Video Game / Boom Beach

Boom Beach: Come with a plan, or leave in defeat!

Boom Beach is a combat strategy game with similar gameplay to Clash of Clans made by the same developer, Supercell. It's on both iOS and Android.

You are a player that is specifically sent to the archipelago to free the enslaved islanders from Hammerman and his Blackguard Armies. As you build up your bases to get stronger, more powerful Blackguard bases appear, including mercenaries, resource bases, and factory bases.

Despite the gameplay being similar to its other game Clash of Clans (even having a Builder Base like mode), it has a lot of distinct mechanics that separates itself from its more popular counterpart. Instead of spells, you use the Gunboat to support your armies, especially in redirecting them. Also, when your Headquarters are destroyed, rather than giving you a star, the raid instantly ends. There are also statues power stones that can help aid your preferred playstyle. Finally, even though you can join a task force which is basically a clan, instead of war with an opposing task force, you engage in operations that has you defeat the blackguard factories.

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Boom Beach contains examples of:

• Anti-Frustration Features: The Gunboat is still usable while you're upgrading it.
• Arbitrary Weapon Range: The Mortar, Rocket Launcher, Shock Launcher, and Grappler all have them to balance their strengths (and to prevent the Grappler from grappling something right next to them). Machine Guns initially didn't have this feature, but it was added in the June 2017 update. The Rocket Launcher's is larger than usual to balance its extreme range and area attacks; the Machine Gun's is smaller than usual.
• Artificial Stupidity: Enforced. Like Clash of Clans, units in Boom Beach follow their own AI presets. The difference here is that all units (excluding the Medic and the hero Dr. Kavan) are coded to attack the closest building they see, regardless of building type or unit/defensive building strengths and weaknesses. It is up to you to provide direction/fire support to your troops through the gunboat's various abilities in order to succeed.
  • If there are no other troops left in the vicinity, Medics (and Dr. Kavan) will stand completely still, even when in range of a defensive building and unlike Clash of Clans, the battle won't auto end if they are the only troops left forcing you to retreat to save time.
• Big Bad: Lt. Hammerman is the leading opponent in the game.
• Booby Trap: Three types of mines exist; The standard mine (deals decent damage in a small area), The Boom Mine (Deals massive damage in a concentrated area) and the shock mine (stalls enemies in a small radius).
• Cannon Fodder: Riflemen are the base troop unlocked at the start of the game, and are generally employed en-mass early on. In fact, a recommended strategy is to Zerg Rush Riflemen against regular and Boom Cannons, as the troops can out-damage the slow firing cannons through their superior numbers and firerate.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The Boom Cannon does insane damage, but only strikes one unit at a time, and very slowly at that, making it only effective against heavily armored troops. Exaggerated with the Doom Cannon, which does even more damage but shares the Boom Cannon's single target and slow fire rate.
• Damage Over Time: Scorchers, Flamethrowers, and Hot Pots can cause this to anything unlucky enough to be caught in their flames.
• Deflector Shields: The Prototype Shield Generator creates a shield around your HQ that either requires the Generator to be destroyed or the Shield itself to be destroyed in order to drop it, making enemy raids considerably harder. Generally, the shield is only a few hundred thousand at most, but on Operations where there's a lot of them, the shield health can be in the tens of millions, making it a near necessity to bust at least most of the generators.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Using a force that entirely consists of Zookas to destroy a target with a ridiculous amount of Hit Points like the Headquarters or Power Core. To properly use them, you need proper deployment and timing of Smoke to cover them from defenses, Flares to properly direct them to the desired target, and which defenses needs to be shocked such as Rocket Launchers and Shock Launchers. Improper use of them will led to whole swaths of them being wiped out very quickly with little damage done in the attack, but proper usage of them and you can bring down even the toughest and healthiest shielded HQ with very little casualties on your side. Mastering their usage is one of the most important aspect in operations, especially if you want to engage in the most difficult operations where just about all other strategies will fail due to the obscene defensive power of the Power Bases.
• Elite Mook: Mega Crab 6.0 introduced Super Soldier Vats that, if broken, release an extremely powerful version of a certain troop to fight for you.
  • Super Riflemen have much, much higher HP (12500) and DPS (1200), and fire their rifles like Machine Guns to shred targets quickly.
  • Super Heavies have higher DPS (800) but a stupendous HP count of 43,000, the same as a max level Scorcher, allowing him to eat bullets, rockets, shells and lasers without even getting scratched. While he has a shorter range, this actually helps him to draw the fire of even more defenses.
  • Super Medics have the standard Super Soldier health (25,000), but heal at a massive rate, around 240 HP per medkit compared to a level 13 Medic's 32. In addition, their healing also gives troops a speed buff to allow them to charge bases even faster.
  • Super Warriors boast 15,000 HP, attack slightly faster, and deal a whopping 2000 damage per hit. In addition, they slow any building that they hit, and are able to heal themselves at a much faster rate of 650 per attack.
  • Super Grenadiers' accuracy hasn't improved... but they throw 5 grenades in one sitting, and each one has a huge radius and massive damage, so chances are they will leave the battlefield looking like you set off a small nuke. And they have the Super Soldier standard 35,000 HP.
  • Super Critters aren't too special, lacking many of the unique perks of the other Supers... but they are still extremely powerful, boasting 35,000 HP and dealing a whopping 2200 DPS! Anything that this thing approaches is going to get melted in seconds.
• Excuse Plot: The entire "defeat the Blackguard" plot is really just an excuse for the player to continue to play the game to become stronger.
• Freeze Ray/Kill It with Ice: The Cryoneer (unlocked at Level 20 Headquarters) carries a freeze gun into battle. Her gun's rays (which get longer as she's upgraded) do moderate damage to enemy weapons, and also slow down their firing rate by 50%.
• Friendly Fireproof: Played with. Most of the troops' attacks don't hurt other troops, but there are some exceptions, namely Grenadier's bombs and Scorcher's flames. In addition, your gunboat's weaponry can harm your troops.
• Glass Cannon: Zookas have a long range and possess the biggest damage per landing craft out of all the troops but are incredibly squishy and if caught by a splash tower, expect whole groups them to go down just as easy.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Blackguard are the main enemies of the game and Hammerman's dialogue implies that he is under the order of someone with a higher rank than him. However, the game never reveals who the supreme Blackguard leader is, making Hammerman and his Co-Dragons Dr. T and Col. Gearheart the main opponents of the game.
• Hero Unit: Four as of this writing. Two were introduced in the March 2017 update, a third was introduced in the June 2017 update, and one more was added in October 2017.
  • Like their counterparts in Clash of Clans:
    • They are immortal, only being stunned when defeated in battle.
    • They have special abilities that the player can activate at any time, with a caveat listed below.
  • Unlike the Clash of Clans heroes:
    • They need no healing time; they will be fully healed and ready to go for the player's next attack.
    • They only operate on attack; they play no role in defending the player's base.
    • Only one hero can be used in a given battle.
    • Each hero has one special perk that's automatically activated with no need for player input. In addition, they have three special abilities (only one of which can be active in a given battle) that the player can activate multiple times—though at the cost of a set amount of Gunboat energy, which increases with each activation.
    • They can be used in battle while being upgraded (obviously at the pre-upgrade level). The same is true for their special abilities.
• Humongous Mecha: Dr. T's Mega Crab, a giant mechanical crab the size of an island.
• Instant-Win Condition: Destroying the Headquarters will instantly give the attacker victory; there are no other outcomes aside from losing the attack.
• Kill It with Fire: The Scorcher among troops, and the Flamethrower and Hot Pot among defenses.
• Mad Scientist: Doctor Terror, or Dr. T for short, acts like your stereotypical Card-Carrying Villain who invades islands that previously harbored Hammerman Bases every 4 out of 6 days in the cycle. He is also the one who created the Mega Crab and periodically invades the islands once in a while.
• One-Hit Polykill: The Lazor Beam fires a ray that deals damage to everything in a straight line. Because of this, it's able to damage targets even outside of its maximum range as long as one target is within range.
• The Medic: Unlocked at Level 15 Headquarters, the Medic can heal troops (and himself while he's healing) and has the most complex AI compared to the rest of the cast.
  • Much the same is true for the hero unit Dr. Kavan.
• Mighty Glacier: Tanks are incredibly slow and require Gunboat Energy to land them, but they both have a good amount of hit points as well as a decent amount of damage.
• Shock and Awe: Shock Launchers and Shock Mines don't deal that much damage but they make up for it with their ability to stun troops for a second, allowing other defenses to whale on them. The Gunboat's Shock Bombs, on the other hand, don't do any damage but can stall enemies for extended periods of time, depending on their level.
  • A prominent aspect of the Prototype Shock Blaster, a machine gun that fires shots that momentarily stun targets. Sound overpowered? Well, it would be if it didn't have to reload every 40 shots.
  • Cpt. Everspark, one of the four hero units alluded to above, shoots lightning bolts at the nearest enemy building every time she releases Critters.
• Shoot the Medic First: One periodically available Prototype Defense, the S.I.M.O., has overtones of this trope. It's a more robust and infrared-equipped Sniper Tower (enabling it to shoot through an attacker's Smoke Screens) whose AI targets attacking troops with the lowest health. This feature makes it especially dangerous to troop combos such as Tank–Medic and Heavy–Zooka.
• Shout-Out:
  • The in-game description of the Field Capacitor, one of the components used to build Prototype Defenses, states, "Often confused with Flux Capacitor."
  • The S.I.M.O. Prototype Defense is named after Simo Häyhä, a famous Finnish sniper.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Despite Hammerman being the main villain of the game, Dr. T has a lot more focus and prominence compared to him, appearing in virtually every single Boom Beach video^note (since his first appearance), having 2 out of four events centered around his base, and he is also the one who created the Mega Crab.
• Stone Wall: Heavies deal a very low amount of damage for the amount of housing they require but they have tremendous hit points that can easily shield any troops behind them. Exaggerated with Scorchers, as their health is in the ten thousands so nothing less than Boom and Doom cannons can put a dent in them. The newest hero, Pvt. Bullit, has health between those of Heavies and Scorchers, but his regular Hero Perk, "Pain Tolerance", negates all damage that exceeds a set limit per hit—meaning that it takes multiple hits even from Doom Cannons to take him out.
• Tank Goodness: Tanks are very good in single player, and can often raid enemy bases without any losses. Tanks plus medics can be very good in lower-level operations, as the medics can outheal a lot of damage from lighter weapons. However, tanks are not very good in harder operations, see Tanks for Nothing.
• Tanks for Nothing: In harder operations, all cannons will one-shot any tank no matter how much of a health boost you have, and even the lighter defenses do significant damage to them. Furthermore, tanks actually do comparatively little damage compared to zookas or even riflemen, and they can't overcome the tremendous health boost to the harder operation bases. Thus, in harder operations, tanks will basically get vaporized upon contact with the enemy, and they're worthless.
• Taking You with Me: Scorchers explode on death, dealing massive damage around them.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Whenever Hammerman invades your base, he doesn't seem to utilize his gunboat to his full potential aside from a single missile. However, this is counteracted by the sheer number of enemy soldiers^note Way, way more than what you can use that can quickly destroy any base without sufficient preparations.
• Useless Useful Spell: The Sabotage option in operations is widely regarded to be virtually useless, especially in higher operation level. Basically, at the cost of Intel, you can randomly destroy one defensive building. The problem is that Intel is a difficult resource to obtain and wasting it on a single defense that 1) doesn't deal any chip damage to the Power Core and 2) could have been anything such as that Machine Gun that is destroyed far away from the Core makes it very impractical to do so. As a result, many Task Forces bans the use of any sabotage in operations lest you will either get demoted or kicked just for using it.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: All of your gunboat abilities, regardless if they are offensive or supporting in nature, will affect your troops. This means that you can purposely bomb or shock them while initiating a raid.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: Built on the Clash of Clans formula, the game starts off with wood (for building construction/upgrading) and gold (for troop training/upgrading/everything else), but buildings will later on require stone and iron for construction/upgrades.
  • Building prototype defenses will require a separate set of resources (Critical Fuse, Complex Gear, Power Rod, Field Capacitor).
  • A third set of resources is used for upgrading Heroes and their abilities. Trader Tickets (obtained by collecting the Daily Reward and the Supply Chest^note upon earning five victory points; can also be purchased in larger quantities from the Trader herself using Diamonds, but only if they are one of her offers for that week) are used to upgrade the Heroes themselves. Hero Tokens (either found in Trader Crates redeemed for three Trader Tickets, or purchased directly from the Trader, again with Diamonds and only if offered) are used to upgrade the Heroes' special abilities.
  • Yet another resource is used to upgrade Tribes, introduced in the June 2017 update and unlocked at Radar level 20. Raw Crystals, mined from a location near your home island, are purchased using the standard resources (gold, wood, stone, iron).

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