Combo Quest is the first paragraph in a design document for another game; CQ is the core mechanic that should be embedded into something much bigger than it is, while actually being all there is. CQ could have been a pretty neat RPG for touch devices, but it's barely a tech demo with some inappropriate in-app purchases. I didn't enjoy my time with Combo Quest for various reasons.
The way the game works is simple, there is a bar with blocks on it that pop during fights with enemies, you tap while a line moves over the bar and if it overlaps with blocks, you deal damage. Enemies send blocks your way too and you have to break them. If you tap while the line is over nothing, you take damage. If an enemy block gets to the left side of the bar, you take damage. As you tap, a combo builds up. If you tap the bottom of the screen, you use a special attack. After each enemy, you choose between more min damage, max damage, more health, restoring all your health, or increasing the damage of your combo attack. Special blocks arrive after a few levels, like shields that take multiple taps or bombs that clear other blocks.
But that's all there is to it. You just play until you lose and after that you restart. There are no bonuses to carry over. No currency to gain in order to buy things to make you go further the subsequent times, no character classes to unlock - you could have special tiles to activate moves that help you - no way to differentiate between the various runs through the game, and that kills it for me. After a few times, I already had seen everything I could gather from the game.
And it's not even a rhythm game, the blocks appear at random and you have no guideline to tap them than your eyes, there is no timing involved and you take tons of damage if you mess up. Maybe the scope of the game was limited, but if it's not fun to play, there isn't much I can say to balance this out. Also, what's up with these weird potions you can buy? I suppose they heal your health? I really wouldn't see myself spending money to regain health in a game where getting further than the last time has no impact on anything.
Don't waste your time with Combo Quest, maybe if they build a game around it, I'll try it again.
