Royal Revolt 2 is a 3D strategy MMO game for smartphones, tablets and Windows 8 PCs. It brought a breath of fresh air to the classic tower defence games, where now players can assume the role of both defender and attacker. Besides building up their own kingdom and setting up defences to prevent attacks, players now can also raid other player’s castle by sending in their own troops. All these can be done within a few taps and thus making the game easy to learn and play.

Game website: http://royalrevolt.com/

Gameplay Video:

MY EXPERIENCE

Lens #7: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

I felt that the technology and mechanics go very well together. Game is easy to access and it is available on our smartphones. I will also play the game even while travelling due to the easy mechanics of the games. I also enjoyed the aesthetics wise of the game as it was cute and allowed me to enjoy the impressive graphic while playing.

The storyline however felt a bit redundant. If a stronger and/or linear storyline could be used, I believe I will be able to connect to the game even more. What kept me playing is the interesting gameplay and the MMO aspect of the game.

Lens #39: The Lens of Time

The game is designed such that time is needed for building of structures and refilling “food” that is needed for raiding other players. This can be frustrating as I may want to play for a longer period but the game disallow me to.

Hence, I usually play the game only for a few minutes, and only get back when I have free time or nothing to do. Sometimes due to the long waiting, I did ever consider if I should quit.

 

Lens #86: The Lens of Community

The game has a system of rankings, guilds and player raids. This sense of playing with and competing against other real players has somehow increased my competitive spirit, spurring me on to level up and raiding players to increase my ranks or just to get revenge.

However, I felt it still lacks a sense realism of community since the game is not real-time.

Lens #31: The Lens of Challenge

The game system usually paired me up with a stronger player when raiding. It gave me a sense of satisfaction when I am able to beat the stronger players, partly due to my own skills and decisions during gameplay.

However, many times the player will be too strong and I will spend “golds” to be matched with a lower level opponents.

Lens #30: The Lens of Fairness

Royal Revolt 2 is a typical freemium game – a pay-to-win gaming system. It definitely get on my nerves, when players of the same level as me have much better skills and equipment just because they are willing to spend real money on the game.

Luckily there are still players like me who does not spend money, which kept the game partially fair. I also pride myself, if I were to be able to beat those pay-to-win players who are much stronger than me.

FRIEND’S EXPERIENCE

Lens #7: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

My friend found that the technology and mechanics go very well together too. Likewise, at every free time, he will be using his phone to play the game. He even uses his tablet for a bigger and better screen. He sometimes played with the music on, in order to appreciate the game’s aesthetics fully.

As for the storyline, my friend too did not take much notice of it and he will skip all the dialogues of the characters.

Lens #39: The Lens of Time

Almost every free moments he had, he will be checking the game. He would even plan the gameplay to fit into his schedule, to allow the game always be ready for play whenever he is free. This let him not to feel a sense of disruption when the game disallowed to continue playing.

Lens #86: The Lens of Community

He is the leader of his own guild, and with his online friends, they will work and communicate with each other in order to achieve and level up their guild. He actually felt a sense of belonging with the community as they will chat frequently to discuss the game play and strategies.

Lens #31: The Lens of Challenge

He does felt the game is challenging too due to the fact stronger players were always been pair to him during raids. Sometimes he will challenge those stronger players just to test his skill. But similar to me, he will still tend to seek for an easier enemy yet with enough challenge.

Lens #30: The Lens of Fairness

Since my friend spends much more time than me on the game, even if his level may be same as mine, his skills and equipment are much better. This actually kept him near the level of those who pay for the game.

Unlike me, he rarely complains about the fairness of the game. However, sometimes he will still be willingly to spend a bit of money just to keep him on par with the other players and to keep his rankings up.

ANALYSIS

Mobility of device and ease of gameplay

I realized that the most effective way to get a person to be hooked on a game knowingly or unknowingly is the combination of device’s mobility and gameplay’s simple mechanics. A game with an easy gameplay will allow people to play without much thinking or just help them pass time. With the mobility of its gaming device – smartphone, which people carries around most of the time, it further entice the person to play the game almost anywhere and anytime. Just like how my friend and I were, while travelling or waiting for a bus, we will conveniently take out our phone and start playing game. It slowly becomes a habit, for us to play some games on our phone when we are free.

The “waiting” game

Royal Revolt 2 is a game that requires time. I found out that this kind of games tend to led to 3 scenarios.

1. Some gamers, for example myself, may get frustrated of the waiting. This kind of people may only play the game for a few minute and only get back to the game after a long while. They tend not to check the game often. After a while this may lead to their disinterest and stop playing the game.
2. Gamers may be hooked by the game and set notification to notify themselves whenever the game is ready. This causes them to spend almost all their free time on the game.
3. They are the players who hate waiting and are willing to spend. They will spend real money just to decrease the waiting time so they can continue playing as long as they want. This is where the revenue of the game is mainly from.

Through this, we can see that this is one of the way the game is designed to keep the players playing, though it does have its downside to it. However, the popularity of this game showed that the upsides out ruled the downsides.

The (un)importance of storyline

I found that storyline may not be the most important thing in a play-on-the-go game. Many people who play Royal Revolt 2 just want to pass time quickly. Also they may just want to play some game that does not require much thinking. Most of the time they just want to be entertained through fast-paced action gameplay and dynamic graphics. This may be reason why Royal Revolt 2 does not have a complicate story. It only gave the players a simple background story and everything else depends heavily on the main gameplay itself. People who continued playing is not because they are interested in story but because of the well-designed gameplay.

 

Conclusion

Royal Revolt 2 is a good example of a game breaking out of the mainstream gameplay, by injecting a new perspective to the traditional tower defence game. This further proves that storyline may not be the most important aspect but the game design and ideas are the one that kept the players playing.