Varagtp's Tap Heroes, also free for iOS and Android, is a simple idle/incremental RPG that will feel fairly familiar to you if you've played Clicker Heroes, but darned if it ain't pretty. You start off with a simple warrior in a forest, and you click on them to heal, while clicking on enemies deals damage. Slain enemies drop coins you can use to upgrade both your clicking strengths and your party, and after you've knocked off ten monsters in one area, you can move on to the next, where they'll be stronger, but your rewards will be even greater. Every so often you'll fight a powerful boss, and slaying it will earn you diamonds (also dropped randomly while playing) you can spend on more party members or other upgrades like the coin doubler. If you're already sick of the clicker genre, Tap Heroes isn't going to do much to win you over. It's fun in the way all of these games are, a frenetic mix of arcade clickery and the simple satisfaction of upgrading and bigger numbers, but despite elements like the way the wizard and the rogue both have different abilities, it still doesn't offer much in the way of depth. The incentive to play is largely seeing what new areas and monsters you discover, and in that the game's lovely Paper Mario-esque retro visual style is a large mark in its favour. Tap Heroes may have been done before, and likely could use some fleshing out to make it stand above the crowd, but its oddly addictive and easy on the eyes, making it a solid addition to an increasingly popular genre.
Kinda cool, and while it's not all that deep, I'd be interested to hear what folks have figured out about what strategy it does have. Here's what I've concluded so far:
Click attacks don't mean much after a while, so save your clicking finger and don't waste too much gold on the Attack and Crit powers.
Your mage only does healing, and most of the time he's got that covered just fine on his own -- but click healing is vital for the boss battles, so keep your Heal power leveled up.
You only earn gold and gem chests at your current max level, but gold can still be farmed far more quickly at the lower levels. Consider retreating occasionally, especially when you'll be idle, then using the ton of gold you accumulate to level up. Figuring out which game level is most efficient for farming based on your character levels will require some experimenting. When my warrior (and rogue stun/speed) skills were around 30, somewhere around level 11 seemed like the sweet spot.
Not sure why I can't upgrade to the Level 2 Banker. I have 6 blue gems and he costs 5, so I don't know what the deal is.
Aha...I noticed in another forum that this was a bug in the older version. Dear JiG: please consider updating to the current version, which I believe is 2.9 (looks like you've got 2.7 at the moment).
Speaking of upgrades, this reminds me of something I learned the hard way: if expensive microtransactions aren't your thing, consider the browser rather than mobile versions.
Familiar: browser=5 gems, mobile=$.99 (or free with $.99 paid version)
Level 1 banker: browser=5 gems, mobile=50 gems (!)
Inn: browser=5 gems, mobile=35 gems (!)
The inn strikes me as a waste of gems either way, but you really do want the banker. Unfortunately, getting him is impractical in the mobile version without spending $6, and the upgrade costs are even higher.
Note that you can get 2 gems in the browser version just by clicking the "DOJO" icon.
Oh, also: for minimum lag, the dev recommends playing in Chrome. :)
abfdrumz,
Regarding the 2 gems for clicking the DOJO icon, I'm not getting that either. I expected it to open up another tab taking me to the DOJO website, but it doesn't do anything when I click it. I'm playing in chrome.
mark: Hmm, weird. I can confirm that the DOJO +2 doesn't work for me either in Chrome on JiG, but does in Chrome on another site, so it looks like this may be another bug in the older version.
Dora, you're absolutely right. This is a CUTE game. The art style, sound effects, and overall presentation are delightful.
Unfortunately, it's... linear. Playing through level 40, there is no indication that there will be fun off-shoots that reward higher achievement by showing us more of the strange, strange world of the game. Instead, it's a straight-up race to get high enough damage and healing to survive the boss encounters. Putting my completionist OCD aside, it's frankly tedious.
I miss the freaky options that open up in the best click-toys. With this art style, that level of weirdness would be an unstoppable force destroying productivity worldwide. I can only hope that Varagtp will use this as a proof-of-concept and dial up the oddness to 11 in Tap Heroes 2.0.
Yeah, I pretty much agree. I might stick it out through level 100, where supposedly you get an auto-progression upgrade, but I'm sure I'll call it quits looooong before that level 300 achievement.
Made it to level 100, killed the dragon, will see how far auto-forward gets me and then probably move on. A tip on budgeting for the dragon:
Your warrior's health level needs to be over 100 (I'd recommend 103), or a single hit from the dragon can and will kill you. All of your other levels can be much lower (mine were all around 75).
tap 250,000 times
No.
Okay, so famous last words. I decided to stick with the game a bit longer, and here are a couple final tips.
Once you've killed the first dragon and want to start planning for the later bosses, consider leveling your rogue speed up to the max of 145 ASAP. This fires an arrow every .25 seconds, which is enough to keep even the bosses totally stunned for the rest of the battle*, allowing you to finish them off at your leisure. (I believe you'll need a halfway decent rogue stun level as well, but that maxes out at 100, so you'll probably have it by that point anyway.)
*This assumes you survive the first few seconds. For help with that, make sure you cast your Healing Light power immediately.
Nice game but too many "tap" for me :).
Some crapy graphics and poor animation :( You should make an article bout Heroes of Utopia - it's much better and worth notice
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