Pirate Pikmin meets battle royale

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I don’t want to speak too soon, but Floodrush may have found the formula to make battle royale feel truly at home on mobile devices. I’ve enjoyed my time with this strangely addictive little battler, which sees me rushing around a rapidly sinking island to gather resources, build an army of rubbery sea creatures, and run everyone else out of town.

The key is that my army pretty much handles itself: shotgun-toting squid fire their blunderbusses at approaching threats, while my big tanky turtles form walls to protect me from other players’ attacks. All I’ve got to do is let them know when I want them to focus on something specific, while I dash around opening chests and picking up blobs that allow me to call down reinforcements.

While Floodrush feels deceptively simple, there’s more depth to it than meets the eye. Each match only lasts a few minutes, so my early decisions matter a lot: Do I head inland right away to try to snap up the treasure chests scattered around the central arena, or do I stay close to the shoreline and farm resources from the native wildlife? Which creature do I want to pick as my initial card, knowing that it's risky to have to save up to call in something big, like a bearshark? Positioning and timing matter a lot—I’ve found that by paying careful attention, I can third-party one-on-one battles that break out between other players and take out two birds with one stone.

As usual, there are the free-to-play hooks here that offer bonuses for logins and daily quests, but so far these haven’t been intrusive. Exploring islands along the rewards track can be instantly completed by spending premium currency, but I’m generally content to put the game aside while the real-world timer ticks down. Even if I want to keep playing, these explorations don’t keep me from being able to jump into another match, so as I said, the paywalls have not yet prevented me from enjoying the game.

Floodrush is a game I can see myself sticking with for quite a while: more features are planned, and the average session is short enough that I don’t need to set aside time to play. It’s a brightly-colored, action-packed little break that I can pull up any time.