FTUE: Batman: Arkham Underworld

Hello and welcome to Pocket Gamer Network YouTube channel. I'm John Jordan. And this is our first time user experience playlist. And as you can see we're firing up Batman Arkham Underworld. What's the first thing we see? We see the game wants to send us push notifications. What's our reaction to that? We are not happy. So um as I regularly say um this I'm playing on iOS. This iOS push notifications prompt can only be sent once. So I can't say um yeah, not interested now, I'll think about it later. I can perhaps go into the settings in the game and and set push notifications, but I don't believe anyone does that. So push notifications are quite important. They get allows developers to re-engage um with their players when they're not playing the game and say cool stuff's going on, come back to the game. So pretty important for retention. You can only show this prompt once. So if I say don't allow, the game developer cannot show me this prompt again. So what we're seeing is is smart game developers aren't showing this prompt

until they they first show you like an in-game prompt, which is their own prompt, which can say maybe won't even mention push notifications. It'll say would you like the game to send you cool messages. And normally that will have a not right now or yes. And if they say yes, then it sends you to this. You can go okay and they've got you. Um but if you have said for whatever reason um I don't want I don't want um messaging at the moment, they can fire it up again later on maybe when you've got further in the game and give themselves a higher chance of getting you to sign up for push notifications. So um just a a simple thing but an important thing and just it's really odd that developers do this straight away. The first thing you've not even played the game yet and already it's asking me this this kind of abstract thing. So here we are. Um obviously this is in the DC world. We've had a lot of very popular Marvel games and now DC's kind of getting back. We've got Suicide Squad movie out so it kind of link into that. As we'll see this is all about villains. While your thugs break Riddler

We could argue I guess whether whether um Catwoman is a goodie or baddie, I suppose. Right, so Riddler's while we're talking um Actually, it's time for my brilliant escape. Help the Riddler escape. Okay, so T- Keep tapping. Let's make some noise. So bit of a squad-based thing, not much there is super super heroes or villains, just people with guns. Okay, so Riddler's out. Some tutorials go pretty pretty simple. So we can see we've already got um some currency stuff going on there that I've won. Obviously, that's what we want to like to see in these um RPG type things which is tends to be what a lot of mobile games free to play mobile games are at the moment cuz it's the easiest way to

um kind of build the meta game. Um so getting all this kind of cod newspaper stuff gives us the back you know not really back story but make us feel like we're in the world of Gotham. So Catwoman Riddler's getting settled in the control So she's obviously the kind of like the character who's taking us through the early stages of the game. Riddler's at the computer. Catwoman has a problem. Um mob boss, okay, so good um Hire some stuff. So black market is obviously where we're going to get our guys. So we've got a sentry These four guys we had before in the previous mission. Obviously, they're just there for the previous mission. We haven't kept them. We speed things up with diamonds. So this is the whole This is the hard currency. Obviously, we've seen this in pretty much every free to play mobile game. We can wait for stuff or we can be encouraged to spend real money by diamonds. So, we got base building thing here which is kind of interesting um in terms of strategy. I mean it's sort of

seen this which is kind of the stuff like Clash of Clans and such like, but now we've got um kind of units doing it rather than kind of sentry guns and such like. So, it looks like there'll be a building element in terms of protecting our base at least and then a battling element going out and grabbing other people. So, different type of strategy I suppose I mean in between strategy and RPG cuz the in strategy game you don't really care about the units so much. Obviously these this has singular units. So, um Catwoman's Catwoman's scouting it. I would say she's scouting it but it'll show us what's there. Hopefully this is the Riddler and the girls four guys actually are coming back. Hm. Where is the safe? Attack. So, what do I do here?

Okay. So, this is a bit a little bit odd for mobile game. It's kind of kind of has a bit of a PC thing, isn't it? Like a waypoint. So, I think I rather press on that. Maybe it does it automatically. Okay. Bring the boys. Tap on a room to send a thug there. So, in they go. Bring the Riddler. So, do I tap on him or does he just come through? He goes automatically. Okay. Okay, so we're just moving these kind of waypoints in. What's the control system? Yeah, it looks like it's being terribly mellow. Really this is standard here, okay. So, get a shot. So, he's going to zap the safe.

He's going to tap on that and tap out. So, we've got the stuff, got the loot. The graphically we can see as well not um Yeah. I call it kind of PC type graphics really. So, it could be a kind of blocky and and square. The developers Turbines or Turbines best known for is PC MMO Gs. So, it's not done a lot of mobile stuff before, so maybe that's not surprising that it looks a bit PC what I call PC like. Um so, we've built a vault. Not sure what to call our new gang. Okay. Done. Keep growing. So, the map is where we're going to find stuff. Okay, so we can just start to see how the the game is mapping out all the locations are in town new mission from the town. So, that look like we've done the tutorial. Looks like we've filled pretty

swift there. UI actually looks quite nice, so it's not um too much it's not like a Japanese RPG with stuff flashing everywhere. So, we've got obviously our hideout that we can go into. And there's our guard and so we can next thing we can do need to upgrade our control room. So, logical upgrade. Need to be a Let Okay, so we need to do other stuff first. So, we can see when we're going into the control room we've got a bit into the into our map area we've got a bit more kind of UI stuff comes on. When we're out um it's a bit cleaner. Um This is everything we can see. So, we've got kind of these currencies. So, obviously the typical typical hard currency. Um so, obviously the next thing to look at is you can see um we're getting diamonds, but they're all they're all bundle bundles. So, we get a carpenter. So, that'll be the person that effectively the builder who helps us build stuff in our base.

Probably as we can see here um get set So, they have for this one we get um Uh we get a super villain and a second builder. Obviously, much more expensive. And the diamonds we get Killer Croc and a carpenter. Um here this one for the the most the maximum we get all that extra money extra two suits two super villains. So, we're getting there. I don't know. And then we I can actually just buy some diamonds on their own. But Um and then we can just kind of see I suppose how the the kind of heroes or character stuff is going to link in. Um so, we can come out of there. So, let me just do this one more mission cuz that's gone through pretty quickly. Here's the job. So, I'm going to send the Riddler first. So, there's a boss kind of guy there. So,

Oh, I have to tap on that to start. So, that was helpful. Okay. So, that one was right for once. I'm a perfect match for these maps. So, tap him in and he goes in first. Oh, cuz I can't even select the other guys yet. Okay. Now, I can select my thugs. So, we're still in the tutorial. So, those guys are going in. You just super villain to draw away with the fire from your thugs. Oh. Shall I take this? We'll show them. The Riddler just kind of like Okay. So, we Okay, that was quick. We didn't have a chance to do any tactics. So, maybe let's quickly go in here and have a still and buy a TV. You can't get one that fell off. Hey, make the place look nice. So let's go to the black market. Got arcade machine. Um spend some money. Rotate it. Why do we want to do that? Okay. Taking time to do typical moment cuz

it's early in the game we do that do that for free. You can upgrade the TV. That's not a good thing. That's not very good. UX uh game experience. Say we don't crash that video control room. Okay. Can I upgrade my car is that just there for aesthetic reasons? What else can I do in here then? Um So it's on the black market and arcade machine. We've got any No. Okay, so we only different things here. So a vending machine, how much dollars have I got? Okay, produces cash. Hacker produces cash. Hm. Okay. I'll buy both of them again I presume. Speed that one up. And go back in and

buy the vending machine. I presume I don't want Can I have that somewhere else? No, that has to be in the control room I would have thought. Okay. Produces for free. So that will increase my cash. Let's go and have a look and see. So um I can claim a reward. So this is kind of the achievement list just done in a different way with the newspaper stuff. This is the um Hm. I guess from the developer. And this is looks like um a bit of the bits of the game if you want to re-look at them. Okay. So, and this is I suppose Okay, leaderboards and Okay, so it looks like at the moment, I mean it may as I level up other stuff might unlock I guess there's things like PvP and guilds, big part of games now it

seems to be having anything in there. At the moment it seems quite light feature-wise. Um but in terms of like getting you through the game, it doesn't look like terribly complicated whether it's um quite what how it um measures up to I guess other other more honed um mobile strategy games. I would say this one is as I say not not particularly mobile-friendly. I mean it doesn't look particularly nice obviously you can zoom in and such like, but um they're not the same flow as the kind of Clash of Clans, Boom Beach um equivalent or even the kind of RPGs. Um which there are many many many in the App Store at the moment, but um I guess with the with the license it'd be interesting to see um how that works and um I guess equally with how much um kind of marketing is pushed towards it. I guess that's really the thing with these big license games is as part of the the kind of ongoing movie

um franchises that um DC have and all and just DC's general marketing. You know, it's a a big kind of comic book empire. So, they can push people towards that and many different ways. So, it's certainly not the launch weekend kind of scenario um for them they could they could do some other things, but uh yeah, um it it is what it is. Um nothing too surprising really um from our initial kind of uh 10 minutes with the game. I'll play it some more, see see how we get on with it and see if there's any uh any more interesting stuff um appears. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. So, we do a lot of this analysis of um mobile games, free-to-play mobile games. Um if that's your thing, um subscribe. You won't miss anything. Thanks for watching and hope to see you again.