Funny To A Point – I Joined A Devil Cult; Its Name Is Clash Royale

I'm fairly susceptible to getting suckered into games by my
coworkers, a character flaw I wrote about...just last
column (another: repeating myself).

(another: repeating myself). But long before Pokéfever gripped the
G.I. office, some of my fellow editors were obsessed with another mobile
megalodon, one with far more sinister underpinnings than Nintendo's cutesy
pocket monsters.

Despite my
embarrassing antics, Pokémon Go isn't really a good example of my newfound weakness
for groupthink mobile crazes. Everyone is obsessed with Pokémon Go right now, and
I'm genuinely enjoying the experience. Trying to judge my crisis of character
based on Pokémon Go would be like a Saw movie where the victims are forced to cuddle puppies and tickle-fight each
other. The true depths of my depravity can only be measured in misery, and for
that Clash Royale is the perfect yardstick.

Upon launch, Clash Royale was generally
lauded by critics, and rightfully so. Supercell managed to strip the RTS genre
down to its fundamentals, replacing long and taxing wars with fun bite-sized
battles that virtually anyone can play and appreciate. You build up a small deck
of units, send them out to destroy your opponent's three towers, and two
minutes later you're either picking up your reward or spamming a new enemy with
ill-intentioned King emojis.

FYI, if I give you the "thumbs up" after I lose
badly, it means you're supposed to sit on 'em.

The depth of strategy on offer cannot be overstated; Clash
Royale is a far cry from the endless glut of match-threes, indie rip-offs, and whatever crap Schwarzenegger
is hawkingon the mobile markets. There's honest-to-goodness gameplay there,
enough to make me feel sorry for gamers who still universally dismiss mobile
gaming in its entirety. On the other hand, Supercell took that solid gameplay foundation
and globbed together a tower of crap on top of it that's tall enough to make me
think the haters have a point.

The process of delving into Clash Royale is remarkably
similar to joining a cult, minus the matching sneakers and all-you-can-drink
Kool-Aid. Like any cult worth its own gobbledygook, Clash Royale excels at
breaking you down and building you back up in its own image, but first it
coaxes you in with promises of easy wins and rewards. On the front lines are
Clash Royale's evangelists, singing the game's praises while slipping in an
underlying sales pitch. "It's SOOO great – you should definitely join our
clan!"

In the G.I. office, Dan Tack is our cultclan leader,
and has achieved a plane of superior knowledge that I have yet to ascend to. When
I first started out, his words were somehow reassuring and concerning at the
same time – the kind of cult-bred logic that only works if you don't think about
it too much. "The game is the best. You're going to get crushed repeatedly, but
it's fun. It's all part of the process. Don't worry, it gets even better once
you learn the secrets of the cosmos from chancellor Zeptar." *

At first I really was having fun, thanks to Clash Royale's extended
period of the mobile-game industry's version of foreplay – it took me a good 30
minutes to realize how I was getting screwed, and even longer to realize to
what extent. Big bulky treasure chests are your main reward for winning matches
against opponents, and those chests contain new cards and gold – awesome, right? Then I
clicked on my first silver chest and found out it takes three hours to open – less
awesome, right?

Of course a reward chest would take three hours to open...

As far as time gates go, the wait to open a treasure chest doesn't
even make sense. Are you picking the lock? If so, you must really suck at
it – and if you supposedly have the key, then god help you. I resigned myself to
the wait only to get walloped with a follow-up punch after my second victory: You
can only unlock one chest at a time? Ah, there's a bit of that familiar free-to-play
sting.

However, I was still in the grace period before my full indoctrination
– I was in the room with the chanting monks, but still hadn't gotten a glimpse
of the sacrificial altar just behind the curtain. Whether it's for the sake of efficiency
or laziness, I was approaching Clash Royale like I do most games, by trying to
get the most out of my efforts. After all, why keep on battling when I don't
have any more chest slots to hold my just rewards? The Crown Chest, which is
available every 24 hours after claiming 9 towers from opponents, encouraged me
to play even slower. Why play a trio of matches for three chests when they
would also net me 9 crowns in an hour? For the first week, I played a few
matches once a day, while checking back in every now and then to open my newly unlocked
chests.

In little doses like this, Clash Royale is fun, and the
early game encourages a slow pace – that way it doesn't hurt as much as the
hooks sink in. Clash Royale's time gates are a more forgiving version of a
well-known perversion of free-to-play game design: discouraging players from
having too much fun at any one given
time, because if you are, you won't be throwing your real money at a virtual
marketplace. The longer you play Clash Royale, the sharper its barbs get, but
the real, Royale pain in the ass is
still to come.

Crushing an opponent with an angry mob is always satisfying. When it happens to you? Not so much.

Even as I racked up a satisfying run of early victories and
started leveling up my units, I knew a turn of the screw was coming. At
numerous times, I had seen my fellow pledges walking around the office being
trailed by their own personal storm clouds, thanks to horrific losing streaks
that left them struggling with their faith in Clash Royale's higher (or perhaps lower)
power. I had avoided upsetting this mysterious Supreme Being as I graduated
from Royale's beginner zone to Arena 2, but my jump to the next tier called down
the Eye of Sauron upon me with a mighty vengeance. My suffering was by design.

Like many competitive multiplayer games, Clash Royale splits
its player base up into distinct tiers based on skill – in this case, nine differently
themed arenas. Unlike just about any other competitive game (and there's a
reason for that), these arenas also grant players access to new units – but
only if you're lucky enough to get them from one of your subsequent victory
chests. The effect of this decision is that the great sense of achievement you
feel from graduating to a new arena is immediately pummeled to death by a
string of new overpowered opponents that...well, pummel you to death.

My first downfall was swift. Upon reaching Arena 3, I was
suddenly being overwhelmed by roaming gangs of barbarians, devastating rockets,
and unit-buffing rage potions, none of which I could earn in the previous tier,
and wouldn't be able to earn unless I overcame the new, more powerful decks and
strategies my opponents were using. A few consecutive losses were all it took
to drop me below the threshold and boot me back down to Arena 2, with its lousy
Arena 2-level chests that still didn't contain the new units I'd face when I advanced
again.

Am I above squeaking out a last-second win with a supremely cheap volley of arrows? Absolutely not.

With the clan's reassurance, I dutifully trudged along, slowly
learning counters to the new units until I could hack it in Arena 3 and start
earning them for myself. But the yo-yoing only gets worse the higher you claw yourself
out of the pit. Arena 4 introduces tower-crushing Hog Riders, debilitating
Freeze spells, and damage-soaking Lava Hounds. Arena 5 means contending with
instantaneous lightning zaps, fireball-spewing wizards, and deadly poison
clouds. Arena 6...well, I don't even know what fresh hell awaits in Arena 6,
because I haven't gotten there yet. Again, none of these units are available to you until they're already slaughtering your fighters on the battlefield; sometimes players from a higher arena will flunk down to your level, so even if you do beat their superior units, you're still getting inferior rewards.

Suddenly, playing a few matches here and
there is no longer an option – you've got to constantly hone your skills and
strategies, earn mountains of gold to upgrade your units, and level up your player
account if you want to remain competitive. That means checking in on the game
more often than, oh I don't know, some idiot
who has too many babies.

Hitting a skill ceiling in any competitive multiplayer game
is inevitable. But unlike a game like Hearthstone, where players all have
access to the same card pool and make one long, steady climb through the ranks,
Supercell has done its damnedest to make Clash Royale all ceilings – and ensure
you hit each one at maximum speed as you repeatedly rise and fall. Playing
Clash Royal is like Sisyphus endlessly rolling the boulder up the mountain – except
once you get to the top, the boulder rolls over you on the way back down.

Hey, did I mention you can pay real money to buy bigger and
better treasure chests, speed up the opening process, and buy and level up your
units? That's right: Like all cults, Clash Royale isn't built on true ideology
– the idea here being to build a fun and fair game – but rather cold hard cash.
It's pay-to-win in the worst way, and if the underlying gameplay wasn't so
good, and Supercell wasn't so skilled at calmly shuffling players up to the
edge of the volcano, I would've stopped playing a long time ago.

When did $100 purchases become a standard option in "free"-to-play games?

That said, some brave players have managed to break free.
Two weeks ago, G.I.'s selfie
expertBrian Shea came into the office and triumphantly declared that he
had deleted Clash Royale from his phone. The reprisal was swift; his
self-declared epiphany was mocked as "rage-quitting," and he was promptly booted
from the clan – after all, you can't have nonbelievers milling around in the
flock. But the ostracism hasn't made much of an impact on Shea, and just like a
real deprogrammed cult member, he even volunteered an uplifting testimonial.

"I couldn't be happier," Shea told me when he heard I was
ragging on Clash Royale in this week's column. "I was pouring so many hours
into Clash Royale – I now actually have time for family and friends."**

Not playing a game that makes you miserable should be a
no-brainer, like not sticking a fork in an electrical outlet if you don't want
to get shocked, or not inventing and standing in front of a crotch-kicking
machine if you want to have children someday. But sometimes gamers suffer from mixed
motivations. Sometimes fun gameplay is worth the mounting annoyances and
frustrations. Sometimes the challenge to overcome an obstacle stubbornly fuels
us on. And sometimes it's just fun to be in a group and have a shared
experience – even if you spend more time commiserating with each other than
celebrating. But learning to recognize the net effect a game is having on your
mood is a valuable lesson, as is knowing when to call it quits. Shea's wisdom
(two words I never thought I'd write consecutively) has made me realize it's
about that time for me as well.

Besides, I've found a newer, bigger cult to be a part of, one
with an entire army of demonic monsters to pray to. Its name is Team Valor.

* That last sentence may not be a direct quote.
** Incredibly, that sentence IS a direct quote. Shea has even bigger problems than I do.

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