If you enjoy carefully building your squad of warriors in games like Darkest Dungeon or Monster Train, here’s a surprising recommendation: play Super automatic pet. The free auto battle game reminds me of those games more than games like Dota Auto Chess or Teamfight Tactics, which focus on building and arranging a squad whose abilities will compliment each other. And for something so cute and simple-sounding, it has an interesting amount of construction. Even F2P monetization is good!
Like other autoplayers, Super Auto Pets is a circle game where you build a team to battle opponents who are doing the same thing, aiming for 10 wins in a single run. without losing all his life. Between rounds, you can shop, buy new units, combine units of the same type to level up, buy boosters, and pay to buy new products on the store shelves. Then they go and fight as you watch. It’s a slot machine, you know?
In Super Auto Pets, the action takes place in 1D formations instead of the usual autoplayer board. This leads to a focus on positioning, just like Monster Train. The many abilities of your different animals are directional, affecting units before or after them, or in a certain position. Predicting the opponent’s formation can also be important; I often have a headache not knowing where to put the Scorpion with the one-hit-KO poison. Combinations and synergies can appear from your position and the same goes for the opposing team: teams simply make the number of units and the number of attacks large; the summoning team grows their army through a round; team is built when shopping; and built in conjunction with tomfoolery clocks evil.
For example, here’s a round I fought the day before with a daft combo that definitely looked like it lost most of the battle:
I will explain. At the start of the battle, their Mosquito skill deals 2 damage to a random unit, which will cause one of my hedgehogs to faint (the game uses this term, not dead). Next, their Crab’s skill copies the health of the unit in front of it, that Mosquito. Then it started to get silly. My Whale ability attacks, swallowing another Hedgehog. At this point, the settlement stack handles both Hedgehogs abilities at once: on fainting, deals 2 damage to all units. This erases their Monkey, and activates my Blowfish ability twice: in response to taking damage, deal 6 damage to a random enemy. Activate before the battle ends, the battle begins. My Elephant’s skill is that when it attacks, it will deal 1 damage to two allied units behind. So while their beefy Mosquito was still standing after trading with my Elephant, Elephant’s attack triggered my Blowfish again, and it randomly attacked the Mosquito to finish it off. it. Next, their Crab hits my Whale, which releases the Hedgehog that’s stuck in its belly. When the Crab knocks the Hedgehog out, 2 damage hits again, knocking down their Giraffes and Swans. Blowfish activates its saliva in response to damage. The two creatures kill each other at the same time, but my Blowfish has the Honey item on it, causing it to spawn 1/1 of a bee after fainting. I won the round. All it took was 20 seconds and my squad wasn’t even optimally aligned.
Plus, with asynchronous multiplayer and no turn timer, I can play at my own pace. The game even syncs progress between the PC and Android versions, so sometimes I start running on the computer at my desk then finish it with the phone on the sofa.
Balancing is a work in progress, mind. Some of the builds are obviously more powerful (though some will be nerfed in the next one) but I won with all the weirdness and jank. And yes, sometimes the RNG isn’t on your side in the stores; I suppose that’s just part of the genre. But overall, a great period for a surprising price.
Super Auto Pets is free to play on Windows and Linux via Steam, as well as in your browser via Itch.io and more on Android. Developers, Team Wood Games said iOS version is also coming soon.
If you want, you can pay a few coins to expand with new animals. The game is definitely good without the additions, mind, and I still often play the base version. And the players in the expansion can only play against each other, so they don’t get an advantage. You can also pay for some battle backgrounds, although they can also be earned. It is good.
Also, this is a great demonstration of using content packs to build games. Many of the animals and symbols are emoticons and assets from the free libraries, and it works, the game looks cute. Beautiful.
A big thank you to Youtuber and live streamer Northernlion, with whom I discovered SAP. Juice me, you slim.
