Flappy Bird and Clash of Clans, what do these games have in common? They both drove the world nuts when they launched. Flappy Bird with its simple-yet-addictive style and Clash of Clans with its competitive community. Combining the 2 together, arkavis’ Gears of Steal gives players the strategic elements of Clash of Clans’ defense and the iconic play style of Flappy Bird, arkavis brought this idea alongside their existing Retro Wings to TpGS 2017’s Indie House.
From first hand experience, Flappy Bird was a wave that had an huge initial wave, but quickly died down compared to Clash of Clans and for obvious reasons. Clash of Clans has a much higher replay value. Allowing players to gradually build their defenses the more they played, Clash of Clans fared very well with competitive players whilst Flappy Bird was a game that was perfect for casual players who only wanted to play something fun while they commute.
What Gears of Steal offers is a compromise of both. For casual players, Gears of Steal gives you the simple tap-to-flap addiction of Flappy Bird and for more competitive players, the familiar Clash of Clans defense mode lets them invade other player bases for rank climbing and juicy in-game rewards.
But the most important question is why should players play Gears of Steal. Here’s the twist of Gears of Steal. Flappy Bird only allowed players to move in one direction, and Clash of Clans defense was quite repetitive when a meta is found. Gears of Steal tries to eliminate these with simply a 2 directional movement and a rotation based player base setting. What this means is that unlike Clash of Clans where players can build their defenses in a large squared area, in Gears of Steal the area in which they build their defenses will change on rotation basis. From time to time players will have to rebuild their defenses depending on the area they are allowed to build in. This greatly changes the meta of how players set up their base. Additionally, players can also upgrade their vault (imagine a gate that other players have to break before being able to invade the base) to make the invade spend more resources before they can attempt to raid the base.
For casual gamers, the 2 directional movement gives players the option of scouting out the path ahead before they advance forward. As they progress in the PvE stages, the 2 directional movement will play a more essential part of the game, from avoiding traps to stalling for time before they make their final move.
Final Thoughts
Yes, both Flappy Bird and Clash of Clans is thoroughly played out and players who have invested time and money on their Clash of Clans account will probably stick with Clash of Clans. However, Gears of Steal has the advantage of game changing features that highly affects who players play the game and compete against each other.
The greatest worry with the game is similar to many other games. How much will in-game purchases affect how strong a player can be. Pay-to-win has been one of the greatest issues with online multiplayer mobile games.
