Back when I was in the vidjagame industry, Coin Master was one of those games the mobile game team would look at and go . . . dang . . . such a simple concept, yet shockingly well executed and successful. We'd be over here trying to build some complex town builder match-3 cross-over and then look at this simple slot machine town builder that made us collectively throw our arms up in the air.
If you've never played the game, basically, you get spins on a slot machine. Your spins refresh around once or twice a day and you spend the gold from your slot machine wins to build a "village." There are typically 5 objects to a village. For instance, I'm currently building Village 75, the "unicorn" village, and the five objects I'm building in that world are: a unicorn, a Cupid, a marble column gazebo, a pink floofy tree, and a satyr. Each of those objects has five stages where they start small and stunted and end up large and fully fleshed out. You build your village and advance to the next one. Wash, rinse, repeat ad infinitum.
Now, if that was the only core loop, it'd be pretty meh. What makes the game more interesting are the social aspects of the slot machine wheel. If you get 3 thor hammers in a row, you get to attack either a random or someone on your friends list. Basically, you call down a lightning bolt on one of your friend's objects. You can protect from this if you get 3 shields in a row, which will give you a shield or three to protect yourself from your friends' attacks. If you get 3 pigs in a row, you get to steal gold from either a random player or a random person in your friend list.
Then, to top it off, there's always a number of events running simultaneously like a tournament to see who can steal the most gold, a PvP battle based on the number of attacks you've done, a quest to send you through a forest scene, etc. etc. etc.
The first time I saw Coin Master, I immediately went, why hasn't anyone done this with an RPG style instead of a town scene builder? And of course, someone had. There are plenty of Coin Master clones out there: Island King, Spin Voyage, Piggy Boom, yada yada yada.
I really wish I could remember the name of this stupid Coin Master RPG game I found, but alas, it's lost to time. I actually played it to the end. Sigh. I think it might have been a prototype that was put out there just to see if anyone would want to play it. To be honest, I think I might have been the only person that wanted to play it.
ANYWAY, fast forward several years (Coin Master was released like 10 years ago), my wife just two weeks ago sent me an invite to play Coin Master. I'm like, no way. She's like, way. I then logged on and found I had some solid progress and a ton of spins. Since she was my only friend, I then proceeded to destroy her town and steal her coins . . . and she was out. I can't help it if the game wants me to destroy my friends!
. . . and even though she was out, I've still been logging in and playing. I'm not sure why . . . probably nostalgia at this point. As far as slot games go, this one is the most tame of them all. It's not like Game of Thrones Slots by Zynga, which, by the way, I have played. When I was without a job I interviewed for a Marketing Producer job at Zynga, and if I had got the job, that would have been one of my games I would have been responsible for.
Sorry about all that . . . I just felt the need to ramble a bit about Coin Master. Maybe talking about it will help me stop playing it. LOL. Stupid, addicting mobile games.
Happy Dueling!
1 comment:
Games where you attack your friends and ruin their day are the worst. Also, it requires that you have friends that play that same game, which is also stretching it a bit. Used to be easier back when Facebook was around, but now there’s no real unifying game-focused social network supported by mobile games.
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