SolsticeArena
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Daily iPhone App: Solstice Arena is Zynga's shot at multiplayer online battle arenas
I first got to see Solstice Arena, Zynga's latest iOS entry, at GDC earlier this year, and then had a short meeting again last week with the publisher at E3. But you no longer have to take my word on what it's like: The game arrived on iOS worldwide last week, so you can grab the free-to-download title at your leisure. And I recommend you do. Zynga has a reputation for pushy freemium elements in goofy casual titles, but I can confirm this game has none of that. This is a true mobile MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) title, similar to League of Legends, but very iOS-centric in its delivery. The game has been simplified in a lot of very smart ways, producing a high-quality title that's very impressive. In my own play, I've found some minor balance issues (the healer character, for example, seems awfully overpowered, especially when teamed up with a burly bruiser), but I am sure those will get evened out as the game gets periodic updates and tweaks. And while yes, this is a freemium title, that part is also done very intelligently. The freemium elements are mostly confined to customization and convenience. Just like League of Legends, the game opens up a number of free heroes to play every week, so there's ongoing variety even if you never spend a dime. And if you do, real money can only buy you custom skins for the heroes you own, or can pay for boosts in your own XP, so spending money doesn't affect the gameplay at all. Prices are a bit high (which is something else I expect will likely be tweaked in a future update), but all in all, the freemium elements almost never get in the way of the gameplay, which is very respectable on Zynga's part. In short, Solstice Arena is exactly the kind of game Zynga needs to help cleanse its reputation as a money-grabbing casual publisher. I would hesitate to call it truly hardcore (I think the game needs about double the heroes and maybe another map or mode to really start comparing its depth to a standard PC MOBA), but it's definitely a "mid-core" experience that delivers a lot of fun. If you're a MOBA fan or just want to see what Zynga is doing right lately, give it a download and a try on iPhone or iPad.
E3 2013: Hands-on with Zynga's Solstice Arena MOBA
I wasn't sure what to expect from Solstice Arena when I walked into Zynga/A Bit Lucky's meeting room. I'd heard about the whole "speed MOBA" thing, but I love playing as Nasus in League of Legends, so having no mobs was a bit conflicting. The game's also only being released on the iPhone and iPad, and I use an Android smartphone and a tablet running on Windows 8. But I wasn't worried. Fredrick Descamps and Jordan Maynard, co-founders (and former Trion members) of A Bit Lucky , were on hand to share their vision, but truthfully, the hands-on time won me over.
Zynga announces Solstice Arena, a social MOBA coming to mobile
Back at GDC earlier this year, I was invited to what I was told was a very limited meeting with Zynga. The company, which of course made its name with social Facebook games and recently has been trying to pivot to mobile platforms like the iPhone and the iPad. Most of Zynga's games tend towards the casual (simply because Farmville is the company's biggest hit, and that's where their success lies). But at GDC, they wanted to show me something different. It was a "midcore" game, they said -- a game that had the complexity of a hardcore title, but was accessible enough for iOS' large audience to enjoy and rally around. The game was being put together by a developer named A Bit Lucky, which had already built out a few social titles already, and it was going to be a "multiplayer online battle arena" title -- a MOBA game, very similar to the extremely popular League of Legends. The game they showed me was Solstice Arena, which has just been officially announced by Zynga. Now, the MOBA genre is a tough one to pull off on mobile -- it's traditionally a very PC-centric genre, originally based on real-time strategy, with lots of mouse-specific controls and keys to press. But the MOBA genre has been attempted on iOS before, so it's definitely not impossible to pull off. Zynga's real innovation on Solstice Arena is going to be the game's format: Instead of the traditional five players vs. five players, the team has boiled the game down into 3v3, all fighting on what's essentially one lane. There are still towers to take down and various heroes to fight with, but having just three people on a side means the game is more concentrated, and individual players can make more of a difference. The other big change from traditional MOBA is that Solstice Arena's main mode is timed, so matches are less about the long, dragged out battles than they are about quicker skirmishes. This fits the mobile platform as well: quicker matches are more doable on portable platforms, obviously. While it is a much more complicated game than a lot of Zynga's other offerings, Solstice Arena still makes use of social and freemium elements for sure. In addition to online matchmaking (for both skill and team setup, promises A Bit Lucky), there will be social hooks in the game, and the title will have a metagame in the form of items that can be leveled up outside of matches. There will be an in-app currency, and it'll be used to purchase heroes, buy boosts, and other outside of game elements. Obviously, the developers don't want the game to simply be pay-to-win, but this is Zynga we're talking about. While not everything is figured out just yet, it's not a stretch to predict there will definitely be no shortage of places in the app to spend real money if that's what you choose to do. Still, even in this early stage, Solstice Arena looks like fun. Lots of the abilities are fairly simple -- they're designed to work on a touchscreen, so many of them target an area or a direction rather than a specific target. But there is a nice mix of hero classes, from casters to support, fighters, and assassins. And there are some fun mechanics being developed as well -- acing the other team by killing all of your opponents at the same time is called a "Power Play" and gives your team a temporary boost in power. There are also plenty of items to pick up around the game's field, which confer various individual or team bonuses as they go. Solstice Arena is due out for mobile platforms soon -- Zynga will run a beta first, probably in a market like Canada or New Zealand, and then bring the game out to more App Stores worldwide after that. A Bit Lucky also tells us that soon after that they're hoping to have the game running on both Mac and PC as well, depending of course on the game's reception and what kind of audience the title eventually finds. Solstice Arena is a fairly gutsy move for Zynga -- it's definitely more complicated than what most people expect from the company, and given the success of League of Legends and Dota, Zynga's going after a very specific audience that might not have played their titles before. We'll keep an eye on Solstice Arena as development moves along, and let you know when it's finally available to try for yourself.
