Sensei Wars by 2K is a freemium strategy game in the style of Clash of the Clans, Samurai Siege and countless others and is available for free on iOS and Android. Sensei Wars is an interesting development in the freemium strategy genre and introduces some features that could make this little game a big winner.
Give me all the gems!
Sensei Wars revolves around building, defending, and launching attacks from your base in the hopes to create the biggest base possible. In Sensei Wars you are limited by two factors; labor and time. You begin the game with only two workers, which means you can only work on two projects simultaneously. On top of limited labor, the time required to complete and upgrade buildings increases exponentially, making it difficult to build your city quickly. I soon found some buildings that needed twenty-four hours to complete. In order to alleviate these restrictions you need to dip into your bank account and buy some gems. With gems you are able to speed up the construction of buildings, or even buy more workers which can be converted into gold or food with ease. This is by no means a unique business model. In fact countless other games of the same genre are also using it. However, judging by the $2.4-million-per-day profit of Clash of the Clans it is a business model with a lot of promise.
A new chapter or just the same old story?
A new direction
In order to stand out from the crowd, 2K has introduced a new and interesting element to Sensei Wars, a main character. Unlike in Clash of the Clans where the chief remains an unseen entity, Sensei War’s Sensei is constantly visible. He is introduced at the beginning of the game as a child who watches his village destroyed and later returns as an adult to rebuild said city. A simple and somewhat cliched story, but nonetheless effective in helping players relate with the character.
Sensei had a tough childhood.
Your Sensei also goes into battle with his troops. The combat system works almost exactly like Clash of the Clans in that you drop troops on the ground and they attack the nearest thing. Calling these battles ‘strategy’ is somewhat misleading as the battles tend to boil down to who has the best troops and the largest numbers rather than any discernable strategy. Unlike Clash of the Clans your Sensei will join the fight and he kicks ass! Sensei can learn skills such as healing magic, firework throwing, or enemy confusing magic, all of which when applied correctly can turn the course of a battle.
However the most interesting element added to this game is the RPG mechanic found at the heart of upgrading Sensei. Every building you complete has an effect on Sensei, whether it is raising one of his stats or simply giving him experience, and over time he will level up. Leveling up gives you access to 3 separate skill trees; Tiger for assault, Crane for support and Tortoise for defense. Each of these skill trees gives access to a host of abilities for Sensei to use in battle. Coupling classic RPG elements with city building mechanics is a very smart move by 2K who have combined two of the most addictive genres into one game.
The combat skill tree is actually pretty exciting!
The Bigger Picture
Sensei Wars is part of a movement I recently wrote about in which western developers are seeking to get their products into China. In their attempt to do this 2K have cleverly combined the success of Clash of the Clans and MMORPG development with Chinese culture and tradition. This creates a product that is specifically tailored to a Chinese market. A quick Baidu search of Sensei Wars links to multiple articles and several download links. The app is certainly beginning to get some attention in China though it is too early to gauge its success.
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