AlienHive
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The Alien Hive team shares tips and concepts from the game's development
Alien Hive arrived on the App Store a little while ago, and I wrote it up as a Daily App a little bit after that. Since then, however, it's stuck in my brain, and I find myself coming back to it again and again. The developer is based overseas and named Appxplore -- they're also the team behind two games called Sporos and Lightopus, great-looking puzzle games with plenty of polish. But neither of those titles has caught my fancy the way Alien Hive has -- there's something about the game's relatively slow, thoughtful mix of match-three, tile-based gameplay that has me interested, and constantly trying to make more and better moves to keep from running out of energy before a new high score. After I asked the team about the game's development, they kindly sent us some exclusive concept art to share with you. As you can see above, the game's various alien tiles have changed quite a bit as development went along -- each stage from left to right above is how the tiles level up as you match them. The bottom row above is the art they finally used in the game, and while I don't know if it's completely perfect (the second stage of evolution looks more to me like a lightbulb than a hatching embryo), you can see how it does accomplish the balance of making this look like the same growing creature, while also keeping each tile separately identifiable. The robot art here is very interesting as well. Robots in this game are kind of like Triple Town's bears, in that they block your gameplay and reduce your options until you can match them off of the board. These robots aren't evolved -- they're basically just different takes on the model, and you can tell that the last, final version of the bots (the biggest one in the picture above), is a bit cuter and more identifable than some of their other options. Personally, I like the bots in the bottom far left, though those might be harder to see on the game's busy screen. Finally, Appxplore shared some tips with me about their various strategies behind playing the game. The core concept of the title is to match items on the board using as few moves as possible, and you learn there are ways to do that as you play through the game. But the biggest key is to slide the whole board around rather than just moving a few tiles. If there's a match you can make across the board in just one move, it's much better to choose that than trying to manipulate a match closer to the open space that requires more moves. I've also found, in general, that matching the lower-ranked items first is usually a good technique -- it allows you to create more of the higher-level items, which you can then match and clear off of the board for good. Power-ups are obviously important too -- you can use the "Blaster" power-up to clear one item off of the board, and you should always use that one when you can create a match, not just to clear an annoying bot out of the way. The game's "Magic Fruit" powerup will match any two items instead of three, so you should always use that one when you're sure a match of two will lead you to an even higher-quality match of three, says Appxplore. Alien Hive's a great game -- I'm still not a big fan of the boost system that they've implemented, and I still haven't unlocked many of the game's higher creatures, which means I'm pretty convinced by now that it's impossible to do so without spending money on the game's in-app purchases. But other than that small wrinkle, I'm enjoying pushing these tiles around, trying to find patterns in Appxplore's great little character art. Alien Hive is free on the App Store for download right now.
Daily iPhone App: Alien Hive might help evolve your brain
I am not sure whether I like Alien Hive or not, and I'll explain why in just a second. But last week at GDC, whenever I had a free moment to play games on my iPhone, I found myself pulling out Alien Hive and playing yet again. So I think that's more than enough reason to recommend it to you here. The game was described to me as a match-3, and I guess it kind of is, in only that you need to match three items of a certain type to earn points. But in practice, it's much more like Triple Town than Bejeweled. This is a slower-paced, thinking man's game, where you need to make your moves more carefully. You get a board with various tiles on it and one empty space, and you can slide tiles horizontally or vertically, trying to make a match to evolve your tiles up into the next type. Tiles fall into the categories of plants or aliens, and matching up plant tiles earns you more moves, which allows you to keep your gaming going along. I'm not sure I like Alien Hive yet because apparently I'm not very good at it. The aliens on the board start out as little eggs, and matching them together evolves them up into more and more complex creatures, with you eventually unlocking a full hatchery of different alien types. But despite all of my playtime, I haven't unlocked a single higher-level alien. I do feel like I'm progressing in terms of finding matches and lining them up, but apparently I haven't even really started up the game's progression curve. Part of the problem is probably that the game involves "boosts," where you can spend a certain amount of earned currency to give you items or abilities that help you move things along. But I hate boosts as a player, so I really haven't spent any money on them, and that could be what's holding me back. At any rate, despite my issues with boosts as a mechanic and despite my inability to actually evolve any aliens, I'm enjoying Alien Hive -- I like that the game requires some thought despite the relatively simple mechanics. Hopefully sooner or later here I'll figure out the trick to evolving my aliens (and hopefully it won't just be to spend more money on boosts). If you want to join me, Alien Hive is available for free.
