Browzings: Speed Warp and Elements

Idle games have proven to be pretty divisive here at BFVG, what with the recent controversy surrounding a certain game which may or may not involve clicking on or near baked goods. Nonetheless, today's first entry will boldly go where I've gone twice before (with candybox and A Dark Room): it's Speed Warp!

Eagle-eyed Twitpeeps will have noticed this game being retweeted by aniwey, the creator of candybox, a few days ago. Speed Warp is, as dev Tom Medley notes, heavily inspired by candybox, with parts of the game borrowing chunks from the former.

A new game inspired by Candy Box sent to me by email! Check it out here : http://t.co/LGNzRtovXN I'm starting to play it and it looks great!
— aniwey (@aniwey) September 29, 2013

As with the other idle games I've reviewed, the start screen is pretty empty:

I played for 5 seconds, where's my achievement?

Pretty soon, however, the game gets a bit more interesting, with the addition of several layers of gameplay that give you actual things to do (I KNOW) while waiting to accumulate stuff. I don't want to give too much away, but this guy will be making an appearance:

If you enjoyed candybox, I'd definitely give Speed Warp a whirl - it has more interactive elements and a wider array of minigames to entertain than its predecessor, although it features decidedly less candy. I found it less charming, yet I also think it's cool that Speed Warp, a tribute to a game that wasn't published that long ago, can not only be developed so quickly, but can be recognised and promoted by the developer of the game that inspired it. It also has the option to bookmark your save, so you can play it from any computer - handy.

Second game this week is Elements, a collectible card game that can be played in-browser (unlike competitors Magic and Solforge). If you can't access Steam or are away from your personal computer, Elements is a cool little game with a short playtime per round - meaning you can get a few games in in a short space of time. There's the option to register and save your decks, or just jump into the game.

Elements sees you using cards to build a deck based around (predictably) an element. These range from the bog-standard (Fire and Water) to some pretty out-there interpretations of the concept of the word 'element' (Aether? Time? Gravity?!). You can then choose to battle against levelled AI or in PVP.

The meat of the game is in the duelling section, which can be frustrating and rewarding, as players of similar card games will no doubt understand. I found myself revising my deck several times as I got more familiar with the gameplay. You can choose which element to align yourself to, but you can change alignments if you decide to go down a different route later.

So, there you have it: a game you can dip in and out of, and a game you can fire up whenever you have a spare five minutes. Enjoy yo'selves, kids!