The Impact Factor

Clash For Gold

Review

Clash Royale, Supercell (iOS)

Abstract: Clash Royale is a PVP deck-based real time strategy tower defense game from Supercell, developers of the infamous Clash of Clans. This strange genre fusion works perfectly. It is a game that I never knew I wanted. Smart design permeates the entire experience: from gameplay, to player progress, to card utility, to match length. Unfortunately, Clash Royale still bears its microtransaction-heavy lineage prominently as overlong chest timers, painfully slow rate of currency acquisition, and pay-to-win card leveling at the highest levels of play mar an otherwise exceptional experience. All things considered, however, Clash Royale is an impressive package that has more than proved its worth.

Clash Royale is a game I never thought I would play. In fact, at first glance, Clash Royale seemed like another smartphone title I would openly disparage here on the blog or on the podcast. The game comes from the notorious mobile developer Supercell, who made it big with Clash of Clans. Ostensibly ‘free,’ Clash of Clans is a mundane, resource management tower defense game that quickly dulled. The game also felt exploitative with how badly real money purchases shaped the play experience. So when Clash Royale went live on the App Store, I was less than thrilled. The game started getting high praise from critics and sites I respect, however, and once I learned it was a card-based mobile title I knew I had to try it out. Which brings me to today. I like Clash Royale. I’m still playing Clash Royale weeks after downloading it. I think Clash Royale is well designed. It’s weird, I know.

Describing Clash Royale is a mouthful, especially for a game that plays as simply as it does. Clash Royale is a player versus player deck-based real time strategy tower defense game. Phew. Each player has three towers, two minor and one King. Each player builds a deck of eight cards. Cards can be divided into a couple groups. You have troop cards, which place units onto the field that move to attack your opponent’s towers or troops.  You have building cards, which place defensive structures on your side of the field. And finally you have spells, which generally do some kind of area of effect damage. The objective of each match is to destroy your opponent’s towers while defending your own. The player with the fewest towers at the end of the match loses.

Clash Royale in a nutshell.

Within this simple conceit, however, is some pretty remarkable complexity. Don’t let the naysayers fool you: Clash Royale is a tactical game. Every card in your deck costs a certain amount of elixir. A meter at the bottom of your screen represents elixir and it slowly regenerates throughout the match. Playing cards costs meter, limiting the number of cards you can play at any given moment. Further, each card has to be placed on the grid-like field of play. Some troops move fast, others slow. Each defense structure has a certain area it can attack or distract enemy troops within. Spells deal set amount of damage in a small area. Like all great card games, Clash Royale is all about gaining a strategic & resource advantage over your opponents, like playing a card that costs less elixir than your opponent’s to counter it (thereby giving you an elixir advantage). Card placement is crucial. Play a weak card without support too close to your opponent’s side of the field and it can die instantly, allowing your opponent to punish your mistake. Play too many cards too quickly and you can run out of elixir, meaning that you won’t have the ability to counter your opponent’s next move. As I’ve progressed up the ranked ladder, I’ve seen a bevy of strategies emerge. My misplays are heavily punished and my smart plays win me games. It’s a satisfying feeling done best in card games, and it is done extremely well in Clash Royale.

Elixir, placement, attacking, defending.
A lot goes into a game of Clash Royale.

New cards are obtained via chests. It's devious but compelling nonetheless. The player receives a free chest every four hours. Destroying 10 of your opponents’ towers grants you one Crown Chest each day. The bulk of your chests comes from winning, however. Each win grants one chest of a random rarity. Silver is the worst, followed by Gold, then Giant, then Magical, and finally Super Magical. The player has four chest slots, meaning you can only ever hold 4 "card packs" at a time. Each chest has an unlock timer. When you tap to open a chest you’re presented with two options: wait the full time it takes to open on its own (3, 8, 12, 12, and 24 hours respectively) or bypass through use of the premium currency, gems. Here’s where we get to one of my major issues with Clash Royale. Clash Royale is a game that simply doesn’t want you to play it without spending money. Waiting for chests to open, to give you those new cards and gold (which I’ll talk about in a second) is excruciating. Once you get your four chest slots full there is essentially no reward to keep playing, aside for gaining more ranked trophies to move you up higher on the ladder. As one might expect, gems are dolled out painfully slowly. The way chests are handled has completely shaped the way I play this game, especially in comparison to other F2P mobile card games (i.e. Hearthstone). Once my chest slots are full, I stop playing. I don’t want to stop playing, but I do because playing while full feels like a waste of my time. Bummer.

Yeah, no thanks. Winning when your chest
slots are full gives essentially no reward.

All of that said, I enjoy the way Clash Royale handles its card collection. First and foremost, each of the 48 total cards offer something new to how you play the game. Barbarians are a go to defensive card that can wreak havoc on offense, but gets countered easily by the fireball spell. I love the hard-hitting Pekka card and the swift flying Baby Dragon. For the most part, card balance in the game is great. All cards (except for maybe one, looking at you Freeze spell) have counters. All strategies have counters too. Further, the way you use the cards you obtain is great. Once you get a new card you unlock it for use in any of your decks. That card starts at Level 1. Cards can be leveled up to more powerful versions of themselves by acquiring duplicates, and then consuming those duplicates for the price of gold. It’s a crucial part of making a more powerful deck. The card leveling system is an elegant solution to the classic card game problem: when you feel like the cards you get out of a pack are useless. Every card is useful in Clash Royale. Commons are easier to level up due to rarity, while Epics can take quite some time. Having cards at the right level for your rank comes pretty naturally, though you will encounter players that have spent real money whose troops are a higher level than your own. At most levels of play, card level deficits can be countered by strategy.

Every aspect of Clash Royale highlights player progress. As I just mentioned, seeing your collection grow and your cards level up is a huge incentivizer to keep playing. One way to speed up progress is by joining a clan. It enables friendly battles and card donation. Like one card in particular? Ask your clanmates to donate and you can level it up in no time. Your own donations are incentivized with gold, too. As you level up cards or donate you also add to your King Level. The higher it gets, the more health your towers have and the more damage they do to enemy troops. King Level is a smart solution to balancing the needs of early game, mid game, and high level play. At low levels, the health + attack of towers compared to enemy troops favors the tower, thereby giving the player more leeway to make mistakes. At high levels, the advantage goes to the troops, meaning players are more punished for their mistakes. It’s been so fun seeing how my play has evolved throughout my time with the game, and how far I’ve come.

Arena 6 isn't bad for a free player I guess?

Clash Royale is a game designed from the ground up to be a great mobile, and competitive, experience. The match making is nearly instantaneous. I have never waited more than 10 seconds to find an opponent. Every single match I’ve had has been lag free, even when playing people from Korea or Russia. A game of Clash Royale takes at longest four minutes. The standard game length is three minutes with a one minute overtime if the players are tied. You are in and out fast, making Clash Royale great while waiting for the bus, in the bathroom, or otherwise. Results are saved after every match and you even have access, for a limited time, to watch a replay of your past games (great for learning from your mistakes). So much of Clash Royale’s design is so clever. It’s remarkable. It’s quality worth killing for.

I can't help but squeeze the quick game or
two in whenever I get the chance.

I could spend another thousand words going through the specifics of what I like about Clash Royale’s gameplay. The risk-reward of troop placement, how to best counters certain strategies, how to negotiate when to push towers and when to play defensively. Suffice to say, there is a lot to like. And if you’re still confused about the ins-and-outs you can check up a great write up over here.

I do want to spend a couple dozen pointing out some of the game’s flaws, though. As I said before, Clash Royale’s attempts at converting F2P players into paying can feel downright dirty. Aside from what I’ve already written about, having enough gold to actually level up cards is a rarity. There’s too much of a focus on disengaging the player. A substantial portion of the game’s community is toxic. Currently clan chat is not moderated (I was momentarily in a clan in which several people joked about committing suicide) and your opponent’s can spam taunts without any recourse (a squelch option would be much appreciated). Though not an issue for me yet, Supercell also needs to address how the highest level of play is completely pay-to-win. You cannot make it to the highest ranks without dropping thousands of dollars on the game, period.

Here are all the cards I would level up, if
I had enough gold. I never have enough gold.

As it stands now, I still play Clash Royale every day. And I’m still enjoying the heck out of it. Clash Royale is such a smart fusion of what Supercell has done in the past while incorporating recent trends of the mobile gaming market. Most impressively, however, Clash Royale is a superbly designed video game. Trust me, I’m as, if not more, surprised than you are. We live in exciting times.

Clash Royale

4/5