Parents' Guide to Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall

This licensed TV show spin-off was clearly inspired by other tactical strategy apps featuring familiar faces, most notably Fire Emblem Heroes. Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall features simple maps and basic combat that ought to prove easy to understand for anyone experienced with the genre. Movements, attacks, and ability selections require intuitive taps, and many missions are easy enough that there's no need to control the party manually, since autoplay will be sufficient to wipe out all enemies and still score three stars, earning all possible rewards. This can make the combat feel a little repetitive and even pointless at times, but certain missions require the player to take control in order to properly leverage special abilities -- such as Daenerys' fiery dragon attack -- or to strategically take out the strongest enemies first, or risk failure.

Players are likely to spend at least as much time back at the wall engaging in management and growth activities as they do in battle. Like many similar games, a big part of the Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall experience is collecting heroes and managing your roster, enhancing their armor and weapons, and acquiring special abilities. There are many ways to earn rewards for completing various tasks, or for simply logging on each day, week, and month, which is how players are meant to be drawn back to the game day after day. Whether this appeals will depend heavily on not just the player's affinity for the source material, but also on whether they mind the limitations placed on progression without spending money (or whether they're willing to spend money). Game of Thrones: Beyond the Walls isn't exploring any new territory, but patient tactical RPG (role-playing game) fans who watched the show and/or read the books are bound to have at least a little fun with it.