Are you struggling to find some high quality entertainment in life along with the promise of some awesome Sci-fi gameplay? A brand new turn based strategy gaming experience has arrived to the screen of your smartphone! Galaxy of Pen and Paper brings all this and more to the palm of your hand. The game has been developed by the studio of Behold Studios Jogos Electronicos LTDA ME games and offers pretty much everything that a fan of strategy and tactical gaming could dream of. Galaxy of Pen and Paper is available to download and play for $4.99 on iOS devices from the Apple iTunes App Store.
The game delivers decent graphics with an engaging gameplay experience in a very reasonable size of only 626 MB. Galaxy of Pen and Paper is also highly rated on the App Store since its release which just goes to show the rapid increase in its popularity in the gaming category. The game also contains adaptive music which changes rhythm when creatures appear or when you are out of health and this effect will definitely make you skip a heartbeat during the later levels when suspense is high and monsters everywhere. The game receives regular love from the developers and they pay close attention to the suggestions and criticism from players striving to always maintain and increase the standard of this game. The most recent version of Galaxy of Pen and Paper is version 1.0.2 and was updated on 02 August 2017.
Galaxy of Pen and Paper is basically a turn based move strategy game which involves players in a battlefield themed board set in the far future and in various galaxies. The board is the same for each level and the only difference is the arrangement of your enemies and the background. As the game is based upon the story of a Galaxy Master, the game employs you as two different rogue characters for hire who embark on missions and collect bounties by defeating monsters and aliens all over the universe. To get you further integrated into the story of the Galactic Invasions, the game operates on an exploration strategy based method. This means that you will have to crawl your way out of many stages, battling monsters and defeating bosses along the way until you can reach the end prize which will be your salvation.
Galaxy of Pen and Paper is not a game to be taken lightly. Since the very first level, you are thrown into the midst of formidable enemies and entrapping obstacles. Even if you do manage to clear the first few levels using the free boosts and abilities provided to you during the explanatory tutorials, it will be very difficult for you to progress much further without any extra help. The Galactic Master has favored you in this situation as this guide contains the necessary tips that you need to know while playing the game. Follow these with a staunch heart and passionate mind to rise above the perils of the dark planets and become the Ultimate Galaxy Invader.
1. Making Solid Decisions
Galaxy of Pen and Paper is a game that is all about strategy and tactical planning to always stay one step ahead of the enemy. As this is a turn-based game, any move that you make will have consequences on the entire game that executes afterwards as a result. You also have to keep in mind that while you are making a move, the enemy is also simultaneously moving its pieces on the battlefield. Think of it as a game of chess. If you make one wrong move, you cannot go back and you are left only with regret and sorrow.
When you start the game, there are three different types of customizations for the two characters that you will be controlling in the game. These three are in addition divided into more categories which effectively grant you a large range of options to choose from when first building your two characters to fight and invade different galaxies. It is very important to note here that you should take care while customizing your characters rather than randomizing them on a whim as Galaxy of Pen and Paper does not offer any option to change the skills, attributes or race of your two characters later on.
The first customization panel offers a range of options to choose the behavior and personality of your character that you have selected. You can choose from Aggressive, Protective, Team worker and so on which basically defines the kind of dialogues and decisions that the game will generate for your chosen character. For example if you choose the aggressive personality, the game will almost always generate brutal dialogues and hasty decisions which end up in fights with enemy monsters or even your allies. You can choose this personality if you want the game to move at a faster pace and are more interested in destruction and mayhem than some quality role playing strategy. Similarly, if you choose the team worker personality which says “I brought a bag of chips for everyone”, you should prepare yourself for some humorous dialogues and strategic exchanges on the missions to come. The team worker characters are very jolly and great fun to play especially if you are more into the story building aspect of the game rather than mindlessly grinding enemies and aliens underneath swords and axes.
The second customization panel gives you the option to choose the race for your character from Humans, Greens and Simians. As is obvious the Human race is very balanced and has all round abilities that players of all types will find comfortable to play with. You should pick the human race for at least one of your two characters because of the adaptability that this race brings to the table and you will be able to handle a wide variety of situations with a human race character on your two man galaxy invaders team. Galaxy of Pen and Paper is a game that encourages as much variation as possible so it is very advisable to pick a different race for each of your two characters. Therefore if you have already created your first character as a human, it is preferable that you go towards a Simian or Green for your second one. The Greens are highly advanced alien life forms and offer much more firepower as well as survivability for your character. They are harder to control though so you might think around this race if it is your first time playing such a game. You should choose a Green for one of your characters when you have a human as the second character because they complement each other’s abilities quite well and you will end up with all sorts of ability variation possibilities at your disposal if you go for this combination in your galaxy invader team of two. The third race available to you is the Simian race and this is a sort of hybrid civilization between the Humans and the Greens. This entails that they do not have completely different abilities but a mixture of the two races and therefore are a good pick to go with any of the two races for your first or second character. They are quite tough and have high health which makes them much harder to kill in battle and this in turn means that you can worm your way out of almost any skirmish small or huge if you have a Simian character on your galaxy invaders team.
The third customization option offered to you by Galaxy of Pen and Paper is the skills option which dictates the abilities that your chosen characters will possess when you use them to fight battles with enemy aliens on any stage. Be very careful on choosing the skills for your characters as these cannot be changed later on and if you end up choosing the same skill for both you will find yourself in deep trouble at the higher levels when you will not be able to utilize any of the powerful combo plays that a varied skill build offers in the game. You can choose from a wide variety each with its own usefulness in battle. These range from the basic fighting build “Trooper” to a highly intelligent and problem solving “Engineer”. You can also find the ‘Miner” and “Medic” if you are more into a passive style of gameplay and prefer waiting out for the enemy to tire instead of dealing huge amounts of damage in bursts. In the end, the choice entirely depends upon your style of gameplay but remember to choose wisely as you will regret your decisions if you do not pay attention during this extremely important phase of the game in the beginning.
Galaxy of Pen and Paper is very unforgiving in the sense that if you do make the wrong move and end up getting trapped, then it is most likely game over for you. Also, because you control only one main character on the board at a time, there is no alternative option left for you but to battle it out against nerve racking odds. Therefore, it is advised to take your time and calculate the apparent movement of your enemy before making a move. A hasty decision will lead you to nowhere but regret so avoid acting on a whim and trust your instinct to make the best move to counteract your enemy at all times.
2. Battling With Precision
The strategic and RPG elements of Galaxy of Pen and Paper allow you to play with danger and entertainment all at the same time. Despite being a fiendishly difficult game, especially for beginners in this genre, Galaxy of Pen and Paper does give you some reprieve by allowing a wide weapon and abilities array to be at your disposal during the levels. There are some main abilities of the two different characters that the game allows you to use and each can be used only once while performing a move, so think wisely before trying out a random ability based on chance alone.
The Multi Kill split shot is one of the best abilities on the game which you can obtain if you chose a Green with Fighter Skill and Aggressive Personality trait during the character selection phase in the beginning of the game. However, the power of this ability comes with a price as it takes quite a long time to recharge and cannot be used successively. If you have not added upgrade points into this ability, it will take at least 3 turns to come back online and this will cause your fighters to take a lot of damage in the meanwhile. Therefore, it is always advisable to start off with basic attacks on the enemies and when you are left with a single lane, you can use the multi kill split shot to finish them all in one go.
Another great skill which can turn the tide of battle if used at the correct time is the healing bonus provided if you chose a Simian or Human character with the Medic ability and a team worker personality trait. Again, this ability should be used only when one or both of the characters are more than half their health for maximum effect. If used correctly, the heal bonus can completely upset the odds of the battle and ensure a definite win for your team of galaxy invaders. Similarly, if you have an engineer character on the team, you can play a bit differently by enabling damage reduction for the enemies on the opposing side. This can act as a huge engagement play making ability when you do not have a high amount of damage output on your side of the team and are looking to tire down the enemy aliens rather than meeting them head on.
The “Crippling Dagger” is a well balanced defensive as well as offensive target ability found on the characters which have the Simian race, aggressive personality trait and trooper skill build. Not only does the move protect you from enemy attacks, it also allows you to push them away in the direction you are facing, away from you. The defensive importance of this ability comes into play when you are backed into a corner without any escape plan on your hands. A simple touch of the screen will help clear the enemies standing in your path and you can move out during your next turn. For use of its aggressive nature, you need to activate this when an enemy is in-line with a lava pit or spiked wall. The dagger will ram your targeted enemy, pushing it to its destruction.
The “Missile Barrage Ability” is the best offensive weapon you have in Galaxy of Pen and Paper. You are alone on the battlefield without the second character of your team for backup. In such times of peril, the “Missile Barrage” comes into play as a trusty extension of your Human Demolition man with the aggressive personality trait. Operating it is simple but learning the timing to activate it is a necessary task. Whenever an enemy is in line of your “Missile Barrage” and there is a lava pit or spiked wall behind you, you can activate the ability to demolish that enemy into the fire or spikes. Always remember to time your missile barrage correctly so that it lands on the enemy. If you miss, this ability has a long cool down time and it will lead to much frustration on your part.
Did you trap yourself between an alien and a monster? No need to get scared and frustrated. An easy way to get out of such situations is to use the simple option of leaving the battle that the game has granted you. The “Jump” button alternates between “Jump” mode and “Stun Leap” mode with the latter being much more useful. When trapped between two high level enemies, the best option is to escape first and then use your new vantage point to strike at them again. Using “Stun Leap” will disable the enemy (if there is one) at the location that you land. This disable effect buys you some more time to think about your next move. The “Jump” button does exactly what it says and allows you to jump to a specific new location depending upon the availability of free tiles on the game board. Use these escape abilities wisely and you will never be trapped in any galaxy again!
3. Achievements and Upgrades
Galaxy of Pen and Paper brings with it a truck load of achievements for you to track your progress and motivate you towards higher goals as you continue playing the game. Not only do these achievements serve as milestones for you to brag about to your friends and family, they have in-game benefits as well. When you complete a certain set of achievements you will be able to claim rewards against that achievements and you can track how much you have progressed with the other achievements in the progress menu. It is important that you do not lose track of your main gameplay strategy while chasing after these achievements because then you will not be able to create a balanced style of play. Just go with the flow and keep a track of your progress because it will be very hard for you to gain many of the achievements at earlier levels and you will lose valuable time and effort trying to achieve these unnecessary milestones. You should also focus on gaining coins through normal paths and save the claiming of achievements for when you are in real need of an influx into your balance. Claiming all the saved achievements at once will help make sure that you have a lot of coins available and this could possibly make a difference for defeating the enemy bosses or clearing a particularly difficult mission.
Another interesting feature given by Galaxy of Pen and Paper is the ability to customize the Galactic Master that is an essential part of your game and this truly gives you a personalized feeling while playing the game. The initial customization might fool you into thinking that the developers have not really put too much thought into appearances but this is not the case. As you move to the higher levels and gain access to more coins you will be able to craft customization items of your own liking from a wide selection available to you. At this point you can have different outfits, wearable items and even weapons for every member of your galaxy invader family. If you are still not satisfied with the quality of in game customization available to you for free the developers have given the option for you to purchase customization packs using real money through your iTunes balance. These packs include a variety of additional accessories and community made items for the characters and Galactic Master.
4. Repeating Levels and Spending Cash
Galaxy of Pen and Paper is a strategy style exploration based game so there is no restriction on how many times you can repeat a level and you can abuse this feature to always get ahead of the difficulty curve in the game. The main problem which most players face is the lack of coins available to upgrade their characters in order to tackle a hard level that they just unlocked and purchased or for the purchase of a better looking background. By repeating certain levels which guarantee an easy accumulation of coins you can avoid being stuck in a loop for all the time that you will be playing the game.
Repeating levels also has the added benefit of making you familiar with almost all the obstacles and dangers that you are likely to face during that particular level. You will also get a very fair idea of which combos to use against the enemies that you are facing on a particular level and you can synergize the abilities of your two characters much better when you know what skills your enemies are weak against. Therefore with enough practice you can easily predict which skills the enemies will be using on a particular level and using this information, you can easily counteract with combos and moves of your own galaxy invader characters.
Galaxy of Pen and Paper is similar to the thousands of other strategy role play and exploration based games in the market but this game makes you work hard for a relatively low amount of reward. This means that you will have to be extra careful while spending cash in the game if you want to achieve any significant progress. This is actually the main reason why many new players give up or fail to progress beyond a certain level while in the galactic career mode. They spend tons of cash on needless updates whenever a prompt to do so is shown by the game and as a result they do not have enough cash left for the purchase of a much better character ability upgrade or unlocking other cool features in the game.
An easy way to avoid falling into this trap is to collect as much cash as you can without spending any except when you absolutely need to. You will face such a situation only when the difficulty level listed besides the appropriate stage reaches to “impossible”. When this difficulty level is reached the game does not allow you to begin the stage unless you have performed some of the required upgrades to make your character strong in accordance with the stage requirements. All other difficulty levels can be cleared without performing upgrades to your commands and interface. Following this strategy saves you around 20 to 25 percent more cash. This may not seem like much but it really adds up to quite a lot and will result in you being able to purchase much better skill points and upgrades faster than you would have been able to had you been spending cash whenever the game prompted you to upgrade.
Another reason why you should hold on to cash is due to the relatively low value that you can obtain from spending it on upgrades whenever prompted by the game. Upgrades come at a small price but you only get a certain amount of visual appeal by using up your upgrade card or upgrading with cash. The only benefit of upgrading skills, your character strengths and interface is the ability to more efficiently manage the stage control around each level. If you are playing according to the tips and tricks that are mentioned in this guide to Galaxy of Pen and Paper, this benefit does not seem to matter anymore and you can save your hard earned cash for much worthier upgrades that will require a lot of investment when you reach the higher galaxies in Galaxy of Pen and Paper.