Tactical Monsters: Rumble Arena is an ideal game for mobile platforms, so it makes sense that this turn-based tactical game is jumping from Steam and Android to iOS on January 25.
From Camex Games (the studio behind Heroes Tactics), Tactical Monsters is all about collecting units, building a team, and then throwing them into battle on a hex-based map against other critters and warriors. It works both as a bit of light fun and a tactical challenge, building the strongest team with the limited resources you have (gold and gems), choosing which units to upgrade, and taking on the AI and other players (either in player-vs.-player battles or in clan-based activities). It’s free-to-play, and between Steam and Android, it has over 1 million installs since November.
Tactical Monsters offers two sorts of currency: gold (basic) and gems (premium). You buy units as cards, and the costs vary, starting for just a gold or two for basic units like an archer or an orc warrior. After cruising through the first few battles — with my starting gold, I bought a griffin and a vampire, which helped me streamroll my first foes — I found myself first losing units and then sweating out battles. The grid-based combat reminds me of King’s Bounty, without having a main hero character to cast spells, of course.
It also gives you a number of rewards, borrowing from the standard free-to-play models (registering your account, sharing on social media, and hitting in-game milestones, for starters).
Correction, 4:23 p.m. We called Camex Games “Carmex Games” in the second paragraph. We have fixed the error.