Review

‘Fleet Battle’ is a digital version of the classic game 'Battleships'. Players must locate enemy ships before their own ships are discovered, using a simple tap motion on the grid. A ‘hit’ is shown in red, and a ‘miss’ in white, similar to the original rules of Battleships. The game can be played against the iPad, or against a friend using the multiplayer setting. When playing against the iPad, the user has the option to alter the difficulty level, depending on ability. Additional customisable options include the player’s name, ship flag and different naval titles as they progress through the game. In-App Purchases are available to remove the adverts, and it may be beneficial to do so; however, these adverts are not visible during gameplay and therefore we do not think they are too disruptive.  

An issue identified with all of the ‘Battleships’ apps in our analysis is when choosing where to place ships, a ‘drag and drop’ motion is usually required. However, this issue can be avoided in this app by using the ‘auto placement’ button, in which the computer arranges the ships for the player, if preferred. Unfortunately, the background in ‘Fleet Battle’ is dark, and unchangeable, but it is clear, not distracting and ‘hits’ are well contrasted in red (as shown in image). Further to this, the app also informs the user which ships they have left to find and how many squares these are made up of.

Due to the potentially confusing nature of the game, we would recommend that users have some prior knowledge of the rules, as hints are not available throughout the game. 

Tip: In-App Purchases do require a password before completion, but they can be completely restricted on your device, if preferred. For information on how to do this for the Apple iPad, read our step-by-step guide. For information on how to do this for the Android tablet, click here.

Recommended Settings

Settings can be accessed via the ‘wheel’ icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. We recommend the following (in bold):

• Voice Over (On/Off or user preference)

• Sounds (On/Off or user preference)

• Music (On/Off, or user preference)

• Labelled Grid (On/Off, or user preference)

• Graphic Settings (3D/2D)

• Screen Orientation (Landscape/ Portrait, or user preference)

• Chat (On/Off)

• Language (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese)

• Enemy Turn Indicator (On/Off, or user preference)

• Fast Results Screen (On/Off)

To begin a new game, tap ‘Start Game’ from the launch screen. Further settings are available here on sequential screens, and we recommend (in bold):

• Gameplay (Single Player/Online Multiplayer/Local Multiplayer) (Note: Local Multiplayer should be selected for a ‘pass and play’ type game.)

• Difficulty Level (Easy/Normal/Difficult, or user preference)

• Shotrule (One shot/ Hitting Streak/ Chainfire)

• Ship Placement (Auto Placement/Manual - drag & drop)

• Tap Start Battle