ARtillery Bay is a single-player and co-op ARKit action game. The player controls a pirate ship. You are dropped into a small bay where you’ll need to sail and fight against other pirate ships while avoiding their cannon balls.
ARtillery Bay Gameplay
ARtillery Bay is a wave-based shooter, but the shooting happens automatically. All you have to do is use a swipe gesture to move your ship around the bay while collecting coins and avoiding enemy’s cannonballs.
Other private ships will attack you from all directions. They will attack you where you stand, so you have to make sure your ship is mobile. This game doesn’t let you rest even for a second, OK, maybe just for a second.
It’s essential to try to collect as many coins as possible, as those will allow you to purchase ship upgrades that will help you survive the upcoming waves. The ship upgrades that are available for purchase are Extra Life ($500), Shield Boost ($1000), Speed Boost ($1000), Damage Boost ($1000) and Magnet Boost ($1000).
ARtillery Bay also support local cooperative gameplay, in which you can play alongside another player if both of you are connected to the same local network. However, if you want to play with your friend side by side, both of you will have to purchase the “Value Pack” that according to the Full Game Purchase note within the game, the value pack gives you the following: Beat All Waves and Activate Local MultiMultiplayer. Why do I need to purchase a pack to bear all waves, this ruins the whole purpose of the game (am I missing something?
Second, why the two sides have to purchase the full game to enjoy a local multiplayer experience? This decision feels odd. did try to press the Purchase button to purchase it but the button didn’t trigger anything, it just grayed out and that is it.
The game features 11 achievements, two are hidden ones. There is also a global leaderboard so you can see how you stack up against other players from all around the world. Guess who is in the first place with 475,570 points? “FusedVR”, the developer. I think this was done to motivate people to try to break this record, but after playing for 20 minutes and only getting to 890 points, I think this is doing just the opposite.
Game’s Difficulty
I usually address this when I think the game might have a problem, a prominent one that worth mentioning. Unless I am missing something, the game consists only of 5 waves and a boss fight at the end, which is a big ship that throws huge rocks all over the place.
When I start the game, I first didn’t know that there are ship upgrades. I even asked the developer on Tweeter what should I do with the money that I’ve collected. The money was reset in each session, so I knew there has to be something to do with it in the game. I finally realized that the what looks like a Settings icon on the top right side triggers the upgrade screen. This is just a bad icon for this purpose, I had no idea that I should use it for upgrading my ship.
The game was very difficult before I discovered the ship upgrades. I couldn’t even pass the third wave. I liked it when it was like that. However, I’ve decided to purchase the “Damage Boost” upgrade but what happened next just ruined the game. When I purchase the damage boost, I was able to get to the boos after a few seconds. The reason for that is that the damage boost just wiped the ships very quickly. I was able to get to the last wave and beat the boss easily. It wasn’t even challenging. It took me like 5 seconds and the boss was down.
The developer has to adjust the damage boost so it will not make the player overpowered. Once you use it, there is no reason for you to purchase the Full Game at all, because it’s very easy to complete the 5 waves and there is no reason to play with another player because there is no challenge here whatsoever.
AR Experience
I also had problems with the AR settings. The game arena is quite large. I didn’t find any way to resize the game. I needed around 4.9×4.9 feet (1.5×1.5 meters) space for it and a bit more so I can have a good view of the entire game. This made the game very uncomfortable to play in a small living room like I have.
This is the type of game that I would have liked to enjoy playing on the living room’s table or on my bed, but I couldn’t.
Graphics & Level Design
The game’s presentation in terms of level design looks nice but it didn’t impress me as much as the water presentation as in Waddle Home AR or as in Twilight Pioneers: Dragon Arena. The water doesn’t look like water, more like a semi-transparent glass with a very slight bluish tint. There is a nice wave effect surrounding the level and drawing the area where the player’s movement is limited to.
I didn’t like the colors palette. In my opinion, the purpose for the coins seems way off and didn’t fit the other colors. The seafloor colors don’t fit the vivid colors of the ships, something with the colors just doesn’t look right. I am not an expert in this field, but the color choice seems misplaced. I think it could have been so much better with vivid blue water with a slight transparency, with some cloud and mist effects over the water—don’t you agree?
Conclusion
ARtillery Bay was one of most anticipated games for this month. I was so excited to play as a pirate ship and fight other ships in the middle of the sea in Augmented Reality. Unfortunately, the game turned out to be a big disappointment.
The game controls felt really good, and before I found about the imbalanced upgrade issue that breaks the game, it felt quite fun and very challenging.
However, there are so many things that just ruined my experience. The inability to resize the game, the games have only 5 waves, the damage boost breaks the game, the need to purchase the full game (which doesn’t even work) to play cooperatively with a friend, the colors and the water rendering looked uncompelling.
I wish all the 5 waves and the boss fight would have been a single level in the game and there were more levels to progress through, but this game is more like a mini ARKit game.
There are certainly quite a few things that need to be addressed to make the game more compelling. I was reviewing the game in its version 1.0 using my Apple iPad 2017 tablet.
To be honest, I really wanted it to be more than just a mini-game. The foundations of this game are really good. The controls are pleasant to use, similar to powARdup and I like the auto-shooting mechanic which is similar to zombies! ARgh!. The game actually brings some of the controls and level design that I enjoyed in other games.
I hope that the developer will make the necessary changes in future updates. I still recommend playing it, it’s a fun little ARKit game. I am still going to keep it on my iPad so I can be notified when new updates are released and revisit it at a later date. As for now, the game is what it is and I ranked it accordingly.
You can download ARtillery Bay from the App Store here.