FTUE: Clash Royale

Hello and welcome to Pocket Gamer. Busy's YouTube channel. I'm John Jordan and this is our first time user experience playlist. And as it suggests, first time user experience is we play a game for the first time. We load it up um and we kind of give the wheels a good kicking. Um basically playing play the tutorial. But the first time user experience is something the industry uses as a phrase. So we go with that. So, as we can see, we have um a much anticipated game, uh Clash Royale. So, should we tap some buttons, see what Trainer Earl has to tell us. Come on then, trainer Earl, challenger, let's complete some match training. So, why is the first time user experience um important? Obviously, um it's important because it kind of tells you about the stickiness of the game. It introduces the game to you, and basically everyone who plays the game has to go through this experience. So obviously we have a nice little here. We're going to dra drag this man with

the funny mustache, Mr. Knight. He's become a character. Off he goes. So what we can do with the archer. So this is the archer from Clash of Clans. I guess as we know um Clash Royale is based on kind of Clash of Clans to a degree. Some of the characters are the same. It's a kind of a um I guess a kind of a a linked project we can call it. It's not a sequel or anything. Um there we go. My chaps have done their business. There's a cool cannons and Oh, it's not looking good for the archer. Oh, the goblins are coming. Boo. So, presumably my tutorial will tell me I should be doing something here. Um, or will it not? Did I Did I miss that uh construction? It did really, didn't it? So, obviously there we go. Um, I could have been talking to you maybe not been following what's going on. So, I've destroyed one target. I've got these other things. So, let's assume I drag a fireball on. Bahoom. Okay. Knights off, giants off. So, we

can see what's going on here. There's basically a mana drop. Um, so as soon as I the mana builds up over time and then I can drop these kind of guys as as I get the opportunity to kind of use up the mana. So, um, go. I you three crowns. I three crown. Yes, I three crown. Trainer Earl has no clan. I have no clan. I win a wooden chest. Hurrah. So, there we go. Very smooth user interface as we would expect from a Supercell game. Kind of look around. We can see at the top of the screen there's some I've got 100 gold and 100 gems. That's always nice to have, isn't it? Um, training progress. One of seven. Okay, I've got a battle camp. I've tap to unlock a some 15-second thing obviously will help me in terms of timing

car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's elixia, not mana. Okay, should know that this clash is elixir, isn't it? So, what's going to happen here? Show me what you got. Um, so what should we do? Let's put one of them there. It's obviously all about force multipliers, isn't it? So, we've got some guys going in there. Let's put a barbarian in with him. Let's put a fireball in on these guys. Will that work? No, cuz they've moved much in there. Barbarian. Surely no one can destroy my barbarian. Guess the interesting thing at this point is obviously this is a tutorial so it's not not really where we're at but um it's

not necessarily that fast. It's kind of interesting. I' been playing a lot of um Asian RPGs where you have kind of auto modes and such like and um for this kind of game because it's kind of like a carb based mobile. So maybe you don't auto stuff and because it's all about PvP when you get into the game I think. Um but it will be interesting to see um how that kind of stuff plays out. So we've got these tap to unlock them. Open now. That's very odd. So what's going on here? That's very confusing. Unlocking takes a period of time where I can unlock very quickly. Why do I care about that? Okay, interesting. Obviously, presumably, um, as we get further in the game, it's going to take a long time to unlock these things. Oh, musketeer. Okay, so going to go in here, and this is going to be where my cards are, obviously. Very quickly, so I'm leveling up that card. I'm upgrading it, spending

a bit of money. So we see how the currency the monetization is really working in the game info. There we go. It's common. It's a troop. Blah blah. All that kind of stuff. Tells me it does air and ground. Speed, medium, deploy time. Okay, so that's good. Good to know. Um I can't unlock I can't level up anything else yet because um I've not get enough effective XP. Um interesting. So it's kind of this is my battle deck. It's telling me my average elixir cost, which is kind of interesting, I know because average costs are not actually very useful in the real world, but I'm presuming they're putting them there because it is useful for this game. Car battling games. Um, the whole big thing is you have a different level of rarity. Um and um you generally there's randomness when you're unlocking boxes or or just drawing cards and you pay a lot more to have the chance of unlocking epic cards than you do common ones obviously. So we can kind of see as well the kind of flow of the game we're

looking at. So so some of these unlock if you're playing arena one some arena 2. So obviously the the higher level arenas will be the more the more um there we go. Um will be in the in the more difficult to unlock stages. So why have I got that plus that new one? I got the musketeered knife. There we go. She's got delicately cuffured hair, but she's a mean shot with her trusty boomstick. Fair enough. Okay. Um shop unlocks at arena one. I'm not in arena yet. Um, so I've got this one as well. So this is kind of kind of kind of interesting they've made the decision to um to have this cuz in a tutorial maybe you don't need it. It's kind of quite odd. So why am I waiting 15 seconds? I guess it's kind of interesting sometimes for game developers like to call segment users. So if I was someone who was very

um desperate to to open that quickly, I might go I've got 100 gems. So, I'm just using one to unlock it now. So, I'll do that and that might put me into a different segment and they might try and um kind of retail different things to me or or might try and give me a slightly different experience because they think I'm going to kind of retail better or spend more. I'm not saying that's the case in this game, but it's kind of interesting that in this tutorial, which they will have Super spent a lot of time testing, that they have that which doesn't need to be there at this just for this period. So, the the tutorial is more complex than it otherwise would have to be. Um, so we're kind of seeing. So, I'm going to can now level up my arrows. I can level up my knight. Okay, so that's nice. So, let's go in here. Let's level them up. Take a bit of money. Bit interesting. There's no time to do that, you know. So, Super is putting time in a certain place and not in other places. Obviously got nice music. Um, it's always nice to have audio prompts and nice visual prompts to make us feel happy what we're doing. Um, have a look

down here. So, here's a chat thing. the T the TV and here's the clans. So, I can't do that at the moment. I'm not a high enough level. I'm level one and I've got nine point eight points still to go. So, let's do another battle then. So, I do have different cards. I have the musketeer chap um lady in fact. So, these cards are just being draw. I get four at any one time and they're drawn from um my deck. We can see what next one's coming up as. There's some naughty naughty people attacking me there. So I could stick him bear a giant string bar if he's going to go taking him out. Sure. Oh, another one coming. Put the knight in. We can see it's kind of not so not so easy as the first time, is it? Not quite so easy.

The elixir is not coming quite so quickly. Oh, killed them all. Flimy. That's not very good. But I won cuz I won cuz it's a tutorial. I three started. I three cran it. That's a bit odd. I didn't do very well in that one, did I? Oh, so tap to unlock. Use the same old thing. Wait. So, the waiting becomes boring now, doesn't it? But you can't waste your gems. Even one gem, can't waste

them. I'm going to be in the segment as like never spending any high currency. Open. There we go. Not really following what's going on. There we go. I've got some gold. I got a bomber I can upload. I've got a Whoa. Yeah, I got a mini picker. That's cool. So go to my cards. I can I can take that. So yeah. So is that a card? Oh, there he is. He's a certified butterfly free zone. Okay. Any destruction? Oh, he looks quite useful, doesn't he? He's rare. Wonder if that actually means he's actually rare or that means he's just So, in in in in I wouldn't say proper card collecting games, but in more in games that are more forcefully card collecting as in proper card collecting games, um you wouldn't be getting you

wouldn't be getting um rare ones that that quickly. So, this is kind of Supercell is using that kind of rarity value in a very light manner, I would suggest, at this point. Although, you know, there's epic still to go, but it's kind of normally in a lot of games, you'd have like five a kind of five hierarchical structure. So, you'd have like common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary. So, Supercell's kind of compressed that down, which is kind of, I guess, a more western way of doing it. Asian Asian games in card collecting are definitely more hardcore. Um, and I guess the audience is used to those. So, let's do this. Trainer Claus. Let's give him a good beating, shall we? What we got? Oh, let's put put one of our mini packers on. See how we get some Let's give him some musketeers on a bomber.

Oh, last rig, was he? That's defensive one taking them out. But that was that good use of my resources. So So boom. Do I let them make the move? Do I make the move? No one's winning. Okay. So obviously this is the strategy about how you combine units, how you do you defend or attack or

Oh, not looking so good for our guys. Let's wait and get another big gun. So, what can we do? We got a musketeer. We got an archer. We're not going to do both them, are we? Okay. giant archers and knights. Have to hope hope our uh our fort can defend itself. It's very slow though. I do find that a tiny bit odd. Pacing is quite important in these games. So, frankly, I can't bother to wait 15 seconds to undo that. So, let's go into

the next one. So, maybe I've lost the great power up thing that I should have done. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Okay, that was a waste of wasting. Alex giant. So, there is timing involved even in the uh in the kind of spawning of these of the of your units, let alone how long it takes you to walk over there. Obviously, this Oh, there we go.

That was much easier than the other one, wasn't it? Okay. So, um the whole point of first time music experience is not to get massively into the game. It's just to give a first time music experience, which I think we've kind of done. Um we've kind of seen the very very basics. We've not done any um we playing against AI. Obviously the kind of main part port of point of the game is you're playing against other players. They will give a much better battle, much more random battle. Um um so that would be the kind of interesting kind of part of the game. But in terms of just kind of getting the opening flow, um it's not quite as as as simple as I thought. Well, I guess the other thing is sometimes with these kind of games is people want to I mean this is a very high highly anticipated game and it's kind of the game where potentially you know I don't think you have Candy Crush type players playing it. Um even some people who would have played Clash of Clans I think might find this a little bit more um necess

off-putting really but but um have a higher kind of kind of um difficulty level really or just kind of um engagement level. Um, and I think it's certainly very interesting that that this kind of tap to unlock um kind of situations going on which is clearly which is very much kind of something we'd expect from from free-to-play games um in terms of kind of having not necessarily a time gate but time being a a major component in both the game playing the core game which we've been playing obviously when we when we play the on on on the u drop our units in and attack the forts. That's the kind of gameplay. And then there's the meta game around it, which is the leveling up, which is the leveling up of our of our of our cards, unlocking new cards and that kind of stuff. Um, it's interesting that Supercell has been quite um overt in in having that um kind of to the four in a tutorial, which you wouldn't necessarily

need to do, but sometimes it's kind of good to get players to understand this is what this kind of game's going to be about. So, um, so that's interesting. I think obviously we're going to play uh a lot more of Clash Royale over the coming days and weeks and months, maybe even years. Um so don't forget to subscribe uh to to our channel so um you won't miss any of our amazingly uh in-depth and interesting videos. Um but away from kind of Clash Royale, we play a lot of freeto-play mobile games. So um we like to analyze and we like to kind of look at what the new games are coming out. So, if you subscribe, you won't miss any um any of the games we think are worthy of uh of comment, and hopefully you'll find some some some games that' be worth downloading and giving your time to. Thanks for watching. Um hope to see you again soon.