Did you ever play StickWars on your computer when you were younger (or currently)?  I certainly did, and let me tell you, it was one addictive little Flash game.  As soon as I saw the touchscreen on the iPhone, a whole host of games ran through my head that should be rewritten for it, and StickWars was near the top of that list.  Nevertheless, I had played other Flash game remakes with less than stellar results, so I came at this game with a healthy skepticism of previous disappointment.

Review Date: May 18, 2009 (Version 1.3)

Interface [rating:4]
Fun [rating:5]
Re-Play [rating:5]

Overall [rating:5]

For those of you that don’t know, the premise of StickWars is pretty simple:  You are essentially the protector of your castle with some god-like powers.  Little stick figures run at your castle with all sorts of devious weapons, and you have to brutally kill them.  How do you kill them, you might ask?  On the computer, this involved putting your mouse button over them, holding down left click, and throwing them away as fast as you can so they fall to a bloody death.

On the iPhone, obviously, there’s a touchscreen so you use your finger to pick these stick figures up and toss them to their gruesome deaths (oh, did I mention you can turn up the “Blood Level” for more violent deaths?).  If that were all, however, the game would be nothing more than an interesting distraction.  What makes this game stand out is that it has depth to it.  There’s significant strategy that’s involved to succeed.

The game is full of options when you start.  There are 3 difficulty levels which is nice, as I know that experienced players like myself dislike the boredom of the incredibly easy levels at the beginning, and Hard mode makes those easier levels a bit of a challenge.  Nevertheless, since I didn’t know what to expect, I decided to play my first game on Medium difficulty.

The game divides itself into Rounds (days), and at the end of each day you get paid depending on how many bad guy soldiers you kill.  Since more bad guys run at your castle each day, you get paid more as the game proceeds.  With this cash, you can repair your castle’s damage, and purchase all sorts of fun upgrades, including Bombers, Archers, Wizards, Repairmen, and a Prison (to be discussed in a bit).  A big tip: get the Prison first, you need it to power everything else.  What the prison does is pretty cool: instead of killing the enemy soldiers, you can now capture them with your god-like powers and brainwash them to fight for you.

Once you get them over to your side (it takes a small amount of time to convert them), you can select what they should be.  Bombers are just suicide bombers, Archers shoot arrows from your castle, Wizards give you Mana to cast spells, and Repairmen (obviously) repair your castle.  While I found most of them to be pretty useful to have, Repairmen simply work too slowly to do much good.  It takes a bit of time to orient yourself in terms of what exactly you need, but after a few times through even new players will get the hang of it.

Besides upgrading your own equipment, every so often the enemy gets his own upgrades.  Besides basic troops, soon you’ll face down horsemen, battering rams (use Bombers!), and eventually even flying beasts that attack you from the sky.  I had played this game before, and I got through my first time playing to Round 40 without dying.  I think that’s pretty commendable, but see if you can do better.  As of now I’m ranked #363 for Medium difficulty, but I’ll be working hard to improve that.

One new feature that was added which was sorely lacked in the Flash game: a SAVE feature.  WOW!  When I had died after 40 Rounds I was pretty depressed that all my progress was lost, but I was mistaken.  When I got back into the game, you can reload right from where you died.  Unfortunately, the save feature has it’s limits.  If you switch difficulty modes, your save data disappears, and you can only save one game at a time.  Nevertheless, definite improvement, and the inability to have more save features may be based off of the limitations of the iPhone instead of any developing flaw.

There are a few things I would improve, but nothing major:

-While the Wizard ability to fire  “Meteor” is nice, their “Fireball” ability is awkward to use and mediocre at best.
-The Repairmen work too slowly to be of much good unless you’re willing to get dozens of them.
-Additionally, the iPhone GPU simply can’t handle the game sometimes.  On the higher rounds, sometimes you’ll have thrown 10-20 bad guys in the air at the same time.  The iPhone can’t handle when they all hit the ground one after the other (too many sprites).  One solution might be to have the bad guys not fly as high when you throw them.

My final conclusion?  100% iWorth It!  At only $0.99 this game is a steal, and there are few games I’ve played that are as addictive or have such a great replay value.  Furthermore, the sound effects and background music for the game are fitting and work well with the theme.  The small visual effects in the game, such as changing seasons for the background scenery, and the sun going across the sky, really show you how much work the developers put into making this game.  The game is already at version 1.3, and I can’t wait to see what further updates are made in the future.  If you’re still not convinced, take a sneak peek at some of the fun you’ll experience at later levels:

Those battering rams are really tough!  Thankfully, I have a whole army of Archers ready to combat them.

These guys just keep on coming.  It’s like they have infinite reinforcements or something…

Me, late in the game, at full power.  Notice the mass of Archers, Wizards, and some excess prisoners to use as Bombers.