With the release of World of Tanks Blitz on Android, it has enjoyed a lot of success and praise since its initial release in 2013. Given the recent news about being able to play from an iOS device to an Android device, we thought it would be worth you know what puts this game ahead of others.
We’re taking a look at how the creative team took the raw elements that made World of Tanks such a hit and used them to make an exciting new game for mobile & tablet.
Designing controls was the most difficult aspect of the game. They are always hard to design with mobile action games, and especially for real time. The fact that tanks are slow vehicles helped a lot!
They try to slow down the game to make it easy to control a vehicle on a touchscreen device. A player’s precision isn’t as much of an issue, but they are still reliant on quick reaction times.
There are many ways a game can be popular. However, one of the most common strategies is understanding battle tactics, so you know your map as well as enemy vehicles’ weak points; coordinating with your team; and using your weapons to take advantage of enemy defenses.
The smart-zoom system automatically selects the right zoom depending on the distance to an enemy tank. Touch select would be difficult.
Controls are designed around one-to-one mapping, so it’s easy to change HUD layout or switch between right and left hands. Auxiliary moves can be disabled if you’re a more experienced player.
At the same time, they wanted the controls system to be as beginner-friendly as possible.
This game offers short battles and tiny maps modified to suit the needs of mobile players: 4x smaller maps, 7×7 battles up to 7 mins each (usually 3-5 mins).
Developers have made some changes to make the game friendlier to players new and old, including:
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Support for quick, single-tap registration
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To ease the process of ‘filling up’ our game, focus on battle and garage tutorials.
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Players in Blitz get x2 experience up to 3 times per day.
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There is only one drive crew in-game that drives all vehicles. They never need to be retrained or switch between different tanks.
The graphical version of World of Tanks Blitz, is still very similar to the PC version, but there are some major differences when it comes to the specific details and data it tracks.
Those who have experience with World of Tanks PC should find Blitz much easier to learn than complete newcomers. Not only that, but they will notice all the changes they’ve made.
As opposed to PC battles, in World of Tanks Blitz we have a 2x increase in the number of tanks per map square. The battles have generally become more dynamic – there’s less time during the outset of play, quick first contact, 3-4 minutes of fighting (with periods where not much happens in between).
They slowed down tanks a bit so they can be more comfortably controlled with your fingers. This is why battles in Blitz tend to end in a slugging match between two big metal monsters and there are no fast vehicles.
