If you've ever longed for a game to bring it on with animal-on-animal warfare, as in the tradition of Redwall, you've come to the right place. Brute Wars is a turn-based RPG tactical strategy game, and the latest game from Distraction Beast, where you pit your team of six creatures against opposing squads. The placement and order of their attacks adds up to a highly nuanced and rapid game of tactics that you won't want to miss.
As the game begins, you have to choose what kind of creatures you want composing your unit. Six portraits are lined up, you can click on one, and then click on another to swap places, or click on the "?" icon to randomize that creature's type. Mousing over each portrait shows a list of stats, and directional arrows show the way that creature can attack. Some creatures can only attack from two spaces away, while some can attack multiple times and some can smash against enemies in multiple directions. The assortment you choose goes a long way toward the ease of combat.
In battle, simply by clicking on one of your animals causes it to attack. Each turn that passes fills up your magic meter, which allows you to perform a few special moves during your turn. You can also order creatures who haven't yet attacked to swap places. Every battle you win levels up your surviving units, but they also lose a level every time they are knocked out. Between battles, you'll be able to heal and revive units, and then move around a overworld map containing shops and special treasures. The goal is to conquer all 7 castles on each map segment, and then proceed to a final destination.
Analysis: Brute Wars is a great example of a game with high production values, elegant interface design, and complex dynamics emerging from simple rules. The graphics are crisp and iconic and the interface flows very smoothly, making seemingly complex rules and numbers intuitively simple. A few arrows, attack power levels, hit points and attacks per turn ends up evoking some fairly interesting tactical decisions, with the magic mechanic serving as a nice garnish. The only significant issue in the harmony of the gameplay comes from the level adjustment mechanic. There's a nasty feedback loop where any weak links in your team end up de-leveling more and more as they lose levels. A big part of winning the long-term games comes in sparing your animals from being K.O'ed whenever possible. However, the problem there is that swapping them out of harm's way is too expensive, taking up an entire turn. The solution to this design issue would be to allow swapping to occur between an animal that hasn't attacked and a unit that already has—currently both creatures must be fresh in order for the swap to take place. There's also a rare bug on the Exp. screen that causes the game to effectively freeze, so make sure you save regularly and don't lose your progress right at the end of the game, like I did.
Treat yourself to a smorgasborg of tactics and well-drawn portrait art,
another comment just in case,
P.S. nice game,the page refreshed on me and it was there.
Yeah, this is a pretty interesting game, though I don't like how (to my knowledge, maybe I am just a moron) there was no explanation for randomizers.
After trying them out myself, I know what it is they do, but it should still be explained, and I still don't understand the complete system of what determines what they become.
It is also pretty interesting and important to know that if you keep one gem unused, you'll get another gem every turn, but it's only mentioned every so often in the Advice section of Information. :/
A few more useful gameplay details:
- Switching places only costs one Action. If your animal has more than one Action, it can switch places and attack during the same turn. Fairies, for example, have 4 Actions but only 1 power, so they're terrible in a one to one fight, but they often can be switched in to deal the last few points of damage to a weakened opponent.
- If you have more than one animal of a particular clan on your team, the magic of that type grows stronger. If you have one Magic animal, for example, then the level 1 magic heals all your animals for 2 points; but if your have two Magic animals, then the same spell heals for 3 points (warning: these numbers may not be exactly correct).
- Depending on which area you use them in, the randomizers you buy can produce different animals. Water animals in the Water Region, and so forth. I think you can also get different animals once you've encountered them in the field, too, but I'm not sure about that.
In my experience, it seems like randomizing a creature essentially has the game choose a random creature from that area and put it in your team. If you want an ogre, randomize a creature in an area where you fight ogres. This is supported by the fact that your randomizers get wiped out when you change areas.
Anyway, about "There's also a rare bug on the Exp. screen..." - did you mean in the crystal screen? The one immediately after a battle when you get your monies? That's just money, as far as I can tell. Your creatures silently gain XP and you'll only ever notice when they have more attacks.
I concur on the cost of switching. It is only one action. Strategically, I found it a very good idea to keep one big bruiser of an animal with 2+ actions waiting in my back lines so that he could be switched in to cover for someone about to get KOed.
I'm pretty sure that the randomizer helps you pick up animals from the area you're in. This is probably very important strategically. In fact, there's an entire category of animals you simply cannot get at the start of the game. Presumably, they're improved in some way. They also have their own magic category that doesn't unlock until you get one of them.
What does "castle: Los animales enemigos ganan 5 salud." mean?
> castle: Los animales enemigos ganan 5 salud.
Castle: The enemy animals gain 5 health.
Oh. I thought thy gained 5 levels... Whoopie! The castle enimies are easier. Thanks Jay for the translation.
Seems like instead of programming a decent AI you face cards of much higher levels than yours. Makes for a challenge, but not a rewarding one.
Anyone have any idea what the benefit of capturing castles is? Is it tied to what animals you get or maybe how many random encounters you get (on blue circles you've already conquered).
Primus: the reason why you defeat the castles is to make a lock in one of the screens disappear. It's in the screen furthest from your starting point (the map is arranged like a ring) so you'll get there eventually if you keep on slogging forward. Try to get all the castles and treasure chests your first time through a level, because backtracking is kind of a pain due to the ridiculously high random encounter rate.
The "plot":
After the seven initial castles, you ascend to an area where you have 4 more castles and then you unlock the final gate for the last castle, so that adds up to 12 castles in total.
I used a setup that pretty much kills all enemies in 3 turns or less, including the last bosses:
Cyclops (shadow 3 sides attack guy) in the middle, 2 brutes close ranger (Trike and T-Rex) at the side, Brute long ranger (dragon) behind cyclops, Water random (octopus) and Magic random (ghost) at the back line for support.
Some tips:
Generally random attackers are better than long rangers, since long rangers are effectively useless after the first line of enemy dies, and it is cumbersome to switch places. Also avoid getting animals with too much action points (eg fairies) since they will get hurt the most by counter damage.
Cyclops is the only one in the shadow element worth getting, his armor is amazing. The shadow spells are quite useless though.
I didn't bother much with the fire/water elements, magic is nice at start since the heals will reduce the need to eat food after every combat. Brute skills can be really powerful once your creatures reach MAX level(50).
I'm really digging this game, but there's a couple of things that are irking me that I think should be considered for the next version:
1) I enjoy listening to my music through playlist.com and the only player on that site that works for me is the flash player. Certain screen transitions (leaving menu is one of them...I'll post more if the author wishes) will pause my playlist's stream. I've got to pause the playlist and unpause it for the music to come back after each of these transitions.
2) There's a rather big bug that allows you to revive and fully heal all of your creatures for free outside of a battle.
I think this game has great potential if a couple of tweaks like the stuff I mentioned and things others have noted (better documentation, ie. randomizing a creature keeps its current level...but I don't know if it keeps its current XP amount). I just hope I don't fail my final exam today because I'm too busy playing ;)
If you randomize your animals well at the beginning, and win the first few battles, getting more randomizers is easy and then the game is simple. As you keep winning battles your chacter levels advance until they are MAX and then you get an extra attack. It got so easy that for the last three or four areas, I wasn't even really paying attention and I never lost a character...well, until the very last battle, and I lost one guy
It's funny but inappropriate that the game rewards you for running away with a few points. :/
oh really Craaw? I'm just wondering here, what animal combinations did you use?
I'm having trouble finding a good combination to use.
I found the first half of the game rather challenging until I snagged myself a full complement of shadow beasts. Shadow classes aren't affected by counterattacks, which drained a lot of my HP in the mid-levels.
Here's my setup:
Werewolf -- Cyclops -- Werewolf
Shadow -- Shadow -- Shadow
The rest of the game was cake and auto-clicking them to attack. I probably would've preferred 3 cyclops on the frontline, however, if I had had that choice.
After my beasts maxed out, though, sometimes I'd get negative XP. Egh.
Another undocumented feature: you cannot die from counter damage
It seems to me that randomizing a character keeps the old character's level, but not its experience.
As your animals gain experience, they increase in health, damage, and counter (and maybe more). By the time they reach MAX level, they also get a second action point (very useful!). However, if you randomize your characters late in the game, they start off without most if not all of those upgrades.
This seriously limits your flexibility in designing your party, as the stat bonuses make the characters much more effective than their enemy counterparts.
Also, the magic system is nice, but not that well designed. Since it takes 1-2 turns just to be able to cast magic, and since you always want to keep a gem behind so you can continue using magic, there isn't much time to benefit from your spells in the
Last criticism: the game gets too repetitive after your whole party is maxed out.
Still, the game shows quality construction and interesting gameplay, and is worth playing through.
The concept reminds me of the game Stomping Grounds, by the guys who made OASIS. I enjoy animal games, so I'll try this one out.
I meant what is a good combination to start out with, that is what I'm having trouble deciding on.
how doyou get shadow people? all i can get is the normal type, and the other 4
How the CRAP do u get a werewolf!? Someone tell me yo! I want a werewolfie! Can amyone tell me?
does anybody have any suggested starting animals? I can't figure out a good combo to start with.
I think I started with:
Whale - lion - grizzly
dragon - dragon - dragon
Lions and whales are great in stats but their classes suck (water and none), so use them only until you can get better stuff. The dragons should preferably be brute type because the brute spells are awesome.
Pretty much early on you can get by with just using brute spells as the heal based on damage should heal your front line a lot and the extra actions one will end the battle, especially if you've got brute dragons.
Once you get to the top screen (with the first lock) randomize there until you have a frontline of cyclopses and a back line of vultures (or shadows, I guess, though vultures are better). This will destroy everything without any spells. (This is also where you can get werewolves.)
Here's another winning combination:
trike-trike-trike
ghost-ghost-ghost
The triceratops is solid unit, lots of HP and one of the strongest attacks. If you want shadows instead of ghosts for their retaliation immunity, that will work too, but ghosts get more powerful in the late game:
They start with one attack but gain one more from a treasure chest item, one more at level 50, and one more from the 'cloud' terrain in the final stage. Four attacks by six damage each makes for easy battles.
With the combination above, battles don't last longer than two rounds (except some castles), though you can earn negative money at the end of easy battles!
omg no... i accidentally went to the main menu, but i hadn't saved...because i didn't think there was a save feature. is there a save feature? why can't it be automatic :(
i had 2 or 3 maxed creatures. 3/6 of my team were triple hitters. two others were long range (double arrow). the third was a maxed battering ram (13 power and 2 action!!)
WHYYYYYYYYY
Hey, I was just going to continue the new game I started and saved last night (*sobs*), but there's nothing in the save slots. A bug? Or do only Kongregate members get to save their games?
The same thing just happened to me! It makes me so angry.
Although automatic saving can be a welcome feature in some games, there may be a reason why it is not included in every game.
Rather than get angry, use the absence of an auto-save feature to your advantage.
For example:
Save your game before every new battle. Then, if during battle things get out of hand, just reload the browser and try again.
This can also be used to your advantage while negotiating the map:
Save after each movement on the map. Then, if when moving you encounter a random battle that you want to avoid, just reload the browser and move again.
It never happened to me, but there were quite a few Kongregate folks reporting that their saved games were disappearing. This may actually be a bug. I don't know if the developers are trying to fix it or not.
Oh, I guess I misunderstood the problem.
Disappearing saves has not happened to me either.
Maybe they accidentally wiped the saves when they just recently updated the game? I noticed the "FIGHT!!" transition screen is slightly different between last night and today.
AARG!! Now the new new game I was a good ways through is erased again :(
Flash game saves are saved on your local computer, NOT on the remote server where the game is played.
If your local storage is getting wiped out, you might want to check out the Adobe Settings Manager:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html
I think my game got deleted when I ran my spyware scanner last night, so the system must have saw that cookie as a threat. So watch out for that
[Edit: Flash game saves are NOT stored in cookies, and there is no security threat from Flash local storage. Please read about the Adobe Settings Manager linked to in the comment just above this one. -Jay]
Jay, would it be the Kongregate website in the list that shows up there? I just went through my whole list (which was pretty long) and didn't see anything for kongregate.com.
Yes, you should see kongregate.com in the list that comes up in the settings manager. You could use the settings manager if you wanted to DELETE a saved game (though it would delete ALL saved games for that domain, so be careful).
I included the link just so you can read about the settings manager, since that controls saved game data for Flash games.
It does not, however, explain why a saved game of yours has gone missing.
I was thinking maybe the storage setting was set to zero or some value too small for what the game was trying to write, so I'd just find it and increase the storage. That plan doesn't work too well if I can't find it though. Since that page says "Use this panel to specify storage settings for any or all of the websites that have requested permission to use your camera or microphone or to store information on your computer" I think the gap between that little save image showing up in the game and it actually being saved somewhere on my computer isn't being bridged. Which really isn't fun :(
chat.kongregate.com is in the list, so I know the site is getting through somehow.
Oh well. Guess I'll just have to try to win in one sitting. Or not close the window for a few days.
Beware
There is a bug, if you get the:
extra action point for magical creatures
then reload the web page and return to your save game, you lose the effect of it. It shows up as an upgrade, but the effect is gone!
So for now I guess don't shut down your browser until you're done the game... Of course it's minor because it's not like anyone would actually quit playing in the middle of a game to go have a life. Rare.
All in all it was a good game. Not too much back tracking.
Walkthrough / hint-through
Each map is a different difficulty. For the first 3 or so I took out the firt map, then the map left of the start left, then the map right of the start. Then the ones above those. This gives you an advantage when going to the next maps, so you are winning instead of losing.
You do not have to beat all of the red or get all of the powerups to move on to the highest levels, however you do have to beat all of the castles. You do have to beat a red to move in front of it, when you run you go back to the spot before you went to the one you ran from.
If you win you get 99 randomizers to start with.
I won the game quite easily with this layout
Battering ram - Whale - Battering ram
Dragon - Octopus - Fox bat
I played the dragon and fow bat and in later levels the rams once and then the whale to knock out the front corners so the rams could hit the back row at least once. Or the dragon, fox bat, the whale and then the rams if there is enough damage done.
I bought all of the upgrades as I went through the levels.
You can run as much as you like, this is only needed when you know you are going to lose more points then you are going to gain. As in when you win they do not give you very many points or they know one out and do not give you enough to pay for a revival.
Sometimes if they had knocked one out I would move them around so I could still strike, but be able to wait long enough to try and revive some of them in the fight to save points later.
Once your animals get to level 50 they are maxed and get an extra turn and extra hit points, ect.
Last battle
In the last battle I switched the Whale and Fox Bat to get the higher up guy (99) lower faster. I moved them around as needed to take out characters, I did not worry so much about losing mine so long as I still had some in play. I tried using the magic that helped me whack the enemy. I was left with the optopus in the end.
If you do not want to lose your place no matter if all you have done is buy supplies then save before you leave/close the game.
Well, completed it without a single death. very very hard on the last fight though, you need total perfection to win that without death.
my ideal team was non of the above ideas. I used a front of 3 battering rams, and a back of 3 gold dragons.
the dragons have the most punch of any dragon, and the rams have the highest hit. There is definate advantage to hitting 1 hard hit over 2-3 light hits because of the recoil.
Battering ram maxed hits 13, twice and had ok counter
gold dragon maxed hits 9, twice.
It also gives you high brutal and fire, nearly anything can be killed in 2 turns just by charging, without using food. if it cant, by then your nice fire attack is ready...
guide for killing the final fight without loses
firstly note, you will be loading a lot, you need some luck for this. It also pretty much needs all the upgrades:
-round 1
have the rams and golds on the outside take out the two cyclopes'. They have to be killed before they can attack.
Do one attack each with the centre pair and swop them so the gold dragon is ahead. As long as the ghosts dont hit the dragon twice, it has enough life to take the attacks from the boss and raptor. also note, if the middle ram (now at the back) is hit, pull out.
-round 2
Swap your mashed up dragon back with your ram again. then swap it for one of the side dragons. you should now have all three rams back on the front, with your nearly dead dragon on a back corner. Your ram in the centre MUST HAVE OVER 28 HEALTH.
The middle ram and dragon should be able to kill the raptor. the recoil must leave the ram over 24 health to survive the boss. attack the ghosts with the other rams to over half kill them.
end turn, and hope the ghosts don't hit the ram or dragon. This is the second luck turn you'll have, and the last
-round 3
If you've got this far, here is the easy bit. The rams can finish off the ghosts, no more random factor. Attack with the middle ram (you cant die from recoil, and then swap it with a nice healthy dragon
end turn, now for the finally.
-round 4
why have you used none of that magic yet?
here it comes. Use the top brute magic. Now your rams have 4 ac each, and your dragons have 5ac. Swap, attack until you have 1 left, swap...You should have no problem at all mopping up now.
Congratulations: flawless victory, animality, fatality, trademark slogan piracy...snap.
good luck :P
First off...I was excited to play this game, but it really holds no challenge.
I don't get what is tripping people or up even allowing them to die. There are two ways to progress through the levels - have a better layout (aka configuration of guys) or have higher level guys. Your guys level after each fight so if you're having trouble, go fight a couple of meaningless battles and randomize your characters to get the layout you want.
I was disappointed with how easy the game ended up being. I thought the attack strategy was nice, but with me always getting to start by the end I would knock out at least two guys before they would even attack.
Anyway, it was a fun game, but lacks a good challenge. I guess I'll post my 'layout' as well.
Put two high attacking guys on the outside, three randoms in the back (so they're always hitting guys) and you can go either a high attacker in the middle or a spread guy to help with additional side killing. Here's my layout:
Ram Ogre Ram
Ghost Ghost Ghost
I liked the Rams over Trikes in the end because of the additional attack over the health of the trikes (again, I found no reason these guys needed extra life). The back row was all Ghosts due to their 3, potential 4, attacks (1 natural, 1 at max, 1 treasure...and 1 in the clouds on the final levels). The Ogre was solid because of the health and because Shadow attackers ignore 1 points of counter so he would take less damage when attacking. That's my layout.
through the entire game I used this setup
Ram-whale-Ram
b.dragon-fariy-b.dragon
It proved to be a hard hitting combo however I had some trobule taking the castle so i deciede to get all the rewards before taking the castle down
Note. I haven't completed the game 100% yet
I started out with
Trike-Puppet-Camel
Cat-Octopus-Ghost
This seemed to be a pretty good combination because the trike and camel have high attack which gaurd my puppet in attacking the first line. I made the random hitters in the back to try to cover the back side.
wow seriously all this stuff before is all bull
with my team i can kill any one of them effortlessly
my team : cyclops, cyclops, cyclops front line
3 of those double arrow, 6power, 2attack dark creatures
or
3 puppets
3 frogs
and i dont get why people hate on dark spells
its so useful sometimes. esp the one crystal spell when you have a team of all dark creatures.
I started yesterday, and now I have found a pretty good working system for my team (And I just started, so it can be obtained with just newer recruits).
Trike _ Elephant _ Battering Ram
Foxbat _ Dragon _ Eagle
The trike is a good recruit because it's got plenty of HP and a pretty good attack level. The elephant I intend to change to a different wide-ranger as soon as I have enough randomizers, but right now it's got a good power level and decent HP, not to mention a wide range. The battering ram may not have the best HP, but it is the owner of the best power level I've seen so far (Twelve, beat that!). The foxbat is another one I want to change soon, but as far as pros go the power may be horrible but can make three actions. The dragon I want to change to a gold or blue dragon soon, but it's got a load of HP and good power along with a counter. The eagle is a little bland from pros, I want to change it very soon- power's not so good, only two actions, and one of the worst HPs in my whole team, but still pretty good.
Seeing as all my animals made it through a fight without dying and no magic power, though, it's the best one I've gotten so far.
I started with:
python puppet fire-beetle
octopus frog ghost
then later went with this:
t-rex puppet fire-beetle
octopus frog shadow
hope it helps!
This was not obvious to me, but it looks like it's by design: The 3-point shadow spell, which is "Revive ALL animals with x% health" (x is between 25% and 100% depending on how many shadow units you have) doesn't just revive YOUR animals, it revives any KO'ed enemies too. This makes it an almost useless spell in my opinion.
Btw... A complete Guide to Brute Wars (complete tables of creature attributes, effects of level on attributes, spell descriptions, sector maps, etc) at:
brokenfixer.pbwiki.com/BruteWars
Some strategy info usually further down on the pages. (Warning: spoilers.)
I've just finish the game with this team
Lion- Ram- Lion
G Drag- G Drag- G Drag
The center of my enimy always die afther the fist round
This game has potential and i finished it twice , once with no CHEATS at all and one with cheats that i found out >.<
So here's my line up
Cyclops(SHADOW)-Cyclops(SHADOW)-Cyclops(SHADOW)
Vulture(SHADOW)-Vulture(SHADOW)-Vulture(SHADOW)
Cyclops attacks 3 FRONT LINED animals and has 2 attack each and 5 POWER (Do the math 5 x 2 = 10) and when you get to level 35 its POWER increases to 6 (6 x 2 = 12)
Vulture attacks 2 spaces above them and has 2 attack each and 4 POWER (Do the match 4 x 2 =8)and when u get to level 35 its POWER increases to 5 (5 X 2 = 10)
So lets say we have 3 Front lined animals with 30 health each.I Attack using all my animals.
4 5 6
1 2 3
(2 Cyclops (20) (3 Cyclops (30) (2 Cyclops (20)
(1 Vulture (8) (0 Vulture (0) (1 Vulture (8)
30 - 28 = 2 30 - 0 = 0 30 - 28 = 2
So in one turn you could have killed 1 or 2 animals. And sometimes you will most likely to kill the middle FRONT line animal since you attacked using 3 cyclops and leaving your middle BACK lined vulture unmoved.
NOTE: after killing all the animals most of the remaining BACK lined enemy animals will switch to front line but enemy animals with ? and DOUBLE ARROW will never switch so attack your cyclops ONCE and switch to vulture then attack again.
(Vultures and Cyclops are not available until you beat the game but use the same criteria to gain advantage.
3 Animals who has 3 arrows on the front and 3 Animals whos has 2 arrows on the back.
Probably a 3 Tiger's on the front line and 3 Dragons on the back
_____________________________________________
CHEATS
HEAL and REVIVE animal without using REVIVE medicine - Simply save your game and go to the main menu to LOAD it , then all of your animals WHO died or has damage will come back with a FULL HEALTH. ( I found it annoying buying these apples and revive droppers every ONE battle so heres a cheat)
SKIP MAP / SKIP NODES - To skip the current location , Simply RIght click the screen and hit FORWARD but heres a little note you after a battle you wont stay in that area , you'll come back to the area you were originally in but sometimes its helpful when you landed near a SHOP,TREASURE CHEST and CASTLE. To skip a NODE (The Big Red Circle) simply go to it and while its saying FIGHT or in the battle itself, simply right click and hit FORWARD , you'll imediately skip the match , Earn one level, Get the Red NODE to Blue but you wont earn money. (Skipping battles using these is helpful especially when its already blue and your so annoyed that you already want to get to the next red NODE . And also it raises your animals level without it dying and losing one level.
____________________________________
HINTS - TIPS
-Someone quoted the the REVIVE ALL ANIMALS from shadow animals is completly useless well its not actually , if you lost most of your animals and not USING one of the REVIVE cheats , you want to use this REVIVE ALL ANIMALS spell wont you? (Just a little logic)
-Buy upgrades that HELPS you party
-If you played BRUTE WARS in a different site, you will lose your save data
-Save after each battle ( I mean who wouldnt?)
____________________________________________
Good Luck to you all , I wish theres a version 2 of this game.
some help:
At the start, try choosing two creatures with the double arrows (one on top of the other) and place them at the bottom row (any order you like). It's also good to place a ghost or a cat with those creatures. At the top row, get a strong animal like a phoenix or elephant. They can attack in three directions, so it's best to put them in the middle square. At the side, I'm not sure about those. Just choose the creature you prefer. I hope this helps!
For first time players I recommend to use this combination:
Trike - Puppet - Trike
G.dragon - G.dragon - Frog
and you shall be undefeated by normal foes, and almost undefeated by castle foes.
Hmm, very interesting game and definitely got a fun side to it. However, the first time around I didn't understand what "randomizers" were and thought they would just randomize your animal's stats, so I left them alone and ended up with a weaker team.
My current team is Puppet, Grizzly, G. Dragon, Eagle (randomized from Python), Ghost, and Python. I don't think I can be too good at this game because I like to keep animals based on how cute they look. And also humanoids creep me out, but I decided to keep Puppet and Ghost because Ghost is a randomizer and Puppet can attack three ways and has two actions.
Do you get stuck without points? Need a reviver? Then this is for you!
If you have level 0 this will help you without helping your levels.
Just go into battle and lose on purpose. Then when you get back to camp, you will have a perfectly healthy team!
Brought to you by Casual Gameplay.
Update