504 Battleborn Tap Is Very Incremental

Gearbox’s companion iOS game Battleborn Tap took over my life recently, for about 12 hours.

The game is in no way revolutionary. But not all fun games have to be, right?

It’s design is very familiar to the “tapping” genre. I’m not quite as informed as I could be on this genre, but a quick google search reveals that the style is called incremental, idle, or clicker games. Cow Clicker and Cookie Clicker were some of the first of their kind, of what has become an entire genre of essentially “tap a lot anywhere on the screen and you win” gameplay. Sounds like a blast, huh?

That doesn’t mean that they can’t be enjoyed, though. My primary goal when playing these types of games (of which I’ve played maybe.. two others in the past), is to spend as little time possible playing the game.

Weird.

Yeah, the games are essentially a pretty skin on top of a very predictable algorithm. If you know how the algorithm works, you can exploit it (“exploit” is an overstatement; I like to think I’m playing it the only way that it can be played and still be called fun). And if you can exploit it, then you can waste less time in front of the game, while still enjoying the dopamine that comes along with any progression system in life.

Nothing about this specific entry in this ridiculous genre is particularly innately special. I think I was attracted to it initially because of its tie to a full-release PS4 game (kaCHING! nice work marketing team!). And after that fact got me to download it initially, it’s nice graphics, familiar gameplay (and familiar characters!), and overall polish contributed to it digging its grubby little fangs into my neck.

There’s not much else to say about this game, though. I enjoyed my short time (if we’re measuring time in total “days”) with it, and although they didn’t manage to squeeze any money out of me, I think that I would in theory shoot a few dollars their way. That said, Gearbox doesn’t need any more of my money; the Borderlands series manages to snag plenty just fine.

[ Today I Was Playing: Tropico 5 and Life is Strange - Ep. 4 and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End ]

#game-opinion