Danes from SYBO have released their second mobile project – the Blades of Brim role-playing runner. Read our opinion about the game and thoughts along the way below.
After the success of Subway Surfers, the developers decided to publish the game without the support of Kiloo, which produced their debut. Looking at Blades of Brim, it becomes clear what exactly their senior colleagues were responsible for in Subway Surfers, who were noted last fall with the conditional fighting game Smash Champs.
Kiloo are masters of grinding. The fact that the new SYBO is very lacking, which greets Russian players with terrible (hello, Zynga) fonts and light, but no less noticeable brakes on the iPhone 5S. This is how it destroys inflated expectations and puts the player in a position where he has to force himself to play on, having come to terms with scary text and frame drops.
Editor’s note: To think that most of the audience uses the latest generation devices is an unacceptable luxury. There is an opinion that whales, like PC geeks, are chasing the latest gadgets, but even so (which we are not at all sure about) you can’t make a cash register on them alone, unless we are talking about a project focused on a narrow hardcore audience.
Limiting himself only to powerful gadgets, the developer, in fact, puts an end to the viralka. No matter how much I like, for example, a friend’s game, if it slows down for me, I will not play it, much less show it to other friends.
It is clear that the perfect polishing for Apple devices of the latest generation increases the chances of promotion by an Apple company, but, again, focusing only on this is tantamount to ignoring the interests of its own users, which the free-to-play project cannot afford.
By the way, since you mentioned Zynga – with their latest mobile game – FarmVille: Harvest Swap – the same trouble. The framerate of the game on the still popular iPhone 4S is noticeably falling. To the question of popularity – 11% of all iOS devices are just iPhone 4S.
A source: http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/
Having come to terms with localization and brakes (and also, let’s be honest, not the best of training and interfaces), you suddenly realize: SYBO managed to reinvent runners for the second time.
If in the case of Subway Surfers they came up with a three-rail track and the speed of scoring, depending on the level of pumping (everyone borrowed the first, the second “revolution” drove past the majority), then in Blades of Brim the guys from Copenhagen successfully implemented a combat system, getting used to which you suddenly realize: playing runners without it will no longer be so interesting.
The Blades of Brim combat system works without any additional buttons and complex rules. To attack, the same swipe that is used in the game and to move between tracks is enough. If you see an enemy on the left, swipe to the left. After that, the character jumps in that direction and kills the opponent. All.
Simple?
Yes, but for some reason no one went to such a simplification before.
How important is it for gameplay?
It is important, because if you don’t strike in time, the enemy can bite you. After three bites, the game ends. By the way, the game, like any runner, still allows collisions / falls only once.
Given the ever-increasing speed of the game, as well as the constant appearance of more and more new enemies, their presence adds a pleasant complexity and dynamics to the game.
As in Subway Surfers, Blades of Brim has a temporary insurance. Only instead of a levitating board, its role in the game is played by animals, which, surprise, like all game armor and weapons appear from chests that are purchased for soft (gold) and hard (magic spheres) currencies.
This means that in terms of monetization, the project has also gone far from the first runner SYBO.
Blades of Brim has collections – three things (a headdress, a jacket and trousers), which, when worn together, give certain bonuses. Considering that each character has its own collection, as well as the fact that weapons also give bonuses here, and within the framework of promotions for hard currency, you can sometimes buy the desired things, there is a lot of room for users to spend money.
But here it is important to understand that all possible expenses do not simplify the game; they help to play, please the eye – yes, but no more.
To sum up: whether the game will become the same hit as Subway Surfers, whose total downloads have long since crossed the mark of half a billion downloads – it’s hard to say yet. But we can say with confidence that we have a great project in front of us, even despite our children’s (fonts and lags) problems.