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Shrimpocalypse
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Graphics & Sound:
Shrimpocalypse wins this year's award for funniest mental image... ;) It's a riotous concept backed up by some pretty engaging gameplay and visuals. We've seen Tower Defense games that used creatures in place of actual towers, so it's not like this is a complete novel concept. All the same, puny sea creatures taking place in epic battles is a great place to start. There is also a surplus of good music in the game, unusual for mobile titles that usually assume small speakers aren't worth the time and effort. The entire presentation will leave a smile on your face, while the gameplay manages to furrow your brow with some challenging strategy action. What we didn't love was the rather unintuitive interface, which is partly a control issue. Where it becomes a design issue is when Shrimpocalypse forces you to hit the "Back" button on your phone in order to return to a previous section, rather than include a simple Home icon or similar navigation. This comes up in a few places, most notably when you complete a level and end up sitting on the leaderboard screen waiting for something to happen. Hitting that Back button will put you on the level select screen, but nothing would naturally lead you to this, other than frustration and irritation. During the actual game, controls are entirely based on touch and gestures, and the interface is pretty clearly and cleanly designed.
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Gameplay:
For all that we liked about the actual gameplay, Shrimpocalypse stumbles a bit on how to knit together a game experience. Providing levels for play is fine, but there needs to be something that pulls the player in and keeps her motivated. After taking advantage of the included tutorial, Shrimpocalypse lets you jump in for a Quick Play round or try your hand (fin, flipper?) at Survival Mode. Both feel about the same, and feature the same levels, so the distinction from a gameplay standpoint is not quite clear. We're pretty sure that the difference comes down to unlocking levels in one mode for play in another, but there's a lack of direction. This holds true as you play, and find that there's no warm-up or explanation for why you are battling all these creatures. Not that we were expecting Pulitzer storytelling from Shrimpocalypse, but at least some setup would have been nice. Another misfire is the use of friend codes to allow viewing friends' scores on your leaderboard, much like the Nintendo Wii uses. We hate this feature on the Wii, but we forgive Nintendo on the basis that the Wii doesn't come loaded with all our friends' contact information. Like my phone does... Don't make me give you friend codes, just invite me to email my friends who aren't playing the game and invite them in. That's what so many social games do, and this multi-level marketing seems to work well for them. The bulk of Shrimpocalypse is classic Tower Defense, balanced reasonably well but lacking in some needed structure.
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Difficulty:
All levels in the game tend to become difficult very fast, if you don't have a solid advance strategy. We thought that Shrimpocalypse needed to take a cue from other games in this space that introduce weapons and enemies gradually, rather than throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you immediately. It's not that enemies don't phase in gradually, but we wonder about the logic of having players struggle during any level where the difficulty is set to "Easy." There are four levels of difficulty ranging up through Medium, Taxing, and Hard. Each modifies your score by adding a multiplier that helps you climb the leaderboards, but winning is easier said than done. Like all Tower Defense games, neglecting your long-term strategy in Shrimpocalypse will end badly. Enemies can break through your defenses, which is a bit strange for this genre, but something we got used to. Designing the perfect trap for enemies is a combination of placement, weapon selection, and upgrades. As is the case in all games of this type, you often want to sacrifice upgrades for a plethora of weaker weapons, or take the opposite approach and upgrade a few weapons to their maximum level.
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Game Mechanics:
An in-game item shop is a nice touch, letting you add to the experience as you rack up points in the main game. New features for weapons can be purchased here, in addition to new maps and cutesy items that have no apparent impact on your battle strategy. Winning rounds will earn you coins that can be cashed in at this shop, a nice break from the frenetic gameplay. Fine controls during battle take full advantage of the touch-screen features, such as swiping to move across the field when zoomed in, or pinching to zoom if you're pulled back too far to select certain units. Selecting specific towers for battle is done through tapping and dragging, and Shrimpocalypse provides visual feedback if you attempt to misplace a tower. There is a bar of available units at the bottom of the screen that tends to block some of the towers placed there, but we didn't have too many issues like this. Tapping a unit already in play shows you the upgrade cost, or the value you'll obtain from selling it. These are all pretty typical Tower Defense mechanics, and Shrimpocalypse is a pretty standard Tower Defense game, under its cutesy veneer. What stands out is the high quality of this title for the Android platform, which is in need of more quality game products. We like the genre, and we'd happily play Shrimpocalypse on any platform, so getting to try it out on our Android phone is a joy. Still feels a bit rough, but with some great potential for future enhancements.
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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