What’s a wizard to do when their potions homework is complete and the owls have been fed? ‘Dragonwood Academy: A Game of Stones’ has the perfect answer: play battle stones. XMG Studio (creators of ‘Ghostbusters™ Paranormal Blast’) has brought the magical world of wizardry to your mobile in a casual card battling game. You’ll pit your battle stones against opponents between classes and test your ability to strategize.
The stones are the very heart of the game; they battle, level up, and change in your quest to be have the longest running victory streak. This title is easy to pick up and play for that reason; you only have three stones, and all of them have a power limit based on their rarity. Stones with an opal gem, for example, are the most common and will never be more powerful than the rarest stones which have amethyst gems in them. For this reason, you have to consider which of your stones to keep on your team as you find rarer ones.
That’s an important part of strategizing for this title; I found that putting the weaker members of my team up first in my attack line-up made their attack more likely to occur before they took too much damage. You don’t actually get to pick who you get to attack once you’re in battle because the stones are automated, but what you have on your team and how you arrange their attack-order does make a difference.
Due to the fact that you cannot control any aspect of the battle while it is happening, the game tends to lose its flavor over time. It is a great title to play if you are multi-tasking or on the go, because once you put them in battle, the game plays itself. You get treasure chests after every battle, though, which you do get to pick. Within the chests you’ll find a variety of different trinkets; once you collect the required amount of trinkets, you will unlock a random battle stone of the trinket’s stone class.
Slowly, your battle streak will improve as you find these trinkets and get rarer, stronger cards. The rule of thumb is this: The rarer the card, the stronger it will be. From time to time, you’ll also find gems that are not the apart of the gem/battle stone class; these are separate and are used to buy more stones or power-ups for the battle stones before battle. are also used to revive your team once your stones have lost all their health points.
I would recommend saving them rather than spending them on pre-battle power-ups, because the power-ups are only a one-time-use spell, whereas saving them can get you much stronger battle cards and will be more useful in the long-run. There’s also the option to buy them so that you will have them either way, but the game gives you ability to earn them.
There are some great designs on the battle stones, and it is fun to attempt to break your battle streak. Sometimes, when the device is not connected to the Internet, the graphics on your battle stones will not display though the game will continue to function. It would also be nice to see a direct multiplayer mode so that players can pit their stones against their friends. Other than that, it’s well-designed and the wizard classmates have puns and parodies on names you may recognize. I’d recommend this title if you are in-between tasks and need something to take up a few minutes, or even during a 15-minute break where the battles can take place while you’re grabbing a snack.
Read the review on GameMob.com here.