Alone At War – Fend off Baddies with Addictive & Challenging Stickman Mayhem
by Paul Wilks
Sep 2, 2011 9:37 AM –
Install
Alone At War is a hand-drawn masterpiece of a game which pits you against an oncoming hoard of various baddies. You have a bow, some arrows and smattering of cool magic at your disposal, and the aim is to survive the onslaught for as many days as possible. Simply drawn yet with a wealth of cool effects and levels, Alone At War is a superb way to kill time, and baddies!
Price: Free
Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Challenging & Addictive!
- Really well designed!
- Cool graphics despite their simplicity!
- Great sound effects!
Cons
- Some people might find gameplay a little monotonous.
Features:
Alone At War puts you in control of a little stick man, as he faces down wave after wave of bad stick men and some very evil dogs. There are archers, axemen, dogs, men in balloons and guys who just have huge clubs who come at you and you only have your trusty bow to stop them. Ok, not ‘just’ your trusty bow, you also have a bit of magic. Initially this magic is pretty limited but you can build it up to full-on Gandalf in no time.
The controls of the game mainly concern you with pressing the screen to increase firepower and positioning your finger in the direction where you wish to aim. Aside from this you occasionally have a magic spell button, of which there a few varieties, which incur different levels of damage against your foes.
The baddies are pretty nasty to be fair. The first to reach you are the dogs- evil canines that leap up and bite you. Archers sit back and fire arrow after arrow in your direction. There are axemen too who just waltz up and start hacking at you. Not nice. Overhead you also have men in hot air balloons who intend on dropping bombs on you. It’s subsequently important to get them before they get overhead- otherwise things get even worse for you. (Tip here: hit the balloons early so that they descend into a crowd of oncoming baddies. The bomb hits the group and makes it far easier for you to kill). Alternatively, hit the bombs directly to blow the whole thing up.
Magic comes in various forms; a fire dragon, earthquakes and lightning are among the spells, plus there is one which revives your life. These inflict staggered hits on each baddie on screen at the time. These can be made more powerful as you progress to become very effective. Seeing as you only have a bow, it’s best to utilize everything at your disposal. Sometimes this magic can be got by shooting the occasional bird which drops into view holding a magic token. Shoot these and you can use the spell against your enemies straight away.
At the end of each day, you get a number of points that can be used to increase either accuracy, power, manna and life. If you accumulate 10 points together you can improve magic levels. There is an element of strategy here as you might need better power or if your shooting is rubbish better accuracy. It’s up to you. You get more points at the end of each day, so you can build up your abilities as you go along. You additionally score points as you go along and get more points if you make head shots, etc. All pretty cool and very action packed!
Watch on Mobile
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Alone At War – In-game view (1)
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Alone At War – In-game view (2)
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Alone At War – In-game view (3)
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Alone At War – In-game view (4)
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Alone At War – In-game view (5)
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Alone At War – In-game view (6)
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Alone At War – Face dogs, archers, hot air balloons and more…
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Alone At War – Archers gang up quite quickly
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Alone At War – End of level screen
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Alone At War – Game Over screen
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Alone At War – Menu
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Alone At War – Instructions
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Alone At War – Language choices
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Alone At War – Options
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Alone At War – Credits
Fun Factor:
The action gets incredibly frantic and you end up firing off countless arrows at your enemies- arrows which proudly just stick out of them as they progress towards you undeterred. The clubbing men are the properly tough ones and they seem to change color the harder they get. These guys will take a few head shots so it’s best to attack them early. The game is lots fo fun to play and the addition of cool magic spells is really cool.
Addictive:
The game is both very addictive and challenging. I found the difficulty gets cranked up at around day 6, so be prepared for that. You can share your score on Facebook too. Sadly there is no OpenFeint, or other social achievement system, which would have been pretty cool, but this doesn’t diminish this feisty little game in any way.
Graphics:
The graphics initially look very simple, the figures are hand-drawn after all. However, if you watch closly there are plenty of cool little graphical effects that make this visually superb while still being simply drawn.
Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:
The sound is cool, explosions, shooting, hitting and yelling noises- in addition to cool magic sounds like a roaring dragon and electrical lightning. There is also music which is pretty good for a game like this.