An Expanded Universe spinoff to Clash of Clans, Clash Royale is an interesting mix of genres: a Collectible Card Game, Tower Defense and Multiplayer Online Battle Arena rolled into one, released under a Freemium model.
Each player has a deck of 8 cards out of the many possible choices, each being a separate unit or spell that all have their own playstyles and niches. The playing field consists of you and your opponent's King's Tower (an Instant-Win Condition should it be destroyed) at the bottom and top-most parts of the field, respectively, and two Archer towers on each side. Each building destroyed yields you one crown out of a possible three. The goal of the game is to earn more crowns than your opponent by the end of the match.
To achieve this, you have a starting hand of four cards out of eight chosen beforehand, which can be used to attack or defend. Playing your card will not discard it for the rest of the game, rather, it'll be put at the bottom of your deck. Each card uses up a certain amount of "elixir", which is shown as a auto-refilling bar with a maximum of 10 elixir you can have before you won't generate any more. Much of the game's strategy revolves around proper elixir management, a deck with a low elixir average (that being cards that aren't all elixir-heavy), and knowing how and when to play your cards to achieve victory.
This game was soft-launched in Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland and New Zealand for iOS systems at January 4, 2016. It was then fully released in all regions and on Android systems by March 2, 2016. Since then, it's had many various additions and updates to the game, retaining one of the highest spots for "top grossing apps" across all platforms.
Download it here for iOS
and Android systems.
Note: The numbers in the ensuing trope examples assume that all cards will be at tournament level standard (level 9, pre-champions update) unless stated otherwise.
These are the tropes of the duel:
- Action Bomb: The Giant Skeleton drops a bomb on death, dealing immense damage to anything caught in it.
- Fire Spirits and Ice Spirits hurl themselves at their enemies to blow them up and freeze them, respectively.
- The Wall Breakers rush towards the nearest building to blow them up.
- Action Girl: The Archer, Bandit, Musketeer, Witch, Valkyrie, P.E.K.K.A, Sparky, Princess, Female Rascals, and the Ram Rider are female cards that attack opponents.
- Airborne Mooks: Certain troops like Baby Dragons, Minions, Balloons, Bats, and Lava Hounds can only be targeted by certain other troops.
- Amazing Technicolor Battlefield:
- Spell Valley, with blue grass, purple lakes and pink crystals. One of the most visually appealing arenas in the game.
- Electro Valley. It's entirely purple, except for the tesla-powered machinery that litters the Arena. The arena even lights up during Sudden Death.
- Anti Poop-Socking: Indirectly enforced. While you can play as much as you want, the gold you earn is very low compared to what you earn from chests, which you can only have a maximum of 4 at any time, and chests take a minimum of 3 hours to open. Not to mention chests are your main source of cards.
- April Fools' Day: The party mode for April Fools in 2022 has the "totally balanced game mode" which randomizes the elixir cost of your next card. There's nothing more infuriating than having to fend off 50 Musketeers at once.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: The current Legendary Arena is set in space, with waterfalls and a river (somehow) flowing. There's even gravity in that Arena.
- BFG:
- The Musketeer's gun is about her own size.
- The Royal Giant wields a cannon as a weapon.
- The Hunter has a huge shotgun that is about his size.
- Bleak Level: Bone Pit. An arena sandwiched between Goblin Stadium and Barbarian Bowl, and a bleak desert with bones everywhere.
- Body Armor as Hit Points: In addition to their normal health, Guards, Dark Prince, Cannon Cart, and Royal Recruits have a shield that negates excess damage, allowing them to tanking big damage such as Rocket or a P.E.K.K.A hit. In the Cannon Cart's case, losing shield makes it stationary and decays its health over 30 seconds just like a building.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Averted. Paying to get chests with top tier cards will...match you with other players who payed for chests with top tier cards.
- Dem Bones:
- The Skeletons are a weak but cheap group of skeletons.
- The Skeleton Army are 14 higher-level skeletons who are good at Zerg Rush and swarming slow hit speed enemies.
- The Witch can summon skeletons every 7 seconds.
- The Giant Skeleton is a Giant Mook with a lot of health and drops a bomb when destroyed.
- The Bomber is a bomb-toting skeleton that deals area damage.
- The Balloon is a bomb-toting skeleton in a hot air balloon that only targets buildings. It also does damage when it goes down, and is notorious for its large health, damage, and its status as an air attacker.
- The Guards are stronger versions of Skeletons with shields that protect them from any damage unless the shield is destroyed.
- The Tombstone spawns a skeleton every 3.1 seconds, plus spawning 3 skeletons when it's destroyed.
- The Bomb Tower is a building with a Bomber on it.
- The Graveyard Spell is a spell that produces a skeleton every 0.5 seconds.
- The Skeleton Barrel is a barrel that flies with balloons and goes after buildings. It does damage and releases 7 skeletons when it reaches a building or goes down.
- The Wall Breakers are two small skeletons that rush toward the nearest building.
- The Skeleton Dragons are basically a pair of weaker Baby Dragons.
- Eternal Engine:
- The Builder's Workshop. An area with all manners of moving cogs, gears and machinery making up the arena.
- Electro Valley. In this medieval world, sandwiched between the top of a mountain and a graveyard horror-fest, is a desert with an entirely electrically-powered arena in it. The arena even lights up during Sudden Death.
- Instant-Win Condition: Destroying your opponent's King Tower will win you the round - even if more of your towers are destroyed.
- Kill It with Fire:
- Inferno Towers. Due to their intensifying damage over time, they shred tanks easily.
- The Inferno Dragon is a slightly weaker but cheaper Inferno Tower that flies. It's notorious for this reason, as it is very hard to take down, and can actually attack enemy Towers with its intensifying damage.
- The Wizard shoots fireballs. He's a very good choice for countering Zerg Rushes due to his splash damage. Don't let a Skeleton Army surround him, though.
- Kill It with Ice:
- The Freeze Spell, unlocked in P.E.K.K.A's Playhouse (ironically), allows the player to temporarily freeze and damage enemy troops and buildings.
- The Ice Wizard, unlocked in Spell Valley, shoots ice blasts that slows and deals area damage to enemies.
- The Ice Spirit, unlocked in Frozen Peak, is a variant of the Fire Spirit that does less damage, but temporarily the enemy in a similar manner to the Zap spell.
- The Ice Golem, also unlocked in Frozen Peak. They soak up some damage, and upon death, explode and slows down everything around them.
- The Giant Snowball, also unlocked in Frozen Peak, acts as a cheaper alternative to the Fireball spell with lower damage but still keeps the knockback at a small price of two elixir and has an additional slowing effect.
- Lightning Bruiser:
- The Prince's charge attack causes him to accelerate and deal twice as much damage.
- The Dark Prince also charges and does double damage, but he also gains 360 degree area splash with his charge attack.
- The Mega Knight is a heavy hitting AOE fighter that can jump.
- Loophole Abuse: A clanmate with cards from later arenas can trade these cards with clanmates who aren't in a high enough arena to get that card.
- Medieval European Fantasy: The Royal Arena. One of the most iconic levels, centered in a castle with a bustling crowd watching.
- Mook Maker:
- The Witch can summon skeletons every 7 seconds.
- The Night Witch can summon Bats at the same speed, and spawns four more on death
- Spawner buildings periodically spawn troops.
- Shifting Sand Land:
- Bone Pit is an arena which is just a desert with flags and bones everywhere.
- The Electro Valley is set in the middle of a desert/canyon, as revealed after the battle ends.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Frozen Peak. It's set up on top of a mountain where it permanently snows and is completely frosted over.
- Snowlem: Ice Golems, as their name suggests, are golems made out of solid ice.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Some cards fall under more than one category, but for the most part...
- Somewhat averted or subverted with some cards, such as the Mega Knight, which is a heavy hitting AOE fighter that can jump.
- Heavy hitters beat AOE fighters. AOE fighters beat swarms. Swarms beat heavy hitters.
- There's No Kill like Overkill: Sparky's description states that "Overkill isn't in her dictionary."
- Zerg Rush:
- The Skeleton Army is an Epic card that summons 14 high-level skeletons. Useful for killing slow attacking single target troops such as Prince and P.E.K.K.A.
- The Minion Horde is a swarm of six flying Minions that can unload immense damage and shred nearly every push in seconds, but have little health.
- The Zappies. They are the most expensive swarm card, and while they do little damage and move slowly, there are three of them and they have the health of every swarm card. Despite this, one of them is weak by itself, and the player must get the three of them to work as a unit for them to be significant.
