Beast Quest brings a touch of Zelda to iOS and Android http://goo.gl/upi0lw

Beast Quest is a new "free-to-play" game from Miniclip
coming to iOS and Android
early next year. What makes this interesting though is that it's
based on a 14 million selling book series and offers open world
fantasy game-play with role play character development and real
time battles.

Visiting Miniclip to have a hands-on session with the game I had
expected to discover an endless runner or mini-game collection.
However, Beast Quest on iOS and Android offers an
experience drawing on games like Zelda,
Infinity Blade or even Shadow of the
Colossus.

Certainly Miniclip knows the target audience well, with over 70
million unique users per month in this younger demographic. Even so
this Beast Quest project is something of a departure and
ambitious even for them.

Players take on the role of Tom, and like in the books partner
with Elenna to battle the different monsters and enemies of the
land of Avantia. Picking the game up I soon discovered that this
offered not only linear story missions, but an open world to
explore and light role-play character progression.

The books are aimed at boys although there is no reason that
girls wouldn't enjoy them too. They have a strong female lead in
the form of Elenna who often saves the day just as much as Tom. In
the game they work in tandem but the player is restricted to
controlling Tom throughout, something of a shame.

The game takes you through each of the
worlds featured in the first six Beast Quest books. In
each world we meet a different Beast, along with a range of varied
enemies and allies. As mentioned, we play as hero Tom, journeying
through the kingdom of Avantia on his quest to free the Beasts from
Malvel's evil spells.

Talking to Sam Smith, Community Manager at Miniclip, it was
interesting to hear more about how unusual this is for Miniclip.
Headlining their inspiration, Smith was quickly reaching for top
drawer adventure experiences "think Zelda, think
Shadow of the Colossus think World of
Warcraft".

It's a claim that sounds a bit far fetched until you play the
game itself. While a little way off the scale of some of the
referenced titles, it certainly feels like a game in that category.
"It is a big open world with a lot to do. The level of content here
on a free to play game is unlike anything else on mobile at the
moment. This is the biggest scale game we've done. In terms of
ambition it feels like a full priced console release."

Here Miniclip again has its finger on the pulse of the younger
audience. With full console games like Skylanders Trap Team proving that there is plenty of
appetite for them on tablets, it is an ideal time to bring an
original console-like experience to the platform.

As with any good book series for children, Beast
Quest is cleverly designed to appeal to grown-ups as well.
Smith outlined how the game was aiming to mirror this. "We're
hoping that this is something that kids can play with parents, but
also the parents will end up playing it themselves when the kids
are in bed. We want everything to be simple enough for kids to
understand it but with depth for older players."

Playing through the first 30 minutes of the game you encounter a
range of things to do, from hunting down healing herbs in the
environment to going after Nanook. Then there were Hungry Wolves,
Ice Marauders and Dark Fang enemies to fight.

These encounters switch to a third person view and offer simple
dodge and attack moves with taps and swipes on the tablet. As the
battle rack up things get more complex though with multiple attacks
to co-ordinate and a wider variety of moves.

Afterwards you get rewards in terms of gold and experience to
heal and upgrade your character. This presents a choice about the
sort of hero you want Tom to be. More heavily armoured, or better
equipped with a killer blade.

Being touted as free-to-play, the game's in-app purchase system
hadn't been finalised when I saw it. But the mechanics to implement
faster progression and greater access to the game by playing real
money was firmly in place.

The game is releasing early next year, and complements a general
broadening of the Beast Quest offering with this month's
Beast
Quest magazine and even talk of a movie being a
possibility.

Andy Robertson is a freelance family gaming expert and runs
Family Gamer
TV.