MSRP: Free with in-game purchases
Platforms: Win, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, WinPhone
Release: 7/8/15
Battle for Blood might just be the cutest game about slaughtering hordes of undead that I’ve ever come across. Clearly designed for mobile devices, it’s a match-3 game where your matches spawn soldiers to fight the battle going on at the top of the screen. You only get so many moves at a time, then the matching part of the game is paused while your soldiers continue their battle. Completing a section of the battle recharges your moves and allows you to create more soldiers.
As you travel through the levels, you unlock different types of units, and you get coins which you can use to upgrade your units. Upgrades get very expensive very quickly, and that’s where the monetization comes in. There’s a shop where you can purchase coins. However, impressively, you don’t seem to be limited in any way if you don’t spend cash. There is no energy bar, no ridiculous invite-your-friends spam, just a solid casual game that allows you to spend some money to bypass some grinding for coins.
At the beginning of each level, you are allowed to choose what types of units you take into battle. Each type of unit has a percent chance attached to it, and you must fill – or overfill – the percent bar at the bottom in order to start the level. You will also unlock access to items that you can use to influence the battle, but these also cost coins, so you have to choose between having items and upgrading your troops. Coins don’t come that quickly to incentivize making a purchase.
Overall, I found Battle for Blood to be a satisfying little time waster. There are definitely difficulty spikes as you progress, but you can always replay earlier levels to get more coins, or you can toss a little cash at the developers to support the game if you’re enjoying it. In the current FTP app market, the prices for coins seem more than reasonable – early levels only award about 1000 coins on first completion, and less on replay.
366 Days of Gaming 