Everlands

I wish someone had told me about Everlands sooner. It's been on my review list (along with about 30 other games) for a few weeks, and it's a perfect match for the strategy lover in me. But what about you? Let's take a look...

Everlands is a turn based strategy game in which you command a force of good animals in their battle over a group of animals that have turned to the dark side. Fortunately, there are ways to make an animal see the light. Unfortunately, there are also ways to bring evil to the heart of the toughest minded critter. Each animal has a health (the amount of damage it can take) and a strength (the amount of damage dished out when it attacks/defends) and is capable of attacking only a select number of adjacent hex spaces. Each animal also has its own special capabilities such as the leopard. Usually, after placing an animal, defenders attack first, but not so with the speedy leopard. Your goal is to control more than 50% of the board when the game is over.

Everlands includes excellent instructions and a solid tutorial mode to get you playing quickly which is a rarity in Android gaming. The game's graphics consist of a hexagonal grid of tiles (with a layout specific to each scenario) and the audio includes appropriate sounds indicating selection and a nice, relaxing score for the intro music. Controls rely entirely on the touch screen to select an animal tile from those available (shown along the bottom of the screen) and then selecting where to place it. Should you make a mistake nothing is actually done until you press the 'make my move' button in the upper right. Furthermore, the game will give you expert advice as to what to do next if you need it by pressing a star icon at the top of the screen. I tried using the expert advice in a real match and it worked well (and won) so don't use that crutch too often.

The game itself consists of a story mode containing 20 missions which are of moderate difficulty and a two-player match mode. This is really the only shortcoming of this well crafted game... once you're done with story mode you either have to find an opponent to play with in hot seat mode or you're done with the game. Additional scenarios... the ability to play with different maps against different levels of AI... and network play would be welcomed by many I am sure.

Looking for a great strategy game clearly worth its price tag? Look no further. I can only hope Hexage improves my play options to increase the longevity of this cute and entertaining title. 4/5 stars for a game that's over before I say it's over. The video trailer for the game follows...