Game Of Summoners

Games like summoners war? HI im looking for good game similar to summoners war, with big, healthy community. Any similar and worth titles?

Summoner’s War (SW) is a very popular and top rated mobile game which is based on a popular card game, so it’s roots are as a CCG (Collectible Card Game), but it is considered a light mobile RPG. Summoner’s War has already had over 70 million downloads, well over $500 million in revenue and has dozens of “clones” (very similar games) like: Star Wars Galactic Heroes, DC Legends, PvZ Heroes, Honorbound, Pocket Heroes, Dungeon Boss and MANY more derivative or similar RPG games and hybrids. In 2014 Com2us launched their highly successful game Summoner’s War. The game is a huge success for many different reasons.

This document breaks down the core features of Summoner’s War, and hopes to help you understand why it is successful. My next articles will break down and analyze the various core gameplay systems, ideas for how to improve the genre, which top clones to help you understand how many companies have improved the formula and found some success in their imitation of this popular game and a UI/UX analysis of SW and its competitors.

Summoners War is a pretty straight forward RPG with CCG card game mechanics at it’s core, where the “cards” are replaced by animated 3D characters (but it’s actually based on a real card game) which players collect, upgrade and battle. Summoners War is pretty simplified and easy to play game, making it fairly each at some levels for players to get into, but it lacks a lot of super compelling depth in many areas which I believe hurts the genre long term. The core gameplay loop which revolves around collecting and upgrading your characters (cards) is deep and fairly compelling, but gets redundant and looses it’s real value very quickly to more casual players who are not “min-maxers” and fail to really care or understand which creatures are better.

There are a LOT of game systems in Summoners War and many of these systems can interact (for players who choose to care) in interesting and subtle ways to offer an extremely wide variety of possible tactics and gameplay choices. Most casual players won’t pick up on many of the subtleties which the game offers, but it allows both casual and hardcore players to enjoy the game at different levels. For this reason, it’s hard to categories all of the gameplay systems and fully analyze every reason for these systems to exist, but I will try and overview the core systems and why they are important in future articles.

This article is just an introduction to the game and its core systems, but doesn't cover a lot of the core systems like Guilds, PvP, defenses, events and many other important systems and I barely touch on many of the core systems like base building.

What is Summoner’s War?

To begin with, it’s important to quickly define what Summoner’s War is. At it’s core, the game has over 400 monsters you can collect, upgrade and battle. This is the core and heart of what the game is. Players can play on their own (PvE), in guilds or against other players (PvP), and players will face a number of different enemies with different levels and bosses in different locations which all have different levels, powers, abilities, strengths and weaknesses, which encourages players to find and collect new creatures and upgrade them to be successful.

This is the most simple explanation of the core gameplay. This chart breaks it down a little deeper, and shows the differences between the single and multiplayer loops of the core gameplay.

It is also important to understand what the (loose) definition of a mobile RPG game is versus other more traditional RPG’s (on PC’s and consoles), as even though SW is categorized as an RPG, it is missing many of the hardcore features many of it’s bigger more traditional brothers on PC’s contain, which can be confusing for new players to mobile or this “light mobile RPG” genre. A mobile RPG is typically considered or categorized as an RPG, if the game has stats (could be characters, abilities, buildings, etc.) which are improved/upgraded over time, but it's also often missing many of the other RPG features which are common to the genre.

Exploration

Most hardcore RPG’s have worlds where exploration is critical and interesting. Most mobile RPG’s have different places you might technically be traveling to (usually in a linear progression), but where exploration has little to no meaning. Exploration also usually has benefits, like things you can find, new places to buy things, new people to meet, new creatures to battle and more.

Summoners War doesn’t have any real exploration. The player “travels” to new island locations, which have different art, different monsters and slightly different challenges, but there is no real exploration in the game. The player doesn’t find anything really as he fights in new locations.

Story

A key hallmark of most RPG’s is a strong story. Most mobile RPG’s, especially those like Summoners War, have a VERY shallow story which has little depth and no real choices in it. Deeper PC/Console RPG’s even have stories with branching storylines and many choices which can change the story as you play.

SW has a VERY simple and subtle story which is not very good and doesn’t have much meaning to the game and the player doesn’t have any choices. The story has been one of the most criticised aspects of the game with reviewers.

Statistics

RPG’s need to have some form of player progression, such that the more you play, the better you get. This could be on a single player character or across multiple characters like in Summoner’s War. This is the most common feature that many games include now, such that they then can call themselves an RPG, while often ignoring many or all of the other core traditional RPG features.

The creatures and game in SW have a super wide variety of stats which players can use, improve and need to understand. Players must strive to understand these stats if they hope to be successful in the game, as this will have a lot to do with how successful the players will ultimately be in the end. Understanding the stats system is needed if players want to take advantage of the deep, complex upgrade systems, leveling systems and unit differences (so why they will want to collect different units) and properly min/max the game and develop efficient strategies.

Improvement, Upgradingand Collecting

Most RPG’s either automatically upgrade your character(s) as you play or allow you to direct their upgrades in a way you want by spending some resource (or real money) on them. In some RPG’s you can have character(s) which themselves can be upgraded with stronger/better stats or new abilities, or their new “abilities” might be from better items (like weapons and armor) which can be found, purchased, upgraded and more. There are many design choices which can affect the game.

Upgrading your units and acquiring new ones in SW is the core of the game. There are 6 different levels of creatures, and the way players gain higher level and better creatures is by finding or summoning them, or by upgrading them. There are MANY different ways to summon higher level creatures, either by grinding, paying, or even by socializing. The summoning system is actually a little complex, but is deep and satisfying overall once players get used to it. These systems are in place to reward players for playing all aspects of the game, and to encourage monetization as it gets increasingly difficult to randomly get higher level characters you want or need.

The upgrade system in SW is also fairly deep, complex and confusing with many different options available. The common CCG roots of these systems treat each unit like a card, and allow players to “spend” cards to upgrade other cards, but the rules for non gamers especially are often difficult to fully comprehend as they are not logical (in the real world) so are more gamey and abstract in nature. So, while these systems are very common to many mobile RPG’s, they are often difficult for many players to use as they require understanding the stats of units, using lower level units to upgrade higher level units, modifying and upgrading units using ruins or other “components” and often many other related systems. The ruins upgrade system in SW is very deep and provides a way for players to add new features to their units.

Tactical Combat

While some RPG’s have action combat (like Diablo), and some action games have RPG’s features, most RPG’s (especially on mobile) utilize a tactical RPG set of mechanics. Most mobile RPG combat is also extremely simplified. It usually allows players to make simple decisions about who they will attack, how they will attack and who they will attack with. Many RPG’s also utilize team based tactical combat, where players control a group of characters instead of a single character.

The PvE and PvP fighting in SW is a very common way that many mobile RPG’s use for combat. Players can battle up to 4 of their own monsters against up to 4 of their opponents creatures. In SW, players can choose which 4 monsters to use in their battles (one of which might be “borrowed” from a friend). Each monster has a role (indirectly applied by its stats and abilities, like being a tank, healer, ranged attacker and so on), and an affinity (which other type of unit it is powerful against). So, players must try and understand who they will battle, and how to best overcome them. Players will typically battle several waves of enemies and possibly a boss in each encounter as well.

In Summoners War players will also fight much more powerful bosses. These bosses can be very difficult and require powerful creatures and special abilities to defeat them.

Another common feature within mobile RPG’s is that players can often automate their battles, and let them battle on their own, automatically, which is a feature SW supports. Battles might be easier or play better if players play themselves and know what they are doing, but they can optionally just let the game play itself, making it MUCH easier to play for casual players.

Role-Playing

Players often get to choose a role to play in the game, and will often need to “role play” (hence the genre name), which encourages (or forces) players to play in a certain way. This can sometimes allow for replayability, as players can often replay a game in different roles in order to change the experience.

In SW, players don’t really have the option to play a particular role in the game. Players can choose to utilize a wide assortment of monsters in their arsenal when they battle, but don’t assume the role of a single character who is a particular role.

Choices & Consequences

Most RPG’s force or allow players to make choices which have consequences. These consequences can drive and affect many or all aspects of the game. For example, some hardcore games allow you to be good or evil, and your actions will determine that.

The choices the player makes in the game are more about affecting his strategy and units than anything else, so it’s hard so say they have obvious consequences. The units you choose to invest in and upgrade, where you use your ruins, what friends you interact with and so on will all directly affect the game in some small way, but it's a different type of choices and consequences that you would think of when thinking about the typical choices found in an RPG where your choices might affect the story, your status with different factions, your affinities or other factors in the game.

Bases, Research & Resources

Many mobile RPG’s, and some hardcore console RPG’s also include the ability for players to create or build a base. The construction of these bases allows the players several key things: choices on what to focus on, what to build next, what to research and more. Bases also usually give players the ability to generate resources, which players can then choose to harvest and utilize. So, long term, a base gives players something to work towards and some long term goals. The origin of many of the base building techniques used in RPG’s originated from RTS or other city building and strategy games.

The base building in SW is fairly simple, but allows the player some interesting choices on what he can build, upgrade or do next. The player also needs to defend his base. So, both the choices he makes in what to build and upgrade in his base and how to defend it will lead to a lot of interesting strategic choices for players.

Collection

In most RPG’s players need to collect/gain additional “things” (usually creatures, resources, items, special abilities or other items), or in other words they need to gain more “things” to play with. Final fight revenge.

In any type of RPG/CCG, collecting new “cards” is a core focus of the game. In a game like SW, not only do players need to collect one of each unit (card), but need to collect multiples of each which can be used to upgrade the highest level cards. Another key to the collection of new units in SW is that the cards you get when you summon them are random (but are slightly affected by how you summon them) such that players will take awhile to collect the cards which are rare and they cannot just quickly acquire all of the units they want, even if they are paying to play. This simple mechanic will keep players playing for as longer period of time. There are many different ways to summon creatures in SW, and each way will possibly summon a different type or level of creature, which will encourage and reward players for playing in different ways. The resources needed to utilize each way players summon creatures is different, which forces players to play many different aspects of the game. For example, one resource is gained from playing socially, while another is gained by defeating creatures in battle.

As a casual CCG (Collectible Card Game) type game, Summoner’s War also allows players to play in similar ways to many CCG’s, however the core CCG mechanics in Summoner’s War is still significantly simpler than other more direct CCG’s like Hearthstone or Magic the Gathering.

Deck Building

In any CCG, players have a limited number of cards they can play with at any one time, so there is deep strategy in choosing which cards to use in each match.

In this type of more casual CCG, the “deck” or team which a player assembles or uses is MUCH smaller than in most traditional CCG games, which means there are far fewer tactical choices for players to use. In SW, players have a team of 3-4 units to use in each battle (often 3 of their own and optionally 1 from a friend to encourage socialization). The tactical choices in each battle are a lot less in SW, but there are a ton of battles for players to fight, and many possible configurations for players to configure their teams for in battles.

Special Attacks

Many CCG’s not only have units, but they also have special attacks which players can utilize to directly attack the other player or opposing units.

Summoners War’s monsters have a wide variety of different stats, levels, and special abilities. As units improve and are upgraded, their special abilities can change or improve. These changes can drastically affect the usefulness and tactics each unit is useful for, making many of the upgrades a lot more useful than just making the unit stronger or a better attacker. For example, a unit which heals might gain the ability to heal all of your units at once, instead of a single unit at a time as it upgrades, making it a lot more useful over time.

The game systems listed above are just a general overview of some of the general systems found in Summoner’s War.

Many other CCG features could also be listed, but most are not directly related to Summoner’s War, so I will skip over them for now.

CORE FEATURES IN FREE TO PLAY GAMES

Designing a great Free to Play game is extremely difficult and requires the designers ability to understand many aspects of game design, monetization, user acquisition, psychology and many other core skills in order to be highly successful… A highly successful F2P game is partially skill, partially luck, and has a lot to do with how much money is spent in marketing and UAC (user acquisition), as well as other factors like the brand, live operations, events and many other factors. This is why most new games have trouble breaking into the top of the charts in the highly saturated mobile market.

The challenge and difficulty with trying to analyze and understand the core game systems in a game like SW is that so many of the systems interact in so many subtle ways and exist for a wide variety of reasons. A well designed game must contain features which are designed to be easy to understand and use by a beginner, yet deep enough for a more experienced player to still enjoy and keep playing. Ultimately the game systems are about monetization (we need to make money to stay in business), but if we don’t focus on retention, engagement and acquiring new users, then monetization won’t matter as much if nobody is playing.

As we analyze the game features, we must understand what categories they are supporting, and then we must also understand where in the lifecycle of the product the features are being utilized. The game must start simple, but become deeper and more engaging over time. The first 30 to 90 days of a product must include features which are designed to deepen the game.

Developing a “live” game is also a completely different mindset from a retail game. Many developers also struggle with this if they come from a retail game background. While it is best to try and include all of the expansion features needed for a successful day 30 to 90 expansion at launch, it is possible for a team to roll out some or all of these features post launch. The danger will just come in if you have any difficulty during production, you might launch these features late and severely damage your games retention and monetization. It’s also important to develop a 6-12+ month expansion plan for the game as well as continued expansion, new events and additional ongoing content will be needed to retain some players.

Night trap nintendo switch. There are the 4 primary categories of features to categorize, and how Summoners Wars features can be categorized into them:

ACQUISITION

• Collect Monster
• Play Missions
• Social Interaction
• Friends
• Gifting

ENGAGEMENT

• Summon New Monster
• Level Up Monsters
• Upgrade Monsters
• Powerup Monster
• Level Up Ruins
• World Bosses
• Awaken Monster
• Events
• Notifications
• Achievements
• Secret Dungeons (Time Limited)
• Decoration
• Transmogrification

RETENTION

• Evolve Monsters
• Fuse Monsters
• Collect/Use Ruins
• Build/Upgrade Village
• Fight Arena Battles
• Guild Battles
• Base Powerups
• Daily Missions
• Wishes
• Leaderboards
• Farming (Collection)
• Daily Login
• Daily Missions
• Guilds
• 3 Difficulty Levels

MONETIZATION

• Purchase Resources
• Purchase “energy”
• Purchase High Level Monsters
• Impatience
• Resource “Packages”
• Increase resource generation
• Village Expansion
• Improved Summoning
• Boosts
• Rune Removal
• Inventory Expansion
• Sales

RETENTION FEATURES

These are SW features as they apply to players over time as they play:

Day 1 Retention

• FTUE / Tutorials
• Summon New Monster
• Level Up Monsters
• Collect/Use Ruins
• Upgrade Village
• Play Missions
• Social Interaction
• Friends
• Notifications
• Daily Missions
• Daily Login

Day 3

• Gifting
• Upgrade Monsters
• Powerup Monster
• Fight Arena Battles
• Level Up Ruins
• Wishes
• Impatience

Day 7 Retention

• Events
• Achievements
• Decoration
• Farming (Collection)
• Purchase Resources
• Purchase “energy”
• Boosts
• Sales

Day 15 Retention

• World Bosses
• Evolve Monsters
• Base Powerups
• Leaderboards
• Guilds
• Purchase High Level Monsters
• Resource “Packages”
• Improved Summoning
• Inventory Expansion

Day 90 Retention

• Awaken Monster
• Secret Dungeons (Time Limited)
• Transmogrification
• Fuse Monsters
• Guild Battles
• 3 Difficulty Levels
• Increase resource generation
• Village Expansion
• Rune Removal

SUMMARY

A game like Summoners War has a LOT of deep and complex game systems which are challenging to understand all of the nuances of. If you are designing a Free to Play RPG which is similar to Summoners War it is important to understand how all of the systems interact, how they are used throughout the lifetime of the game, how they appeal to different player types, and most importantly how they contribute to monetization and retention.

I hope this initial overview Teardown of Summoners War was helpful. In the future articles I will break down the game systems in a deeper way to help you understand them better.

Summoner Wars is a videogame developed by Plaid Hat Games and Playdek, and based on the 2009 board game of the same name.^[1] The iOS version was released on July 4, 2012.^[2] The Android version was released on May 15 2014.

Critical reception[edit]

The game has a Metacritic score of 86/100 based on 5 critic reviews.^[3]

Gamezebo said 'Summoner Wars is to become the flagship title in the case for digital board games. It's cheaper. It's prettier. Less hassle. Perfect multiplayer that allows you to play as often as you like. If you're a fan of strategy games, this is a must-buy. And even if you're not, the game is free to try, and you have nothing to lose.'^[5]Pocket Gamer described the game as 'A complex, but accessible, card-based strategy game that combines elements of Magic: The Gathering with Risk and Stratego.'^[6]Eurogamer wrote 'It's hard not to feel Summoner Wars is a great game, verging on superb, that's held back by a highly polished but functionally thin app.^[7]TouchArcade said the game was 'A must-have for gamers who want more tactical maneuvering in their CCGs or more customization in their strategy games. However, its flaws and the price point for full buy-in mean that it's not for everyone, but being free to try and having a flexible IAP system means that it's worth checking out either way.'^[4]

References[edit]

1. ^Summoner Wars on boargamegeek.com
2. ^Summoner Wars is now on Android, cross-platform with iOS
3. ^ ^ab'Summoner Wars (2012) for iPhone/iPad Reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2018-12-25.
4. ^ ^abEklund, Tof (2012-07-26). ''Summoner Wars' Review – You Got Your TBS in My CCG!'. TouchArcade. Retrieved 2018-12-25.
5. ^http://www.gamezebo.com/2012/07/09/summoner-wars-review/
6. ^http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Multiformat/Summoner+Wars/review.asp?c=43050
7. ^http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-05-summoner-wars-review