Apocalypse Board Review: Chess Pieces That Rock

 

Apocalypse Board Online is a strategy browser MMO from Nightmakers. The game circles around the battle between good and evil in the world which are symbolized by Angels and Demons.  Your part in all this is to use either Angels or Demons in a chessboard like battle of supremacy.

 

Units in Apocalypse Board Online are like chess pieces. The difference is that the upper parts of the pieces are either Angels or Demons. You play on a chessboard like it’s a battlefield and the game is turn-based. The player who has units left on the board wins.

 

Each battle gives corresponding experience for your units and like normal MMOs, your units also level up. As your units level up they get tougher and their attacks get stronger.  You can also purchase units that are well-suited to your playing style just as long as it doesn’t go over the initial space that you are provided with.

 

Angels have ten units available you can use. They are namely: assassin, baedal, fortress, knight, mon, stormspeller, wizard, titan, dancer and priestess.

 

As a starting line-up for those who belong to the angel side, you get to have an assassin, a fortress, a knight and a wizard all of which start of as level 1 units. You can buy the other classes from the judge as long as you have enough gold in your account. The demons on the other hand have only four units that you can use. They are: the psychodemon, nightmaker, howler and the pyrodemon. For the demon’s starting lineup you get to have one unit of each class. You can also buy other units of the same type from the judge as well.

 

To start off a battle in Apocalypse Board Online, you have to go to the Pit to where there are 15 pillars where you can put your avatar. The avatars are either an angel or a demon and they represent the side you belong to.  Besides the 15 pillars the game also has 5 arenas to choose from, so if one arena is full then you can just move on to the next and so on.

 

Once another player clicks your pillar or you click a pillar with a single avatar the battle ensues. The game’s battle system is turn based and there is a timeline where you can see which unit moves first. You are allotted 30 seconds to move if it’s your turn and if you don’t move within the time the game automatically ends your turn and the next unit to move is next.

 

Once you character’s turn is over, you will immediately see that the battlefield will emit blue boxes, this would serve as your character’s movable areas. Once you finish moving, or stay put you can do the various actions your unit can do.

 

Whoever loses all his units first in a battle loses, and each battle, whether you win or lose, would give your unites experience points and even gold that you can use.

 

Apocalypse Board Online is a game that’s simple yet very addictive especially if you are into tactical games. The units look like chess pieces that were given heads of angels or demons depending which side you choose.

 

The game is a refreshing view on the battle between good and evil which has been symbolized by the use of the most commonly used symbolisms which are namely the angel for good and the demons for evil.

 

However, this concept of good and evil doing battle on a chess board like setting has its drawbacks. The novelty of using angels and demons as chess pieces in this came would immediately wear off and that the core problems of the game would emerge.

 

For one thing, Apocalypse Board Online has a very low population. Normally, this wouldn’t be much of a problem especially for browser based games. The problem is that you can’t go into battle if you have no one to fight with.  The game is highly dependent on the amount of players who are currently logged into the arena. Without them you’re will stare at a blank arena for who knows how long.

 

The game’s next problem would be the lack of GMs. Usually this isn’t much of an issue for browser games, however, for Alpocalypse Board Online, I think this would help a lot for players to make them at least try and enjoy the whole game experience. The game is already slow-paced and it would help at least that you can hear some tunes besides the game SFX.

 

Another thing about the game is that at first glance things would seem a bit unbalanced especially in the number of units per side. The angels have ten types of different units while the demons have only four. Of course there’s this saying that goes that it’s not the number of units that win a war, it’s how you use them, but having this clear imbalance in unit types can discourage people from using demons or even try out the game.

 

Apocalypse Board Online tries to balance out the unit distribution by making demons stronger on later levels. This counter balance of units may seem good at first glance, but this definitely leads to further balance issues on later stages of the game especially when players get to have higher levels. As of the moment though it seems everything is still working swell.

 

As a strategy game, Apocalypse Board Online is a good game that you can try out. Even with the balance issues that may haunt the game, the biggest problem it faces is its low population. As long as the game has no subscribers the game might as well be dead. No people in the game means no battles and what would a strategy game be if there are no battles to strategize?

 

Pros:
– The game is easy to understand
– Simple gameplay
– A new look to strategy games

Cons:
– Low population
– Slow-paced gameplay
– Camera view hinders the playing field