn-out matches. All developers of mobile games of this genre solve this problem in their own way. For example, in my department in logos, “Rush Time” was applied – the time when creeps spawned twice as often and moved faster. A similar solution is used in the Clash Royale.
A game match lasts 3 minutes. The last minute is special, to speed up the match, the growth rate of the elixir doubles (1 unit in 1.4 seconds). A total hell begins to happen on the field, since players can use 2 times more units in the same time, which allows them to use completely different tactics than in the previous 2 minutes of the game. If at the end of the timers the number of towers is equal – an additional time is assigned – 1 minute. Victory will be awarded to the one who is the first to demolish one of the towers (by analogy with the golden goal in football). If no one has made progress in overtime, the match is declared a draw. Thus, the maximum length of a match is 4 minutes, which is enough for one short session, you must agree.
