As Pocket Tactics’ resident card game person, I wasn’t surprised when my editor handed me our Bloons Card Storm preview code courtesy of developer Ninja Kiwi to check out. Whether it’s something a little more quickfire like Marvel Snap or a score-chasing game like Balatro, I love card games, so it only makes sense that I take the reins. And boy, am I glad I did.
So, what is Bloons Card Storm? Well, it’s complicated. I’d call it a card-based strategy game, but it’s got elements of classic Bloons tower defense gameplay and just a sprinkle of turn-based RPG mechanics. You begin each game with a hero character and a deck of 40 cards. These decks consist of bloons, which you use to attack enemies; monkeys, which can destroy bloons; and power cards, which have various on-field effects. Each hero has 500 life points, which you lower with bloons, plus two active abilities, which you power by playing cards, and a passive ability. It seems like a lot is going on there, but you adjust quickly.
Okay, those are the basics, but there’s more to wrap your head around. Each turn, you get gold coins, with each card requiring a certain amount to play. So you set up, play a monkey and a bloon ready to go, and then hand over to your opponent. Before you know it, you’ve got a defense of four monkeys, two bloons ready to head over and bash your adversary at the end of your turn, and another three bloons in wait. Unfortunately, your rival often has a similarly intimidating set-up, and that’s where what looks like a kid’s game at first glance turns into one of the most engaging strategy games I’ve played this year. No, seriously.
That’s all without mentioning the storm mechanic, from which the game takes its name. Once the storm kicks in, each player gets a new bloon each turn, with the free bloons increasing in power as the game progresses, to the extent that each turn you get a bloon that can wipe your enemy out in one, provided they don’t have many monkeys around to shoot it down. The storm adds a touch of chaos and raises the stakes, especially if you or your opponent are struggling to set up your field in the early game. It also means there’s less chance of stalemates, as the game forces you to take action as the storm rolls around.
Combine all these ideas, and you have something that presses hard on that magic button in my gamer brain. You know the one. It’s the same one that Marvel Snap and Balatro, the games I mentioned earlier, and some of the other best mobile card games press. I’m just always up for another round. When I’m in that round, I’m thinking about one thing: bloons. Okay, maybe two things with monkeys, too, but either way, I’m in the moment. There’s some real gamer zen going on. It’s what I like to call a Goldilocks game. It’s not too hard, nor too easy. It’s just right.
When previewing a game, I often give it a solid hour or two, as if I were sitting in a booth at a gaming convention and taking away as much as I could in that time. That was the plan with Bloons Card Storm, but with just a week’s access, I’ve already got around ten hours of in-game playtime. I could have easily spent more time playing it if I had the chance, and even when I’m not playing it, I’m cooking up ideas in my head and rerunning matches to see where I could have improved or played a better combination.
Not only is the game itself incredibly engaging, but the visuals are the best I’ve seen in a Bloons title. It’s all very clean. The card art is a bit cutesy in some places and about as edgy as a circle, but I’m into it. The in-game arenas are a touch basic, but they need to be, as it can get overwhelming in the late game when there are more monkeys and bloons than a birthday party at the zoo. Simply put, the visuals lend themselves to the core mechanics, as they do in the best of the best mobile strategy games, making everything a bit easier to comprehend when first learning how to play.
Now, onto a big sticking point for multiple card games: card acquisition. While the in-game shop isn’t open for business yet, it’s still pretty easy to get new cards with the in-game resources you get for winning games. It’s not so simple that you can unlock your dream deck and all the rarest cards in a single sitting, but I imagine you can put together a pretty competent meta deck within a week or so of play. My deck is not meta, as I’ve learned through some brutal online matches, but I know what to swap in and how to get the resources; it’s just a matter of a bit of grinding. I don’t mind grinding, so long as it’s worth it, so there are no complaints from me there.
Still, despite how enthusiastic I am about Bloons Card Storm in general, I’d like to see the developers address a couple of things in the final version. There seems to be a little work left to do in card balancing. Powerful high-cost cards like the MOAB and BFB take too long to play and too long to activate on the field, so online play is dominated by swarms of low-cost cards in games that often don’t last long enough to see the storm take full effect or give you a chance to make some big plays. It’s not completely unbalanced, but I’d like to see more benefits for big card plays or, maybe more realistically, more limitations on low-cost plays.
I’d also like to see more pre-built decks available to players early in the game. At the time of writing, there’s just the default deck you start the game with and no other options. While I’m a decent deckbuilder, this doesn’t leave you with much to go off in terms of deck construction or how to balance your bloons, monkeys, and power cards. I also don’t want to spend too long putting together a deck to check out one of the other two available heroes. Still, this is the beta, so there’s plenty of time left for Ninja Kiwi to make some tweaks.
All in all, I have to say that I’m a much bigger fan of Bloons Card Storm than I thought I’d be. It’s simple enough to engage you quickly but deep enough to keep you coming back for more and more matches. Even if, like me, you’re not up-to-date on the Bloons series, it gets its hooks in you pretty quickly. As I write this, all I can think about is deck-crafting and Sniper Monkey strategies, counting down the work hours to get back to battling. In my book, that can only be a good thing.
There you have it, our Bloons Card Storm preview. At the time of writing, we don’t have an official release date for the game, but the official Ninja Kiwi suggests a 2024 launch, so it shouldn’t be long before it lands on the App Store, Google Play Store, and Steam. If you’re looking for something to play in the meantime, see our picks for the best monkey games, or check out something new with our Mika and the Witch’s Mountain review.