Mushroom War: Bizarrely addictive moving unit tower defense game… defend your kingdom from the evil infected mushrooms!
We reviewed Protection Force a few weeks back and found that it was quite unpolished. Perhaps some people feel that the score we gave it was harsh or unjust, but for those who didn’t believe us then we’ve found a similar and better game: Mushroom War.
Gameplay: This is a tower defense variant where your soldiers act as mobile towers and protect the base by attacking the enemy. The aim is very simple, you need to make enough units at the right time to destroy the enemy base. It’s very similar to Protection Force and better… but it’s also a game where you need to learn to beat shockwave attacks.
You start this Freemium game with the basic hand to hand fighting Fist mushroom and you have to buy your other units with diamonds when they become unlocked. These other soldiers include the Archers, Shield, Ninja, Wizard, Cavalry, Mercenary, Crossbow and Big Shield Mushrooms. So there’s a fair amount of unlockable content which becomes available as you reach certain rounds. In fact, the large number of locked characters is why the game can be very addictive. (In case you didn’t notice what I wrote above, you have to unlock the character, and then you need to buy it.)
Other specialties include: a rolling bomb which can explode a group of enemies, and there are upgradable buildings which will increase the rate of unit production/capacity/cooldown (but these seem fairly useless).
Magic Mushrooms: It’s quite unfortunate that I keep comparing to Protection Force, but unless you play that game you can’t appreciate how Mushroom War is better. As soon as you pick up the game you’ll see that Mushroom War has cuter overall graphics and its music and sound effects are fab. I can’t say it’s amazing, but it’s definitely a marked improvement on the tinny sound effects in Protection Force. There’s also one crucial game setup difference… the distance between the bases is shorter… so it doesn’t feel like you’re waiting an eternity for your units to hike to the enemy base.
Strategic Mushrooms: The game trains you in dealing with shockwaves of armies… these occur when the enemy units get compressed together (like a traffic jam). They’re particularly dangerous when a blend of hand to hand fighters and ranged fighters get packed together because then the enemy can attack any of your units and kill them before they inflict any damage. Luckily, there are ways you can learn to do the same thing and send shockwaves of units at the computer.
Rating: 3/5 A pretty good game which would be fun for hardcore tower defense players. Unfortunately, it poses a big challenge for new players and can be offputting for them when they don’t know how to beat it. There are still some raw areas in the game which need more game tuning (for instance the upgradable buildings need to bring more bonus… one area where Protection Force seems better!).
Mushroom War Tips from Android Games Review
- Go into the game every day and you can collect 100 diamonds for free! This is very important for upgrading your army.
- The Archer is one of the best units, so buy him as soon as possible. The reason why ranged fighters are good is because they can be untouchable when in a group. (The damage by a group of arrows is enough to destroy enemy units as soon as they appear… thus meaning that the enemy can’t inflict any damage on your ball of archers.)
- Purchasing and upgrading your archers to the maximum should let you beat all the levels in section 1.
- You may find that the computer will send a whole heap of enemies as well as a dog bomb when you’re clumped up at the base and their base is around 50% health. One possible solution to this is to send your rolling bomb to destroy the enemy defense. However, this is very difficult because the bomb needs to roll all the way across to the other base… and you need to have sent it before the enemy response is actually seen. This will just take luck and experience to get the timing right…
- If you’re at the point where you’re losing, and you can’t buy/upgrade your units, but you know you’ll lose against an enemy shock wave, then understand the following: Your shock wave can inflict damage, but you want it to be the last event (i.e. you can’t respond to an enemy shock wave). In order to end with your last push, then you’ll need to reduce the enemy energy slowly prior to your final attack. You do this by playing most of the game in a calm and controlled manner… this unfortunately means you don’t just spam the computer with the same units. You send out something like 2 archers with 3 footmen, and let them clear their way to the enemy base and inflict a little bit of damage. Keep repeating this pattern until you’ve whittled the enemy base energy down till it’s at least below 50% (possibly more sometimes). Then your last wave of destruction should win.
- Otherwise if you keep losing, then keep coming back daily to collect the free diamonds, and play the easy levels to accumulate more diamonds. Then use the diamonds to buy new units and upgrade units. Buying more units is more important than upgrading because it’ll allow you to produce a group of units in an instant.
- With regards to upgrading buildings, the effect of the production and cooldown reduction is pretty minimal and it’s hard to feel the benefits since the upgrades are so expensive. Therefore I would suggest you get the capacity upgrade which is definitely useful when you can produce multiple units in parallel.
Mushroom War QR Code
(Click on the image or scan the barcode with your Android phone to goto the Android Market)
Developers: WestRiver
