Game Review: Clash of Clans

iPhone games usually don’t hold my attention for more than a week. A new game will explode in popularity among my friends so I will hurriedly download it (as long as it’s free) from the App Store. Most of these games have me checking in to play against my friends for a few days before we move on to the next one. But Supercell’s smash hit Clash of Clans is different.

I first found Clash of Clans while driving to Arkansas with some friends and our parents. As we drove down the highway, I began searching through the App Store for a new game. I stumbled upon Clash of Clans in the “Top Rated” section of games and thought the pictures and description looked interesting.

The game is based around two sections, the online player vs. player attacks and the campaign in which you attack the pre-built goblin villages. The goal is to mine gold and elixir that can then be used to build and upgrade buildings for both defense and attacking. The Town Hall is the center of your base and determines how many and what level of buildings you can create. With buildings ranging from mortars and cannons to defend your village to barracks and army camps to create and hold your troops for attacks, there is a large variety of buildings.

The single player campaign held my interest for the entire weekend, but I found I had only scratched the surface of the game.

My friend noticed that there was an old, broken “clan castle” that could be rebuilt. He decided to take a chance and rebuild the castle, while also starting an East “clan”. This is the aspect of the game that makes it shine. By allowing players to build clans with 50 other people from around the world, clans let  you stay connected. From chatting with the members of my clan to helping to fill each others castles with troops, the online aspect of the game keeps me interested.

Another great part of Clash of Clans is the online attacking. Every player has a certain number of trophies, up to 4100 total. Players can gain trophies by successfully attacking other player’s villages or by effectively defending against these attacks.

The strategy of this game changes from farming, where players drop to lower levels in order to take easy gold from players, to pushing, where players attempt to gain as many trophies as possible.

With 10 possible Town Hall levels, the game keeps me playing throughout the day by making me work to finish my village. The game combines the ability to build a town from scratch similar to The Sims, with the attacking of other online multiplayer games. Clash of Clans also has the social chatting and rewards of Facebook games. This combination keeps the game fresh every time that I log in.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m not one to pay for iPhone games. This is the ingenious aspect of the game. By pricing the game as free on the app store, Supercell is able to entice users like me that are frugal gamers. Where Supercell makes their money is through in-app purchases. By allowing players to buy “gems” to accelerate their game play, Supercell is able to make money off of users after they have already roped them into the game. With some top players spending thousands of dollars on the game, Supercell is one of the fastest growing game companies ever. According to an April report by Forbes, Supercell is able to make $2.4 million from two iPhone games. That’s right; Supercell only has two games that combined made $2.4 million every day.

Although some players spend money on this game, if you are a frugal spender such as I am, you can still have fun. Buying gems isn’t necessary to the game but instead only helps to speed up the game.

If you are looking for a new, free and addicting game to play during those lazy lunch periods, check out Supercell’s hit Clash of Clans.