Introduction
1.0 Game Description
The game I will be analyzing is called Brawl Stars. Brawl Stars focuses on a series of mini- games consisting of 5 main game modes which are called "events", Bounty, Brawl Ball, Heist, Showdown and Smash & Grab that are set in a variety of different maps. The player chooses a character that will best be used for the specified game mode. Each game has either 2 teams of a total of 6 players or a 1 vs 1 with a total of 10 players. The main goal is work along your team members to achieve the goal of a certain game mode before time runs out. The long term goal, outside the events, is to collect coins from successfully winning these events. These coins can later be used to open up chests with new brawlers that can benefit the player in certain game modes.
To better understand the game we must develop a general understanding of the 5 events the overall game consists of.
2.0 Game Events
2.1 Bounty
Team Mechanics: 3 vs 3
Objective of the game is to collect the most "bounty-stars" (refer to game resources) as a team before the 3 minute timer runs out.
Bounty-stars are collected by eliminating players throughout the game, once a player is eliminated, they have a 5 second cool down before they re-spawn with a 2 star bounty on them. As the game progresses and the more players you kill the higher your bounty becomes. If you are killed with a high bounty you lose all your stars to the other team.
Winning condition
2.2 Heist
Team Mechanics: 3 vs 3
The objective of the game depends on which team you are on, you will either be defending the safe or attempting to destroy it before the 3 minute timer runs out.
2.3 Smash & Grab
Team Mechanics: 3 vs 3 (6 players)
The objective of the game is for your team to collect 10 crystals (refer to game resources), once your team has 10 crystals you receive a 15 second countdown to hold on to those crystals before the other team either steals those crystals.
Crystals are spawned in the middle of the map in 5 second increments. Once a player is killed they drop all the crystals they have accumulated that can be collected by any team.
2.4 Showdown
Team Mechanics: 1 vs 1 (10 players)
The objective in this game mode is to eliminate the remaining 9 players and be the last brawler standing.
Throughout the game you can collect crates (refer to game resources) that have either been dropped by players upon death or by destroying them around the map. Each crate adds an extra 100 health points to your current player's health.
2.5 Brawl Ball
Team Mechanics: 3 vs 3
The objective is to get the ball (refer to game resources) that spawns in the middle of the map and shoot it into the opposing team's net to collect a point. The team that scores 2 points first wins the game. If the game is tied, an extra minute is added to the game for overtime.
While you are not in control of the ball you have the ability to eliminate other players.
3.0 Resources
3.1 Bounty-Stars — Are collected within the Bounty Event. These stars are spawned in the middle of the map for players to collect throughout the game. Upon elimination of a player, the stars previously collected by that player, are not dropped, but rather transferred automatically to the opposing team.
3.2 Crystals — Are collected within the Smash & Grab Event. These crystals are spawned in the middle of the map for players to collect throughout the game. Upon elimination of a player, the crystals previously collected by that player are all dropped back on the map at the place of death. These Crystals are not available to be picked up by anyone on either team.
3.3 Crates — Are specific to the event Showdown. Once the crate is picked up by the player they receive an extra 100HP boost on their player. These crates are spawned all over the map and require the player to destroy them to pick them up. Each crate has a health of 1000 points and needs to be destroyed prior to being picked up by the player. Creates can also be picked up after eliminating a player, all the crates that player holds are dropped as loot for the next player to pickup.
3.4 Ball — The ball is specific to the Brawl Ball event where it is used in order to score into the opposing teams net. The ball is spawned in the middle of the map. Once a player comes close to the ball it is now in the possession of that player. The ball will remain in the possession of that player until they are eliminated. Once the player is eliminated the ball is once again up for grabs by anyone near the ball.
Core Game Mechanics
4.0 Game Characters
The game consists of 16 different brawlers with different attack and super attack mechanics (refer to each character below). It now becomes the players strategy to decide which player is best used for which event. Pairing different characters together becomes beneficial for some Events. These dynamics form the experience of the game allowing players to work together to achieve the objective of each event.
Each character is differentiated by a series of different player mechanics. Below are descriptions for each character.
Movement Speed — The movement speed of the character within the environment.
Reload Speed — The speed it takes for a weapon to be reloaded and able to be used again.
Health — The amount of health a player is given when spawned.
Attack Damage — The amount of damage the players attack can do on a character's health.
Super Damage — The amount of damage the players super attack can do on a character's health.
4.1 Crow
Movement Speed: 750
Reload Speed: 1.5 seconds
Health: 600
Attack Damage: 80
Super Damage: 80
Attack Mechanic:
Crow's attack consists of throwing three daggers at players which cause attack damage as well as release poison which prevents them from regenerating their health.
Super Mechanic:
Crow's super attack allows crow to jump across the map to your desired location. Before the jump crow releases a series of daggers in a circular pattern and once again when he lands at his new location.
4.2 Mortis
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 2.5 seconds
Health: 700
Attack Damage: 160
Super Damage: 200
Attack Mechanic
Mortis slides forward with his spade in a quick motion to slash the enemy. However, if he does not have enough space in front of him to slide forward the attack cannot be completed.
Super Mechanic
Mortis' super attack consists of releasing bats in a single direction that will attack an enemy. The amount of damage that is done to the enemy, will be equal to the amount Mortis' health is regenerated.
4.3 Spike
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 2.2 seconds
Health: 600
Attack Damage: 120
Super Damage: 100
Attack Mechanic:
Spike's attack is the action of throwing a cactus that explodes on impact throwing spikes in a circular direction attacking enemies around the explosion.
Super Mechanic:
Spike is able to grow a patch of cactus on command where players can be damaged and drastically slowed down making it hard to escape.
4.4 Tara
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 2sec
Health: 800
Attack Damage: 100
Super Damage: 140
Attack Mechanic:
Tara throws three long-ranged cards that spread out and cause damage to her enemies.
Super Mechanic:
Tara is able to throw a card that creates a blackhole effect pulling in players around it, after a couple of seconds the card explodes causing damage to the nearby players.
4.5 Pam
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 1.6 seconds
Health: 1000
Attack Damage: 40
Super Heal: 80/second
Attack Mechanic:
Pam's attack consists of her shooting out pieces of metal that return back in a boomerang motion. This allows her to be able to hit an enemy twice if not moved in time.
Super Mechanic:
Pam's super is a little different from the other players. Pam's super is able to heal other players using a healing station that she is able to place around the map healing only her allies.
4.6 Colt
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 1.25 seconds
Health: 700
Attack Damage: 80
Super Damage: 80
Attack Mechanic:
Colt's attack is simple but is effective if your shot is accurate. He shoots a series of bullets into one direction which can go medium-far range.
Super Mechanic:
Colt's super is similar to the attack but shoots far more powerful bullets that can go through walls and get to hiding players.
4.7 Piper
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 3 seconds
Health: 600
Attack Damage: 130–420
Super Damage: 200
Attack Mechanic:
Piper's attack sends a single bullet flying towards the enemy without a limit. The longer the bullet flies the more damage it will do to the enemy.
Super Mechanic:
Piper's super attack allows her to jump anywhere on the map while leaving a trail of grenades from where she has jumped.
4.8 Shelly
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 1.5 seconds
Health: 800
Attack Damage: 80
Super Damage: 80
Attack Mechanic:
Shelly fires a shotgun which is ideal in short-medium range attack, with this type of attack she can manage to handle multiple brawlers at once.
Super Mechanic:
Shelly is able to shoot one strong burst of bullets which can penetrate through objects being able to get to enemies behind obstacles.
4.9 Dynamike
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 1.7 seconds
Health: 700
Attack Damage: 180
Super Damage: 500
Attack Mechanic:
Dynamike throws a couple sticks of dynamite which causes an explosion in the area. This is extremely useful when there are obstacles blocking you from the enemy.
Super Mechanic:
Dynamike is able to throw one huge barrel full of explosives which cause an enormous explosion being able to destroy obstacles in the area of the explosion. Being inside this explosion is nearly fatal to most brawlers.
4.10 Bull
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 1.6 seconds
Health: 1200
Attack Damage: 100
Super Damage: 200
Attack Mechanic:
Similar to Shelly, Bull also uses a shotgun which has a very short fire distance. However, Bull is able to cause far more damage, putting him to an advantage with the second highest health out of all the brawlers.
Super Mechanic:
Bulls super consists of him running in a straight direction with nothing stopping him in his path, including obstacles. When an enemy stands in his way he is able to do a large amount of damage on them.
4.11 El Primo
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 0.8 seconds
Health: 1400
Attack Damage: 80
Super Damage: 200
Attack Mechanic:
El Primo throws four quick punches at his enemies, however the enemies have to be close to the brawler, this doesn't scare El Primo with him having the highest health out of all the brawlers in the game.
Super Mechanic:
El Primo's super consists of him doing a body slam on any selected portion of the map creating damage to the obstacles and the players around. With this he is also able to escape to regenerate health if needed.
4.12 Nita
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 1.25 seconds
Health: 800
Attack Damage: 160
Super Damage: 100
Attack Mechanic:
Nita generates a shockwave that does small-medium range damage to enemies around her.
Super Mechanic:
Nita is able to spawn a bear with 1000 health points which does damage of up to 100 health points. The bear follow Nita around, unless there is a nearby enemy, which he redirects his path to attack the enemy.
4.13 Barley
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 2 seconds
Health: 600
Attack Damage: 140
Super Damage: 120
Attack Mechanic:
Similarly to Dynamike, Barley throws bottles of liquid that cause a burning acid on the ground. Any brawlers caught in this area begin to experience damage.
Super Mechanic:
Very similar to Barley's attack, he throws bottles of liquid that cause a burning acid on the ground, however with the super he is able to throw much further and create a larger area causing damage to multiple players at once.
4.14 Ricochet
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 1 second
Health: 700
Attack Damage: 80
Super Damage: 80
Attack Mechanic:
Ricochet can fire series of bullets in a straight direction that can bounce of walls. The path of the bullets, including bounce, is shown to the player prior to shooting. This allows the player to plan their attack when hiding behind obstacles.
Super Mechanic:
Ricochet super is very similar to the attack however the bullets will continue flying and bouncing off obstacles even after they hit a target. Allowing the bullets to cause damage to a group of people hiding behind obstacles.
4.15 Bo
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 1.7 seconds
Health: 800
Attack Damage: 100
Super Damage: 300
Attack Mechanic:
Bo shoots three long-range arrows which explode on impact. These arrows will not only cause damage to the enemy it hits, but also surrounding enemies.
Super Mechanic:
Bo is able to drop three mines which are invisible to the player until they are triggered. Once triggered they flash allowing the enemy under a second to get out of there before they explode. This causes damage all around hurting multiple brawlers at once.
4.16 Poco
Movement Speed: 650
Reload Speed: 2 seconds
Health: 800
Attack Damage: 160
Super Damage: 460
Attack Mechanic:
Poco generates a wave of penetrating musical notes that hurt enemies in a 180 degree radius. This allows Poco to attack a large group of people at once.
Super Mechanic:
Similarly to Poco's attack mechanic he is able to generate a wave which heals his allies, the wave this time can go through obstacles and heal players behind walls.
5.0 Game Components
5.1 Player Environment
There is 4 different aesthetic styles of map that are used interchangeably between all the events. This allows for different strategies. Each style of map has a different layout of obstacles (refer to obstacles) which allows variation between each map. Other then the layout of the obstacles the only difference between the following maps is the aesthetics which provide variation to the user keeping it from becoming too repetitive throughout the gameplay.
Grassy Greens
Crystal Caverns
Backyard Greens
Western Deserts
5.2 Obstacles
Obstacles within the environment consist of walls and crates which are aseptically changed to the type of environment (refer to player environment section) however each obstacle still reacts the same throughout all the maps. Depending on the brawler and the attack used some obstacles can be destroyed by the player. (refer to braw game characters section). The grass acts as a visual obstacle and allows players to hide where the enemies can no longer detect them unless the players are preforming an attack, which will no longer hide the character. Grass just like most other obstacles can be destroyed by some attacks.
Walls
Crates
Grass
5.3 Respawning
When a player is eliminated they respawn back in the ongoing game in 5 seconds. Unless it is a Showdown event (refer to game events) in this case the player is eliminated. Once the player respawns they have another 5 seconds the keeps them invisible to avoid griefing and spawn killing.
5.4 Attack & Super Attack
Throughout the game a player can use their brawler's attack by swiping from their player towards the direction they would like to perform the attack on. Throughout the game as you hit and eliminate players your super attack dial increases until your super attack becomes ready for use. In this case the player can use the super attack once the dial is selected. When a player is eliminated the dial will still remain available for the player to use. Super attacks however cannot be saved up. Once a super attack is available the dial no longer increases until the super attack is used. This creates strategy for the player where they are in a way forced to use the super attack to begin building up the next one.
6.0 Game Art
The game approaches its artistic style with a cartoon style shooter based in the western world.
Brawl Stars is known to have a very colourful approach to the game allowing it to be very pleasing to the eye. It almost has a casino game feel to it where you are attracted by the wide variety of effects that happen during gameplay.
6.1 Cartoon Aesthetic
The games art reminds me of a game like Team Fortress 2, Battlefield Heroes, and Borderlands 2. All these games exhibit an artistic cartoon like feel to them. This is achieved by minimizing the amount of reflections making the game objects very flat and adding a black stroke around each game object. This allows the audience to escape from the real world into a more vibrant environment, and focusing less on the realism. We can also see this in Brawl Stars as it doesn't have any gore elements to the game, allowing it to be more appropriate to wider range of users. It also allows users that tend to be more triggered by blood to focus more of their attention on other elements consisting of, game strategy and game environment. It allows the user to feel some sort of utopian world where no one really gets hurt but still allows the user to experience a destructive world.
6.2 Animation
Most of the UI has a static look to it. However, when the game is trying to bring the user's attention to some certain feature the UI towards that feature is animated. You can see this when waiting to open up a brawl box (add picture). Brawlers are also animated with jumping green arrows that notifies the player that they are able to upgrade a certain brawler.
When viewing a brawler's information you also receive an 3D-animated version of the brawler that allows you to learn about the behaviour of the brawler. In a 2D game this allows the audience to see more in depth insight about the character.
7.0 Game Audio
7.1 Auditory Feedback
Brawl Stars has a wide range of sound effects which are played in order to provide the user with feedback. The audio SFX are used to create "The Loop of Interaction" which allows the audience to understand when certain events are happening. This allows the user to make decisions within their game strategy. When the player hurts a person a sound effect is played allowing the user to feel a sense of satisfaction. We can see this happen when defeating opponents, opening new boxes, collecting coins, using special abilities, etc. The game audio not only helps create a better experience but it also provides a lot of useful information to the player.
7.2 Notification sounds
There are short sounds that play before and after a game that identify when a game begins and ends. Before a game is about to start there is short waiting screen that is active when looking for players. Typically when I play the game I put down my phone until the game starts. Using these sounds allows me to receive extra information about the game without using my visual sense.
8.0 User Experience of the Game
8.1 Balancing Game Mechanics
The game is fairly new and a lot of updates are happening, the game is currently only available for iOS devices causing a lot of demand on the android side. The reason for this is because the developers have been focussing on the efforts to make sure the game is balanced between players as new players are being added to the game. This can become very stressful for players if other players have an advantage over other players. Especially in a game like Brawl Stars which is considered to be a freemium model but has many in game resources that can be purchased to further develop your characters allowing the user to advance in the game at a faster pace. In that sense the developers are doing a great job providing a good user experience for players who are just getting used to this new game.
8.2 Game Controls
As we move away from computer games towards mobile games having to deal with a brand new interface is difficult, especially when there are a lot of game mechanics included within the game. Brawl Stars manages to figure out its game controls fairly simple. It only took me a couple games to really figure out how to move around, dodge player attacks and accurately attack other players. There is also a setting that allows the user to select the type of controls they prefer to play with, either tap to navigate or joystick mode.
8.3 Player Navigation
Both teams begin on opposite sides of the map unless it is the Showdown game mode in which players are spawn all over the map furthest away from each other to avoid griefing and spawn killing. Players navigate across the map by tapping on the exact spot for the brawler to walk to. While the brawler is getting to the point of the map the user requested the user has the ability to attack other players and preform other tasks such as using their super attack mechanic.
8.4 Overall Game Experience
Brawl Stars does a great job immersing the player in this new world they have created while maintaining keep aspects of user experience. The flow of the game is very simple to follow which will be helpful as more content is added to the game. After letting one of my friends to try playing the game it was a matter of minutes before my friend was able to play the game flawlessly, allowing the user to focus more on strategy.
