Winions: Mana Champions

Some games first appear on the mobile platform and garner so much popularity due to their graphics or the gameplay experience they offer that the developers eventually decide on publishing in on bigger gaming platforms. Such would be the case of Winions: Mana Champions, a neat hybrid between an action game, a tower defense title and a collectible card game which is all bundled up in cute cartoonish graphics.

You control a singular hero that can eventually summon minions from an extremely diverse roster, from giant spiders to elementals, werewolves, elves, undead and more.  The goal of a match is to make your hero run through the entire map and eventually reach and destroy your enemy's guardian while making it out alive.

If you're on the receiving end of an attacks, that is where the tower defense aspect of the game kicks in. The runway your opponent will come through doesn't have to be left unguarded, and that is when you can make great use of strategically placed walls and towers to twart their efforts and defend your loot. The walls will stall them long enough for your ranged units and towers to finish them off, and the type of towers included in the game is quite large., from hard-hitting AoE cannon towers, to fast hitting archer towers.

The units your hero can summon are all part of a card system and their roster can be further expanded by winning matches and evolving the ones you already have. Each card summons a different unit with various stats and bonuses, but you cannot spam them since they are immediately put on cooldown once used, so careful management is needed.

The story may not be epic, and combat may seem a bit passive at times, but Winions: Mana Champions is fun nonetheless, especially when your screen is filled with tens of minions fighting over dominance, and the person with the bigger horde wins.