A free puzzle RPG about dogs and heroes

Hero Clash or Hero Clash: Save The Dog is a free puzzle-adventure mobile video game that has you saving a dog with your drawing skills alone in order to fight off a greater evil. Developed by Glaciers Game, this casual idle strategy game features classic RPG elements.

Unlike other idle games, however, Hero Clash is odd in that it advertises and lets you play a dog-saving drawing game first, but then suddenly introduces fantasy RPG gameplay that’s completely separate from the first one. The tutorial also keeps you locked out of most features for longer than it should.

A wild ride from the start

In Hero Clash, you first end up playing a drawing game where you must slowly draw a line on the screen to spawn a shield. This shield can be anchored to existing objects on the level and your goal is to protect the doggy ball from bees for 10 seconds. However, after this, your gameplay is suddenly switched to a typical role-playing game with a character collection mechanic.

This RPG side has all the usual idle RPG elements you’re familiar with—such as an auto-battle feature, automatic leveling and upgrades, and numerous levels to clear as you follow the story. It turns out that to get more characters and rewards, you’ll need to complete levels of the dog-saving minigame. The gameplay process mainly consists of just switching between these two features.

Unfortunately, the dissonance between the two is quite stark. They look and feel like two completely different and unrelated games in one app. Additionally, the tutorial tends to force you to click through the game and it takes a while before you can even start exploring the interface. There’s no explanation in the plot about why the gameplay is like this and even the title itself can be misleading.

Confusing to follow

All in all, while Hero Clash is playable, it’s not as enjoyable as you’d expect it to be. Not only are its advertised features misleading but the connection between the two game modes are left unexplained. There’s not much motivation to keep at it, especially since the tutorial tends to hold your hand far longer than necessary and its idle gameplay isn’t the most stimulating.