Tap Tap Heroes begins by educating you on the myriad options for upgrades, level ups, loot and equipment, in a tutorial lasting several minutes. While this is initially frustrating, you’ll quickly discover how madly important it is, as there is a metric ton of information to digest.
The core of the gameplay is using your little heroes to beat people to death, endlessly. The game sets up the initial combat up as if it were a turn-based RPG. Your characters beat on enemy characters in turn, expending mana and whittling down enemies’ health until they’re dead and you get your rewards.
However, you don’t actually control any of that. The majority of the combat is focused around the heroes’ auto combat – it’s almost entirely an idler.[sc name=”quote” text=”However, you don’t actually control any of that. The majority of the combat is focused around the heroes’ auto combat – it’s almost entirely an idler.”]
This sudden realization that you don’t actually manipulate the combat yourself is a bit of a baffling one. You… aren’t actually playing the game? What do you do?
Well, the actual gameplay is mainly focused on setting up your heroes with equipment and skills necessary to beat enemies. They fight through waves when you’re offline, generating you gold and items that allow you to fight even better. This is a different twist on an idler, encouraging you to allow your heroes to develop sufficiently so as to be able to best even stronger enemies.
Tap Tap Heroes is a secret idler that lets you play passively without even realizing.
Progression is tied to allowing your heroes to fight enough enemies to build up your gold and items – by spending enough time fighting monsters, you can gear your heroes sufficiently to be able to take on bosses.
After beating a few levels of monsters, the game will allow you to jump straight into a boss battle and progress – however, it is sometimes better to wait a while and allow your heroes to get stronger. Thus, Tap Tap Heroes does reward you for stepping away from your screen for a while; take a break, get some fresh air, then come back to fight bigger and stronger monsters when you’re ready.
One issue with Tap Tap Heroes is that the UI is cluttered with a myriad of effects, bonuses and items, as well as options to click on or somewhat impact the battlefield. Even with the protracted tutorial at the game start, Tap Tap Heroes feels pretty confusing as to what’s going on while you’re playing, no matter what’s happening.
Tap Tap Heroes may be pretty confusing with its UI, but it does manage to create a visually pleasing experience for an idler. Considering the actual game is mainly spent waiting a while, then enjoying the rewards your heroes have slaughtered for you, there is a huge amount of effort gone into designing a pleasing experience visually.
The colors are focused and brilliant, the effects sparkly and bright, so much so that it can feel a little disorientating to actually look at the screen too long. Perhaps it’s trying to encourage you to stay away long enough to actually earn some gold?[sc name=”quote” text=”Go into Tap Tap Heroes looking for a pretty idler, and you’ll have a good time.”]
Tap Tap Heroes is an interesting experience, and perhaps one that could be said to be an experiment. It is somehow a blend of a traditional turn-based RPG and an idler, with the latter category being the most prominent.
Tap Tap Heroes may leave you feeling like you’re not doing a huge amount, all while trying to figure out what’s going on while playing, but the effort gone into making a visually stunning idler that keeps you coming back deserves to be appreciated.
Go into Tap Tap Heroes looking for a pretty idler, and you’ll have a good time.
[appbox googleplay com.westbund.heros.en]
