Toy Clash is a charming VR table-top tower defense/offense strategy game for Samsung Gear VR. The developer calls it tower offense game, which might be a better way to describe it considering that aside from defending your base, you need to attack and destroy the enemy's base as well in order to win. In the game, the player needs to position toy character and use Skill items to gain the upper hand in the battlefield and destroy the enemy tower on the other side of the map.
Before the game starts, you find yourself in a child's room at night with a lit desk in front of you. When you are ready to get started, just press the play button below the game's logo to start. The game comes with 32 challenging levels, which you can replay in order to be able to collect the maximum available start for each round which is three. You are awarded one star for completion of the level, the second star for good timing and third star if you finished the level with full health. When you finish a level, you move on to the next one.
Each level reveals itself like popping out from an opened book, which is just by itself beautiful to watch. This game features Atripla-A quality visuals, with stunning cartoon-style graphics, enriched with vivid colors and details. This is, in fact, one of the reasons that made me turn my head to analyze this game even further, the visuals just draw you in, captivating you with their charm.
So the gameplay mechanics are quite simple. You start no character in the battlefield, with the enemy already attacking you. As you start getting energy points, you can use them to select and spawn more units of your choice from a toy display structure nearby. The enemy also has its own tower on the other side of the map. You need to destroy that tower in order to clear the level and win.
So to spawn a toy, just choose the one that you wish to use and tap and drag them onto the battlefield where you want them to be positioned. Remember, each of the six available characters has its own unique attributes, so you need to position them strategically on the board to make the best use of their special abilities. For example, position a melee unit to take out the enemy's long range unit and put your long range units, like Wimbledon, to deal extra damage to the enemy from far away.
There are also Skills in this game, which acts like spells, like a fireball for example that deals an AOE damage (hits several units at the same time), which you need to use strategically to gain the upper hand in the Battlefield and can save you when things aren't going very well. Also keep in mind that Skills are sacred resources, so use them wisely.
Other things to note is that when your character are closed to the enemy's base, the tower will target your enemies and deal damage to them.
Upon completion of the level, you get a maximum three-star rating based on your achievement. There are 32 levels, so there is a maximum of 96 stars that you can collect in total. If you finish the level with less than 3 stars, you can replay it and try to get the maximum rating next time.
As you progress through the levels you'll be unlocking new units, each one with its own unique abilities. After you finish your first round and unlock Wimbledon, you have another option to select on your desk that allows you to manage your toys. You can see all the toys that you have unlocked so far and use the stars and upgrade points, called 'bolts', to upgrade your character, purchase new skills and improve your M-5 tank, which represents your tower in the game. The tank also comes with its own HP, damage, attack speed and attack range the same as the other units. But remember, if the tank dies, you lose the round, so make sure to upgrade it as well, so its can deal and sustain more damage.
For example, the first character that I upgrade was Rascal, which is a rat character that deals melee damage, kind of a close range unit. For each character, you can see its HP, damage, attack speed and attack range. When I upgraded Rascal, he gained a bit more health and damage. There is a total of 7 upgrade slots available for Rascal, so it's up to you on which character you want to spend the bolts. There is also an option to upgrade the toy display structure. Use energy to upgrade it and make it produce energy faster. It's up to you to decide whether to spend energy on toy soldiers or on the display structure.
The animation is really fluid and well done in the game, and you really feel that toyish battlefield comes to life as you put the toys into the battlefield. You can directly control the toys, they just auto aim at enemies, and you need to focus on the bigger pictures and strategically see where you need to put your next units and use your skills to gain the upper hand in the battlefield and adapt to new units that the enemy spawns. There is an option to use a specific skill that allows you to move a unit across the battlefield, which is useful for some levels.
I leave the rest up to you to discover. The game certainly has some challenging rounds that will encourage you to think twice before making a move, especially if you want to get those three stars at the end of the round. Each new character and skills add new dimensions and fun to the gameplay experience. I do hope that we get to have even more levels in a future update. It's really a great comfortable and fun Gear VR game from a Seoul-based company 5minlab. It's certainly worth its asking price tag of 2.99 USD on the Oculus store. Toy Clash is really an amazing Gear VR game and it just made me get more excited about any future game coming from this developer. Also according to the press kit, more platforms will be supported soon. so if you don't have the Gear VR, follow the official website for more news about upcoming supported platforms.
Image credit: 5minlab