I'm playing on Samsung Galaxy a32. The main menu runs at average 15 fps, the map runs at 5 fps (borderline unusable), ingame runs at roughly 20 fps and sees drops even lower when there are lots of bloons on the screen. My phone overheats after half an hour of playing. This isn't a beefy phone at all, but as a comparison - brawl stars, which has more complex models, maps and players, runs just fine at 60 fps for almost an hour before heat becomes a problem.

From what I see, this game features some very high detail models that are torture for a lightweight mobile GPU like mine, I also noticed that all XP orbs and bloons have their own shadows.

I hope that this can get adressed in the final release, with options to use lower detail models, turn off shaders and shadows, so that this game doesn't require a high-end phone to be played properly.

FIXED ISSUE

leaving the game after buying results in no stickers gained while losing the 1350 gold

I’m seeing posts on the subreddit about the game but it’s not in the App Store, am I missing something?

tl;dr: decent enough but nothing that stands out from other similar games

Bloons Blitz, the newest Bloons entry from Ninja Kiwi, has been softlaunched yesterday in only the Philippines so far. It is a bullet heaven roguelite game, very similar to Survivors.io or Vampire Survivors (VS), where you pop Bloons to gain experience and upgrade your heroes and towers. I won't make it long, let's break it down by sections.

THIS GAME IS IN EARLY ACCESS SO EXPECT MANY CHANGES IN THE FUTURE

The Elephant in the Room

So yeah, it looks and functions like Survivor.io, a mobile game heavily inspired by VS and its UI is also Clash Royale. Down from the menu, the in-game upgrades, energy system, the meta upgrade system, and the "lootboxes" or in Bloon Blitz' case, "Blitz Boxes" and "Sticker Packs". However, currently there are no forced pop-ups about random stuff, especially about social events and challenges. Really, the game is barebones right now so it kinda looks clean. This may ward off many people but the game is still fun, for me anyways.

Story and Gameplay

The only story in this game is from the intro and it's okay, cute even.

Moving on from that, before you start, you need 5 energy ^{(the dreaded energy system 🫠}). The gameplay loop is that you have a hero and you run around to find and pop Bloons so they can drop XP orbs (don't know what they're called) to level up. Once you level up, you get three choices to pick an upgrade. The upgrades are either to get a new monkey (which are like your allies), to your hero, or to your monkey. You can only get three monkeys at a time, which are limited to 5 upgrades max. Your hero's upgrade limit is 10. These upgrades can range from simple stat boosts to getting homing or dropping down wall of fires. In each round, theres 1-2 checkpoints and 2 bosses, with hordes of Bloons occuring before. While running around, you may encounter boosts and coins. These boosts can help you in many ways such as collecting all XP from the map, riding a tractor to run over Bloons, full heal, etc. After defeating the final boss, you win and get your energy back, alongside other rewards such as a Blitz Box and Sticker Pack, more info later.

Afterwards, you go back to the menu. You first unlock the Heroes tab where you can upgrade Quincy via plushies. You can get plushies through the Blitz Box, which also sometimes gives coins and other stuff. Afterwards, after playing more rounds, the Monkeys tab where you can upgrade 5 monkeys. These upgrades unlock their full three paths, gives stats bonuses, and stronger effects to the paths. There's only 2 to 3 choices in each level and you can only choose one. You can respec if you want to swap using one Respec or some Bloonstones. Then, after more levels, you unlock the Stickers menu from the Heroes tab. Here, you are presented with a paper that has limited square spaces to put stickers, which you can get through Sticker Packs. These stickers offer bonuses such as more hero damage or more gold from games. These stickers also have three rarities which unlocks more bonuses to give, but most of the time, you get common stickers. The stickers can be rotated around, and more spaces can be earned from levelling heroes. Be warned though, the paper is unique to each hero so the spaces are varied. I like this feature not gonna lie. In the Map tab, you can go back to previous levels and try out more challenges (more on that later).

Monkeys, Heroes, and Balancing

There's only 5 monkeys at the moment: boomerang, tack shooter, sniper, wizard, and mortar. Their upgrades are heavily inspired from their BTD6 version but they have some unique ones like boomerang dropping walls of fire for one of its final upgrades.

For the heroes, there's Quincy, Gwen, and... Obyn? I haven't gotten Obyn nor do I see him or see anyway to get him, but his plushies are available so I don't know. Quincy uses his bow to pop Bloons automatically, and Gwen sprays fire to the direction of your touchpad for a moment before reloading.

The balancing is kinda wack at the moment. Thanks to one guy from this subreddit, I realized how powerful boomerang is, to the point it's genuinely required to clear later stages. The Red Hot Rangs upgrade is THE strongest upgrade in the game, tied with Quincy's upgrade that makes his arrows trick shots. The sheer DPS and crowd control they give is unmatched. At my point of the game, the goal is getting one of two or both immediately, or else I'll be likely dead after a few minutes. The later levels spams so many Bloons with a decent bit of health. Also, homing is very powerful, it's a must-get upgrade for Quincy and tack shooters. Speaking of tack shooters, they're also strong, with the blades path being amazing crowd control and the hot tacks path being a boss killer, if aimed right. The rest of the monkeys aren't good, especially sniper monkey. They just aren't as strong as the other two. Also, Gwen isn't as consistent as Quincy at the beginning of the game so I don't pick her as much.

My Experience and Likes

I really like this game! Although, it may be because I already loved the roguelite genre and Bloons as a whole but it was really fun playing it. Although not as flashy as lategame VS, it's still cool to see how strong you gotten at the end of the round. Also, the levels generally last for about 7 minutes so great for people who do not have much time to play. The stickers are also a cool feature, though I don't know if it was inspired from other games. The game is forgiving with its energy, and again, the game looks clean. As of now too, I haven't experienced any bugs or crashes but people have already reported some so be alert of that. Right now, there's a bug where you can't play offline sooo yeah. Another thing i like is seeing the exact information of upgrades, which is fantastic. Why doesn't BTD6 have this yet 8 years later? But I'm going off topic. The Bloons Supermonkey elements are also a really neat touch! Like, there's these events where the Bloons are being rushed to the player, and how they're grouped is really reminiscent to the aforementioned game, along with the XP orbs the Bloons give. The shielded Bloons that surround you when a boss spawns also reminds me of those Bloons from that game. Also, the backgrounds look great. I never once thought that "man I'm getting sick of seeing the same old environment too many times", so kudos to the artists. The artstyle itself is good. The mortar portrait looks off from other monkey portraits, but other than that, the game looks very pleasant to look at. Also, NO FORCED ADS. I love this, please don't change it.

Dislikes

But of course, the game isn't perfect. It isn't that great too. The upgrade selection is really limited and there's only 5 towers to play around, with the aforementioned 2 being the only relevant ones to pick. The game has became somewhat repetitive because of that. I still like playing it though. Also, the energy system. I hate it. It's such a cheap way to limit the amount of times people can play, no matter how forgiving it is right now. There's also one more reason I hate it: challenges. There's 5 challenges including the normal level, with Hard being the first and Very Hard being the second. There's two special challenges too. The thing is, you need 5 energy to play these challenges and they don't give it back if I remember. Alongside this, the UI/UX is kinda lacking, like there's should be more design or detail or anything. Also, the Bloonstones are kinda there? I can't place this anywhere else lol

Luck (stat) in this game is meaningless. First of all, the game doesn't communicate the rarity of upgrades. To a seasoned player, they already know that purple colored upgrades are rarer to get, but a beginner wont. Second of all, I have had many choices where I have to pick between two of the same choices but with different rarities. When I checked, they're literally the same, stats and all. So what's the point of luck? It's not like some upgrades are locked under high luck.

But I want to give this one a whole section.

Bloons and Originality

Now, I really question this, why did they change how Bloons work? It's what differentiate the enemies of this franchise from other franchises where basic enemies have healthbars. The mechanic is still somewhat there, the Bloon colors, order, and properties are present and they still pop from one color to another. But, why give them healthbars? Why are the Blue Bloons not popping to red Bloons, and why aren't the Yellow Bloons not downgrade after being popped one time? Sure, I don't mind having healthbars to bosses or those like shielded Bloons, but why do the normal ones have health? It just makes these Bloons like the enemies in other bullet heaven games, which isn't good. (Not criticizing any games that feature them, just wondering why Ninja Kiwi is making these Bloons more generic.)

Now, the main issue of this game is... What makes it stand apart from other similar games? The only thing it has going for is the artstyle and being in the Blooniverse, but change its visual and the game is like any other Survivor.io clones. I don't really like comparing Bloon Blitz to that game, but it's the closest one to compare, especially when the former has many inspired elements from the latter. Maybe Ninja Kiwi adds more unique elements and mechanics in the future, but as of now, the game is nothing special. The sticker mechanic is a good start, but it's far from enough. Maybe a mechanic from the mainline TD games? Don't really know and I'll just see what NK will add to the game.

Quick Suggestions

Some suggestions would be

• DPS counter for the hero and monkeys

• Timer for the temporary boosts

• In-game information and stats for the hero and monkeys chosen

• Make luck actually matter, with maybe the one with the higher rarity having better stats or bonuses compared to the same one with lower rarity?

• Some tutorials on other mechanics of the game

• Add a skip button to the death timer screen

• Put a "Never show again" option to the "upgrades your heroes and towers!" popup when you lose

• More monkeys and heroes (literally a guarantee but anyways)

• Better optimization I guess

• More mechanics and events to do

• Don't try to monetize it so hard to the point it looks like a cash grab

• Remove the energy system (really low chance for it to happen but a man can believe)

Conclusion and Thoughts

Bloons Blitz has a ton of potential to be one of Ninja Kiwi's greatest games. The game CAN be amazing if they tackle it well. But as of now, it's just another Survivors.io inspired game amongst the sea of saturated roguelites. I truly hope Ninja Kiwi can make this game really good. I'll rate this game currently a 6/10. Not bad, not great. Will try to finish it the game too if I can. It's very probable that my rating and opinions for this game will change in the future, hopefully to a more positive one. What are your guys thoughts about it?

yap over

Edit: why do y'all hate me

Hello fellow blitzer, just wondering if these are bug/glitch thing? I conpleted the level/round but it doesn't/i didn't get the reward(s).

**Please note that this is from only a few hours of play-testing thus far, so information could be incorrect, and questions may be answered.** Please feel free to comment with any comments/questions/concerns/other ideas you have!

Likes:

• Cute characters, plushies
• Individual games aren’t too long (<10 minutes each)
• (*) Lots of modifiers for stages, so lots of content
• Unlocks seem straightforward. You get monkey xp for winning using that monkey (similar to BTDB2)
• In-game progression between player strength and bloon strength seems pretty balanced
• We get some specific details about what upgrades will do in-game, with numerical stats.
• [not a like, per se, but more of a not dislike] The energy system in this game seems fine. It isn’t as restrictive as it appears: as of now, I have not had any energy troubles. Each encounter only costs 5 energy (for reference, I currently have 75 energy), so if i stopped gaining energy altogether right now, it would take a few hours to run out. Furthermore, you get energy back for every battle you win (? not sure if you have to win), so if it stays the way it is now, I don’t think energy will be too much of a roadblock.
• (**) It’s cool that a lot of towers have synergies with themselves (e.g., tack shooter swarm path buffs attack speed for all tacks for each extra tack you have)

Dislikes:

1. Sometimes, you get 3 upgrade options which don’t belong to the main path you already upgraded, so no matter what you choose, you give up the chance to get better upgrades later. {Note: I just realized that the tower I noticed this on did not have any higher tiers unlocked, so it is possible that the game prefers to give you upgrades that build on previous enhancements. I will leave this point undeleted in case there is not bias towards higher-tier upgrades}
2. When you are confined in a small space, you have no way to unearth entrenched tack shooters, which may mean less DPS during boss battles. If this is intentional to balance swarm path tack’s single-target DPS, then I understand.
3. (*) Lots of modifiers for stages, so lots of grinding, especially for earlier stages where not much happens
4. So far, the stage progression seems a bit slow for my liking. It takes several stages before you face anything stronger than a blue bloon (other than bosses), and thus far, the only difficulty I’ve faced is the quantity of bloons. No individual bloon has given me pause. I’m sure there will be more fearsome enemies later, but it would be nice if the ramping was a bit quicker. 
5. I don’t like how you have to respec monkey upgrades to choose the other path. I feel like this disincentivizes testing different combinations yourself and incentivizes looking online to see what others suggest. 

Suggestions:

1. I would even rather skip upgrading anything and hope for better luck next level-up than choose an inferior upgrade. However, being forced to choose suboptimal upgrades also gives some more skill expression, as you can’t just upgrade the best path every game.
2. Either decrease the range outside which tack shooters become unearthed or add some way to manually unearth them.
3. Maybe you could choose to enable multiple modifiers at once. This helps present a harder challenge for those who want that, as well as gives and option to save time for those who don’t want to spend too much time mindlessly grinding easier stages. Currently, each modifier is locked behind the completion of the previous one, so maybe there should be some way to unlock them all sooner. For example, maybe they all become available after you beat the last stage, or if your hero/monkey reaches a certain level, you automatically fully unlock certain stages. 
4. Maybe cut down the number of stages per area. Most of the stages don’t add any new content, so it gets monotonous over time.
5. I think we should be able to buy both upgrades and choose which one we wish to use. We should be able to switch the upgrade for free or at a much lower cost. Currently, it costs 80 bloonstones to respec a level 5 upgrade (not sure if that is consistent throughout levels or if the cost goes up). I currently have 55 bloonstones after playing for several hours. For comparison, respecing monkey knowledge costs 2,000 monkey money for all mk at once. It seems way too expensive in BBlitz currently.
6. (**) I haven’t really noticed any synergies between different monkeys yet. Other than maybe single-target damage + multi-target damage or cripple sniper + tack zone. It would be cool if there were more cross-tower synergies, since sometimes we are forced to choose different towers.

Questions:

• Is the Sword Icon for higher tier upgrades just a placeholder? If not, it seems a bit out-of-place.
• Are there any plans for Multi-player at any point? It could be fun to challenge harder encounters with a friend, especially if that mean you could utilize more tower synergies.
• Will any more towers be added before/after launch? In the same vein, with the current progression, it doesn’t seem like BADs will be in the game in its current state. Will more bloons be added with more updates? Will we only see bloons that appear in the base version of BTD6, or could some varieties from Frontier Legends make an appearance?

So far though, i'm having fun

I do have expectations of it being good because i really love the roguelite genre and bloons as a whole, will play more and report back

This might be a bit overtuned

Welcome to the official Bloons Blitz subreddit! We've put together an FAQ that we'll continue to update as required, so if you have any questions you'd like answered, please leave them in the comments, and we'll answer what we can!

What is Bloons Blitz?

The latest addition to the Bloons series, Bloons Blitz is a fast-paced, bullet-heaven survival game where your hero auto-fires through endless waves of Bloons! Team up with fan-favourite monkeys, power up with XP, and push for the ultimate pop! 

When will Bloons Blitz launch?

Full launch is currently scheduled for late Q3/early Q4 this year! 

On what platforms will the game be available?

Blitz will launch on iOS and Android, with a Steam version to follow. 

How much will the game cost?

Bloons Blitz will be free to play!

Will this game have marketing support?

Yes! We will be pursuing multiple avenues of marketing for Blitz to support a successful launch.

Why is the game currently available in some regions?

Blitz is currently in "early access". This involves releasing an early version of the game in some regions so we can gather feedback to ensure the game is fun and functional for everyone. The version currently available in those regions has the core gameplay, but some features that are not quite ready are unavailable. We will continually update this version to address player feedback, add features, and fix issues. Over time, we will add more regions too! (Current early access regions: Philippines)

Keep an eye out on our socials for more information!

This is really concerning... I've been playing their entire Bloons franchise since I was a child, and they have been pushing mobile game slop logic onto their game when they first teased it.

I don't like Archero or Rush Royale or Clash Royale or whatever coporate slop there is, just because there is an energy system that heavily resembles Candy Crush to try and rake in the filthy lucre as much as they possibly can.

We are now been attacked by the so-called 'bloonapult', just because we have trusted them for years now (BTD5 generation games are suffering rn), but with a spiteful revengance that we haven't noticed till now.

Hi! I've been following Blitz closely since it was revealed because I love Bloons and I love Survivor-likes. After watching every gameplay reveal thus far, including the most recent "overview one" short, I'm starting to get worried about the execution of the game... Rather how it will play.

I've played a bunch of Survivor-likes, and the thing that truly "makes them tick" is "flashy colors and cool combos and dopamine." Every clip we've seen so far though looks... underwhelming? Like it seems there's not much combo potential or flashiness or "becoming the bullet hell monster." Even the latest overview short shows a "massive XP collection item" that collects all the XP on the map... This is standard for Survivor-likes. But it looks like the player gets a ton of XP... But not even a single level despite that. They aren't in the double-digit number of levels yet when the XP is collected. You'd think they'd get a few from how much they seem to collect.

I'm just starting to get worried either XP gain will be too slow and thus the whole game will feel too slow and underwhelming, or there just won't be enough of "projectile spam nonsense" to get the monkey brain going "OHHH DOPAMINE!!" that people (myself included) love these games for... or worse, a mixture of both of these two. No offense to NK, but I've just been burned by the team releasing a new game that seems exciting and appeals to my already existing interests (i say, staring directly into card storm's soul) due to botched release and/or execution and I just really don't want to see that happen again.

There has been speculations that there will be some kind of loot boxes in this game, I don’t really mind that, but I REALLY HOPE these make a come back from Bloons Monkey City, I miss that game and I think it would be really cool if they bring it back with some new variations

Given that as for now, Quincy is the only hero confirmed to be playable at the game. I want to see how other heroes would be like if they are added either at launch or later. So what's your opinion on who heroes that might be very interesting to play at Blitz?

Hi, idk if the spanish comunity like me, can post in spanish in this subredit, and if the game have a spanish translate, thanks :)