Serf Wars Spoiler Screenshots

Here are a few spoiler screenshots from the Facebook game Serf Wars. For more details of the game, instead of spoilers, look here.

Serf Wars: Introduction

Earlier, I was not sure if I would like to write an article on Serf Wars. The 'Beta' tag and the number of bugs in the game were the reasons I hesitate. With the latest update, however, bugs have been fixed and new content added. With that, I am confident that the developers will continue to improve the game, fixing the bugs as they appear (please fix the bug where a minigame score submit says I got two Doomblossoms but only one appears in my vault!) and adding interesting stuff (please add Artisan Achievements!).

Serf Wars is a Facebook city-management game by Meteor Games. It is not necessary to spend Facebook credits or to have friends as neighbors to play the game. However, Facebook credits and friends do make the game more enjoyable.

My kingdom!

(Sorry for the censored names in the screenshot but people's identity need to be protected.)

Like most other Facebook city-management games, the player builds up a city (or kingdom in this case) by buying buildings to earn currency (by collecting gold through taxes). Then the earned gold is used to further build the kingdom to earn more gold. What makes Serf Wars interesting is that the player also has an army to take on missions.

In addition to that, there is also a crafting system, where the player makes equipment and consumables with resources from missions and friend's Facebook posts. And there are also minigames to earn gold and resources, and to pass the time.

It's a suicide mission.

The player recruits units from specific recruitment buildings. These buildings may be upgraded to provide access to more powerful units. In addition, as the player gains XP and levels, and as the kingdom grows, more recruitment buildings with better units are available. Typically, the level 5 version of a building allows the player to recruit one hero unit specific to that building.

Units also gain XP by training at the Training Yard or by going on missions. The Training Yard may train a unit up to level 5. However, units may level even further than that from XP gained in missions.

Combat!

Typically, a mission has an intro cutscene, a fight and an ending cutscene to tell the story. Combat is a turn-based affair with each unit taking turns to beat up combatants on the other side until one side is wiped out. During combat, the player controls the game speed. Oh, and there is also a button to retreat for the yellow-bellied. That's pretty much all the control the player has.

Completing a mission gives XP to the player and the units involved, along with gold and a few resources.

Crafting.

Crafting in the game is straightforward. First, a specific building is needed. An initial artisan is available. The building may be upgraded to allow access to more different types of artisans.

Each artisan has access to a few recipes. If the player has the required resources for a recipe, the artisan can craft an item out of the resources, after some time.

Like other Facebook games, things take time to happen. Items take time to be crafted. The squad of units sent on a mission takes some time to recover. Etc.

Minigames.

To help pass the time, Serf Wars comes with minigames. Minigames are a major source of gold and resources. In addition to that, there are many achievements to be completed in minigames.

Achievements unlock Kingdom Theme buildings, which have good stats for building the kingdom. In addition to being hot and looking cool. Literally and figuratively.

(The cool buildings in the screenshot earlier in the article have been unlocked by achievements.)

An example of a minigame, LOL!

The game may be played without neighbors, but it is more fun with friends. The player may obtain gold and resources from friends' posts. In addition to that, the player may compare minigame high scores with friends. And the player may visit the friend's kingdom to plagiarize kingdom-building ideas.

Most importantly, the player may play minigames that are unlocked in a friend's kingdom. This is important because one of the minigames may only be unlocked with Facebook credits.

Oh, and having enough friends allow the formation of additional squads of unit to send on missions. But this is not that significant early in the game when the player does not have the gold to recruit many units yet.

When I first started out, there was a tutorial system to teach players the mechanics of the game. This takes the form of a series of quests. New players should be able to learn the game easily.

In summary, Serf Wars is a city-management game with the opportunity to beat up baddies. There are minigames and an item crafting system. The game is not dependent on Facebook friends as neighbors but it is more fun to have them.

Spoiler screenshots may be found here.
More information can be found from the Serf Wars Wiki and the Meteor Games forum.

Crystal Story Spoiler Screenshots

Here are spoiler screenshots from Crystal Story. If you would like to see the spoiler-free details of the game, look over here.

Otherwise, the screenshots are below:

Rebuild 2 (Strategy)

Rebuild 2 by Sarah Northway is a turn-based strategy game. The player leads a group of survivors to rebuild life in a city. Each turn (called a day in the game), starts with a report of the previous turn. The player then assigns tasks to the survivors for the day.

Nab it, this game is too addictive! I stopped writing this article to upload the screenshots and while waiting, I decided to play the game for 'a few turns'. By the time I escaped the 'just one more turn' trap, I had already done 45 turns and more than an hour had already passed.

Setting up the game.

The game starts with the settings. The player creates an initial character and sets the parameters of the game. The difficulty may be selected, along with the size of the city (larger city means a longer game).

Short notes introduce the features of the game.

For new players, this game comes with a tutorial that helps guide the player in what to do. It introduces the tasks the player has to complete and the game interface.

Send survivors on missions.

During each turn, the player may initiate missions on a city building and assign survivors to it. Different buildings in and out of the player's territory (known as the fort in the game) have different missions available. Outside, the player may hunt zombies to reduce their threat, look for supplies or recruit other survivors.

Inside the player's territory, the player may research at a laboratory, convert buildings into other buildings or train survivors in a school. There are more missions available depending on the type of building, a few related towards unlocking an ending.

After the player is satisfied with the assignments, he/she may end the turn. Unassigned survivors are automatically assigned to guard duty to protect the fort in case of a zombie attack.

Results of the previous turn (day).

At the start of each new turn, the player is presented with a report of the outcome of the previous turn. This is where the player gets to see how the missions went. It also reports on random occurrences, sometimes with presented options.

A survivor's character screen.

Each survivor has skills available that improve with certain missions or through training in a school. Skills may also be boosted by equipment - each survivor may have one equipment. There are five skills, each improve the success rate of certain missions like Offense for hunting zombies and defending the fort, and Scavenging for looking for food and equipment.

Survivors may also be renamed to the player's best friends' (or worst enemies') name.

The game continues until an ending is unlocked through the player's actions. After completing an ending for the game, the player may continue to find other endings. In addition to that, certain endings unlocks a special mission that allows the starting of a new game with five of the survivors. Any five survivors - even the best equipped people with the best skills.

To summarize, Rebuild 2 is a turn-based strategy game where the player assigns his/her people to missions. It is addictive. There's this endless 'just one more turn' trap that the player may fall into where he/she finds that he/she does not have the will to stop playing.

Buddy Rush: October Comedy Screenies

Here are more screenshots of Buddy Rush. A few of the screenshots here are less of comedy and more of a did-you-know.

The previous month's screenshots can be found here.

Buddy Rush: Jinie's Set (1.4)

Update 2 January 2012:
I added Jinie's Raid screenshot with all the collected items for record purposes since the items in the Raid screen goes away when the item is deleted.

Jinie with all the purple set loot.

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Jinie's set consists of four purple unique items. Each of the four may be obtainable as the chest reward after beating Jinie. (If you did not know this, don't tell anyone.)

Jinie's Magic Lamp

Jinie's Gemstone Eye

Jinie's Thorn Bracelet

Jinie's Magic Horn

The completed set gives the following bonuses:

Att+200
Def+10
HP+160
HP Regen+0%
MP+68
MP Regen+8%
critical+0%
Evade+4%
Stun+0%
Hit Speed+0%
Skill Pow+64.5%
Skill CoolTime-4.1sec

Jinie's set has high Att, Skill Pow and Skill CoolTime, along with good MP Regen. It does not have critical, Stun or Hit Speed. As such, it is best for characters that rely on active skills to do damage. The set does not give much bonus in Def, HP and HP Regen, so the character will be susceptible to attacks.

It's going to be painful for everyone (Oblins, Wolfgang and Botherella).

I equipped Jinie's set on Botherella. My Botherella is configured with the Barberella build so she can Curse and do damage with Thornbush. She has good Att and Skill Pow from the set. Good MP (her base MP is already high), MP Regen and Skill CoolTime allows here to spam skills more often. Her high MP also means that during missions where she is the main character, buddies get more MP out of blue orbs. No critical, though, so no orange numbers but that just means that damage is more stable.

No Stun or Hit Speed means that her passive attack is less impressive. However, her main weakness would be the poor defense. Botherella's base HP is already low. Jinie's set does not give much HP bonus. And there is no bonus to HP Regen.

I have equipped the Oblinium Blob and Jack Blin's Shield to cover a little of her weakness in defense. The Oblinium Blob also improves her already impressive Skill Pow and Skill CoolTime from the set. Also, Botherella relies on Wolfgang and Pain Sharing to further reduce damage taken. She can also hide behind Wolfgang or another buddy.

Update 20 January 2012:
I completed a second Jinie's Set! I equipped it on Boorseye:

Second set, yay!

The idea here is to focus on Booreye's skills. Thus, Att and Skill Pow are important while Hit Speed is neglected. Also, Def is below average - hopefully his high offense will beat up Oblins before they can do significant damage. Still, I put in a little HP Regen, just in case.

With a moderate MP Regen, Boorseye cannot spam Sneak, which is the skill that cost the most MP. This is a significant consideration in long Missions and Raids.

I equipped the red Denim Jumpsuit to give Boorseye some defense so he can at least take some stray hits in Raids. I equipped the red Bone Club to boost his offense even further. The little bit of Stun is nice to have since Boorseye's skills spams arrows, each of which has a chance to Stun. There is no critical from equips, so Boorseye has to rely on his passive skill for critical.

Buddy Rush: Contents

Epic War Spoiler Screenshots

Here are a few spoiler screenshots from the game Epic War 5. If you would like my thoughts on the game instead of the spoilers, you may find them here.

Otherwise, look below for the spoilers. Did I say they are spoilers?

Epic War 5 (Strategy)

I have a love-hate relationship with ArtLogic Games' Epic War series. In the games in the series, the player gathers different units for his/her army, train them up and then go beat the really-OMG-difficult-epic battles that are unlocked after completing the game. I really enjoyed figuring out how to beat those tough battles and when I eventually did, the feeling was satisfying.

Unfortunately, the battles themselves were tediously long. I usually found myself sleepy while playing. It was not just that the big bad boss-guy-thingy in the battle has insane amounts of HP. It was also that the battles tend to run slowly on my computer. I am not sure if it was because of the large number of units I have in the battle or if certain large units consume more computing resource.

The Epic War series is not for everyone. If you do enjoy figuring out how to solve problems, if you have patience and time, then the Epic War series is for you. Otherwise, consider paying the kid next door a few bucks to fight the actual battles for you while you focus on the fun parts of unit upgrading and backseat playing.

The latest in the Epic War series is Epic War 5: Hell's Gate. Note that the screenshots are from version 1.03. Updates may still uploaded later after this article is written.

Players will spend a lot of time on this interface, unless the kid next door is hired.

Epic War 5 is similar to the other games in the series. The player has his/her hero and an army of units coming from the left. And the opposition has its army waiting to the right. The player's units are automatically trained and deployed over time but the player may order them forward or back (retreat!).

The difference this time is that the player has to protect his/her hero and beat up the target unit (usually it is the big boss) on the other side of the map. No need to protect the 'castle' this time. Instead, up to four buildings may be summoned (there are spells for that) to help. The opposition's buildings are already on the battlefield.

In addition to that, spells this time round are attached to the hero and the units. The player has access to whatever spells that the hero and/or the unit provides. Spells may be used to blast the battlefield or buff units. I noticed that only one buff may be active at one time. Casting a new buff cancels the old one.

After the battle.

Winning the battle awards Experience to the hero and each unit that participated, along with an Accessory. In addition to that, completing a level for the first time will usually unlock a new unit.

Selecting the pokemons units for the next battle.

In between fights, the player may set up his/her army. The units to be deployed may be equipped with any Accessory won from previous battles. In addition to that, each unit may be improved with Experience, which is used to buy skills that add new spells or improve the unit's stats.

This is the core fun of the game: choosing the best setup to beat insanely tedious difficult battles.

Skills available.

The hero and each unit has a simple skill tree of three branches with three skills in each branch. The screenshot above pretty much explains how it works.

There are three heroes to choose from, each with different skills available and different stories. However, the fun part of the game is the epic battles unlocked after completing the story.

It also helps me sleep at night.

Help for the new player.

The game does provide decent help for players new to the series in the form of text hints. So the game is not too difficult to learn or play. It only starts to get difficult after the game is completed.

As stated earlier, not everyone may enjoy this game. It is fun developing each unit to see what they are capable of. And it is satisfying to beat a difficult level. The main drawback is the tediously long battles.

There are more screenshots with spoilers here.

Villainous Spoiler Screenshots

Here are a few spoiler screenshots from the game Villainous. If you only want to know whether or not the game if worth playing, look here.

For those looking for spoilers, look below.

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After the long string of dots added so you do not unintentionally see the spoilers.

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This has nothing to do with giving you more time to notice the ads.

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The fully developed castle.

The fully developed throne room.

The Dragon Water on the left is a reference to the developer's previous adventure game.

Notice anything different about the title screen?

Buddy Rush: Wolfgang had a Bad Day

Wolfgang had a bad day.

First, Betty Jr put on some awful makeup.

Betty Jr's fashion for the day.

Betty Jr's getup made Wolfgang feel uneasy. Her pink outfit and makeup were strange. She had stuff stolen off Armored Tiger. And she carried a hammer and a gun. Who was she trying to impress anyway?

Wolfgang tried to keep his mind clear so he could concentrate on his task of backing up Botherella. However, in one mission, he was too slow in catching up with the buddies that he got left behind at the elevator.

Left behind!

While the buddies moved on, Wolfgang had to climb up the hard way to get back to his mistress much later.

Trying to make up for his negligence, he decided to help collect extra minerals, more than the mission required. Unfortunately, that triggered a scripting bug and caused the game to hang.

The party is frozen by a script bug.

Well, it was not his fault. The level designer had placed two minerals at one same spot, causing there to be 12, instead of just 11 minerals. So when Wolfgang collected the 12th mineral, the mission end script was interrupted and the game hung.

Skully got so mad about it that she shot Wolfgang.

Ouch!

The buddies then forgot to bring Wolfgang home.

They forgot someone.

Wolfgang had a bad day.

Buddy Rush: Contents