Boom Beach

Boom Beach arrived in 2014 as Supercell's variation on its own successful Clash of Clans recipe, this time turned inside out. Instead of defending their own village, the player attacks here – landing troops from ships on the shores of enemy bases, destroying defensive towers, and progressing through an island campaign controlled by an enemy faction called the Blackguard. The structure remains familiar: base building, upgrade research, waiting for buildings and units to finish, just with an emphasis on offensive rather than defensive planning.

Controls use the same touch principles as its sister title – placing units by dragging a finger across the map before the landing – and the game again relies on a free-to-play model with time-speedup via gems. Boom Beach never reached the mass reach of Clash of Clans, but found its own stable player base that appreciated a different angle on the proven formula, as well as a military, island atmosphere instead of the fantasy village.

For Supercell, this was proof that a single game skeleton can carry more than one title, provided the theme is repainted enough, the gameplay's center of gravity is shifted, and its own story background is added with an enemy that makes sense in the new setting. Boom Beach thus remains an interesting side branch in the studio's catalog, though in the shadow of its more famous siblings, which received more marketing attention and more regular content updates.

Why play it: For Clash of Clans players who want the same type of slow strategy, but with an offensive perspective and a military setting instead of defending a fantasy village.