This was great! Your speech patterns work really well with the documentary style. Also, I’m sure the folks over at Teamwood appreciate the shoutout. I would love to see more videos in this style. Whether it be history of game genres, game strategies, or something else entirely. Great production.
As an avid MtG player, i appreciate the perfect way you explained my favorite format, and i certainly loved this video, since i am also a sucker for mini documentaries.
I don't know if this had been mentioned yet, but according to lead TFT designer Mortdog TFT is the largest/most popular strategy game in the world at the moment, not just within the autobatller space
people who are curious could really search about The Bazaar. a game coming out from Tempo games its a Draft autobattler with unique fight mechanics and a plethora of heroes who each have their own set!!
Great vid! I'm glad that you don't feel penned in to only making one specific series of content. I'd happily watch you play a bunch of different stuff or watch video essays like this.
As the other bazaar chads have mentioned, The Bazaar is looking to be pretty huge. It's got a huge team and a bunch of veterans behind it. It's a breath of fresh air.
Wow, this was fantastic. Your A to Z Super Auto Pets content is one of my favorite ongoing UA-cam series, but I've been on a video essays kick lately, too. This was a pleasant surprise for sure! I learned a lot and I enjoyed myself.
Dude THANK YOU for having a mini-doc that actually bothers looking into the origins of the thing, I've heard far too many recent mini-docs that attribute the originators of genres like MOBAs and Autobattlers, Social Deduction games and RTSs to the first big hit from that genre, not to the actual first games that explored the concepts or creators which helped popularize them within their own niche communities.
I definitely played some auto-battler flash games back in the day, which I loved to bits Not really surprised none of them made it into the video, I'm not sure how I'd dredge them up, and most of them looked like really simplistic takes on TFT - just some robots randomly dropped in an arena to fight, with general purpose upgrades you bought. Not much of the strategy associated with the genre today.
Our small studio is currently working on a new PVE auto battler. We're currently in the process of pitching the concept for funding and it's funny because the issues you point out are the same we use in our pitch. Auto battlers are super fun and there is more to explore in the genre, like accessibility and cooperation (pillars of our game). Hopefully in a year or two you'll be able to have fun with our game 🙂
@@Skoottie We sent you an email with more information about the project since we're still not ready to share everything with the public. Have you had the chance to look at it ? :)
As somebody that's been into strategy games since the 90's, it has been fascinating to see what has slipped in and out of popularity. If you told someone 20 years ago that a popular RTS hadnt been released in over a decade, they wouldn't have believed you. I like your point about the games being a little overwhelming to a newcomer. Magic DEFINITELY has that problem. I think a big part of why the game has died so much is WOTC basically abandoning the LGS model in favor of larger business and shifting to online sales. the game is much easier to get into when you're playing it socially with a group of friends. I think that extends to most strategy games. ask anybody how they got into LOL, and they almost always got into it with a group. That might be a big part of why RTS struggle nowadays. outside of the fact that companies have just flat out forgotten how to make them competently (no hotkeys or map editor on launch of age 4 was pretty telling...), they just dont make for good social games, since they require soooo much focus from the player to learn.
@@sintaxera It's crazy how poorly made they are now. companies really dont understand why people liked the genre. cough cough age 4... I keep buying them though lol. ive found a couple of indies recently that are honestly really good, if a bit of a different take on the genre. so not all hope is lost I guess
@@Stoildan age 2 is pretty much my go to lol. Hard to beat over 20 years of well made campaigns. Only thing i dont like about DE is the ranked map system, and their incessant need to fuck with Arabia's scripting. Like we played the classic version of this map for 18 years.. leave it the hell alone. But yea, DE is everything I ever wanted from Age 2. the destruction animations alone make it worth getting. The spectacle of watching castles crumble to the ground during a siege is exactly the kind of thing modern RTS should aspire to
I thought you did a great job of concisely explaining the topic. It was engaging and not overly long winded making it very watchable. I like that you were matter of fact and to the point without too many wisecracks or asides. Your narration was spot on and not for nothing your voice and pace of speech lend itself very well to such voice overs. Keep it up and I would love to see more content like this. It was very interesting.
As someone who is currently in the very early stages of making an autobattler due to my love of SAP, this was very informative. My goal is to have SAP level ease of entry, with more focus on strategy and less on rng
Super cool video and really interesting points! One other similarity i've noticed between mahjong and other autobattlers is the emphasis on making matches of 3 of a kind. In most autobattlers, u combine 3 of a kind to upgrade a unit, while in mahjong, u need multiple 3 of a kinds to have a winning hand.
You’ve been killing it lately! You’re going places my friend. I watch all of your videos, you smash everything! Loved this! Love your SAP! Love your Pokémon Inscription play through! Keep smashing it!
You should really watch out for the Bazaar! Amazingly good looking auto battler. Go check their UA-cam channel for some gameplay. It should be released later this year
this just makes me realize we need a pokemon auto battler. with the way evolutions work & hundreds of pokemon to build teams from, it seems like a no brainer.
one reason I think super auto pets is so easy to parse is because none of the text boxes are longer than like 15 words. also, with some of the other autobattlers you have to spend money on upgrading your shop, having it just upgrade automatically is another thing that makes it easier to approach. one more thing, your money disappears at the end of your turn! you don't have to think about saving up money over multiple turns. in addition to all this, super auto pets has these dual purpose mechanics that hide complexity from newer players - mostly all the pets that have a second use at the shop screen, like pilling ants and whatnot. but getting that extra higher tier unit when you level something up, or making a percentage of your money back on buy/sell/buy loops that you can use to buy something else, those are also things that use the basic mechanics of the game but you wouldn't realize on a first glance. it truly is "easy to learn, hard to master".
I guess it depends on how strict your definition of auto battler is, Tower defence games containing no real time elements (upgrading/selling/special abilities/buying mid round) might count, straight up chess and checkers could be considered auto battlers. Take the game Astronarch for example, its not a skill in micro based game, everything is set out before combat then you click start. Similar to how games are called rogue-like or containing rogue-like elements. What is the essence of an Auto battler
Good content! One game I'm sad you didn't talk about was Storybook Brawl. I think it isn't quite as popular as SAP without a mobile version, but the whole experience is Hearthstone Battlegrounds evolved and streamlined.
Good video, but I would have loved broader context. I feel like mahjong is less of a direct influence than deck building games like Ascension, Dominion, and Star Realms. Also, check out Storybook Brawl. It's a very solid design with its own take on familiarity as well as a few dedicated streamers.
This video came out of nowhere but was very enjoyable. The first I played was auto chess and never really thought of the correlation between that and super auto pets too much. Cool vid man!
You forgot about Ogre Battle, the oldest precursor. You move your teams on the RTS overworld, and battles are automatic when those units (bands of characters) clash.
I've told a few of my friends who love MTG they should check out Super Auto Pets, and every single one was confused how it was even remotely similar. Glad I can just show them this video lol
Hey this is very interesting ! I've though about doing this work myself many time but you did a way better job that I would've done! I think you could have mentioned games such as Snkrx as branch of the genre.
Auto battlers have kinda overtaken tower defense as my go to strategy. I like macro strategy and multiplayer TD games are pretty much gone. The Bazaar is an upcoming auto battler with asynchronous multiplayer. I hope their insistence to incorporate blockchain doesn't kill it.
Auto battlers are, imo, the evolution of idle games If mobile games wheren't so universally trash, this genre could easily dominate the market Y'all tpught candy crush was too big for it's quality? Imagine if this genre was treated with more respect
It's CRAZY how influential the warcraft 3 custom map editor was. Almost every game mentioned in this video comes from w3 some way or another. Pokemon Defense was a w3 custom map, dota is based on a w3 custom map, teamfight tactics is based on league which is also based off of that same warcraft 3 custom map. And although it's not a custom map, it's kind of funny that the fourth big auto-battler (hearthstone battlegrounds) is based on wow which of course is the successor to warcraft 3. It's warcraft 3 all the way down...
I feel like I've played the pokemon game way before 2010 on W3 but W3 definitely had a bunch of types of similar "autobattler" games. Just watching this video unlocked the fact in my memories that there were pokemon games where you could fight and collect pokemon for stronger teams, basically games where you would send A.I. into battle against other players' A.I.
Storybook brawl - a nice game from the genre that uses fairytale, storybook, and mythological characters. Also, you forgot one aspect of autobattlers - it has the element of 'zero to hero' similar to roguelike games
I wanna see more games like SAP in the future - not only cuz it’s an Auto-Battler but because it’s a free browser game even if it’s also on Steam. I hope this can lead to another era of gaming similar to when flash-games owned the web.
It should not be understated how much influence warcraft 3 custom games had on the gaming industry, from mobas, autochess, strategy horde games and more. I honestly think if someone wants to make a hit game just look at the warcraft 3 custom games
There was an auto battler called Chess Rush. Imho it was the best auto battler ever made, it lacked western player base and it slowly died. Being mobile game only it was so much more accessible than tft with great UI, much more balanced and fun hyper mode, duo hyper mode, 4v4 clan wars. And the charachters looks would change with their levels, unlike Battlegrounds or TFT where it's just a color change. I think being mobile only killed it because I don't think it's lengthy match times are suitable for smaller screen. Would have loved seeing PC version of it Game was created i think before DotA Underlords came out, it was way ahead of it's time.
Wow this is a different content. Skoottie always being creative. Hope it is the first of many game history videos
For real such a turn, but what great research he did haha.
This was great! Your speech patterns work really well with the documentary style. Also, I’m sure the folks over at Teamwood appreciate the shoutout.
I would love to see more videos in this style. Whether it be history of game genres, game strategies, or something else entirely.
Great production.
if you like the documentary, like the documentary! Enjoy the rest of the documentary!
As an avid MtG player, i appreciate the perfect way you explained my favorite format, and i certainly loved this video, since i am also a sucker for mini documentaries.
This was really interesting, Skootie. Thank you for putting this together. I think it really showcases more of your skillset!
I don't know if this had been mentioned yet, but according to lead TFT designer Mortdog TFT is the largest/most popular strategy game in the world at the moment, not just within the autobatller space
I love when youtubers try something different, especially when it's this good! Keep it up Skootie!!!
people who are curious could really search about The Bazaar. a game coming out from Tempo games its a Draft autobattler with unique fight mechanics and a plethora of heroes who each have their own set!!
Loved working on this with you, thanks for the credit!
Great vid! I'm glad that you don't feel penned in to only making one specific series of content. I'd happily watch you play a bunch of different stuff or watch video essays like this.
As the other bazaar chads have mentioned, The Bazaar is looking to be pretty huge. It's got a huge team and a bunch of veterans behind it. It's a breath of fresh air.
Wow, this was fantastic. Your A to Z Super Auto Pets content is one of my favorite ongoing UA-cam series, but I've been on a video essays kick lately, too. This was a pleasant surprise for sure! I learned a lot and I enjoyed myself.
Dude THANK YOU for having a mini-doc that actually bothers looking into the origins of the thing, I've heard far too many recent mini-docs that attribute the originators of genres like MOBAs and Autobattlers, Social Deduction games and RTSs to the first big hit from that genre, not to the actual first games that explored the concepts or creators which helped popularize them within their own niche communities.
I definitely played some auto-battler flash games back in the day, which I loved to bits
Not really surprised none of them made it into the video, I'm not sure how I'd dredge them up, and most of them looked like really simplistic takes on TFT - just some robots randomly dropped in an arena to fight, with general purpose upgrades you bought. Not much of the strategy associated with the genre today.
Love the indirect colab with NL
Our small studio is currently working on a new PVE auto battler. We're currently in the process of pitching the concept for funding and it's funny because the issues you point out are the same we use in our pitch. Auto battlers are super fun and there is more to explore in the genre, like accessibility and cooperation (pillars of our game).
Hopefully in a year or two you'll be able to have fun with our game 🙂
looking forward to it! got any socials so I can follow along?
@@Skoottie We sent you an email with more information about the project since we're still not ready to share everything with the public. Have you had the chance to look at it ? :)
You should check out the bazaar. I'm a indiegogo backer for the game, its a dope game from Reynad, looks really promising in the auto-battler genre
As somebody that's been into strategy games since the 90's, it has been fascinating to see what has slipped in and out of popularity. If you told someone 20 years ago that a popular RTS hadnt been released in over a decade, they wouldn't have believed you. I like your point about the games being a little overwhelming to a newcomer. Magic DEFINITELY has that problem. I think a big part of why the game has died so much is WOTC basically abandoning the LGS model in favor of larger business and shifting to online sales. the game is much easier to get into when you're playing it socially with a group of friends. I think that extends to most strategy games. ask anybody how they got into LOL, and they almost always got into it with a group. That might be a big part of why RTS struggle nowadays. outside of the fact that companies have just flat out forgotten how to make them competently (no hotkeys or map editor on launch of age 4 was pretty telling...), they just dont make for good social games, since they require soooo much focus from the player to learn.
If you told me that Red Alert 2 would be the last RTS game I'd ever play, I would have laughed and thought you were insane. Yet here we are.
@@sintaxera It's crazy how poorly made they are now. companies really dont understand why people liked the genre. cough cough age 4... I keep buying them though lol. ive found a couple of indies recently that are honestly really good, if a bit of a different take on the genre. so not all hope is lost I guess
@@ericofire just play aoe 2 definitive edition, the best rts with plenty of players
@@Stoildan age 2 is pretty much my go to lol. Hard to beat over 20 years of well made campaigns. Only thing i dont like about DE is the ranked map system, and their incessant need to fuck with Arabia's scripting. Like we played the classic version of this map for 18 years.. leave it the hell alone. But yea, DE is everything I ever wanted from Age 2. the destruction animations alone make it worth getting. The spectacle of watching castles crumble to the ground during a siege is exactly the kind of thing modern RTS should aspire to
Gaming.... Has changed....
I thought you did a great job of concisely explaining the topic. It was engaging and not overly long winded making it very watchable. I like that you were matter of fact and to the point without too many wisecracks or asides. Your narration was spot on and not for nothing your voice and pace of speech lend itself very well to such voice overs. Keep it up and I would love to see more content like this. It was very interesting.
As someone who is currently in the very early stages of making an autobattler due to my love of SAP, this was very informative. My goal is to have SAP level ease of entry, with more focus on strategy and less on rng
good luck
@@jammerlammer546 cheers, dreams are free! And I definitely wont make the next cult classic if I don't try :P
always remember in any situation in life, if you dont know how to get out of a situation always place a badger with honey on the back
This was a really fascinating video and I really enjoyed it. Would love to see this style of video for the deck building genre!
10:27
I loved the egg apparition.
That was the perfect nl clip to use
@@thelastmountaineer 100% yeah
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Super cool video and really interesting points! One other similarity i've noticed between mahjong and other autobattlers is the emphasis on making matches of 3 of a kind. In most autobattlers, u combine 3 of a kind to upgrade a unit, while in mahjong, u need multiple 3 of a kinds to have a winning hand.
love the concise analysis, hope this blows up
You’ve been killing it lately! You’re going places my friend. I watch all of your videos, you smash everything! Loved this! Love your SAP! Love your Pokémon Inscription play through! Keep smashing it!
I really enjoyed this video skoottie. It was a fun change of pace and really suits you! I look forward to more of these dabbled in from time to time
Great inclusion of Northernlion because frankly we would not even be talking about this game without him.
You should really watch out for the Bazaar! Amazingly good looking auto battler. Go check their UA-cam channel for some gameplay. It should be released later this year
A bold step in a new direction. I'm all for it, my dude. Well done!
this just makes me realize we need a pokemon auto battler. with the way evolutions work & hundreds of pokemon to build teams from, it seems like a no brainer.
there's a romhack called pokemon crown that's basically this
one reason I think super auto pets is so easy to parse is because none of the text boxes are longer than like 15 words. also, with some of the other autobattlers you have to spend money on upgrading your shop, having it just upgrade automatically is another thing that makes it easier to approach. one more thing, your money disappears at the end of your turn! you don't have to think about saving up money over multiple turns. in addition to all this, super auto pets has these dual purpose mechanics that hide complexity from newer players - mostly all the pets that have a second use at the shop screen, like pilling ants and whatnot. but getting that extra higher tier unit when you level something up, or making a percentage of your money back on buy/sell/buy loops that you can use to buy something else, those are also things that use the basic mechanics of the game but you wouldn't realize on a first glance. it truly is "easy to learn, hard to master".
Dude this is good. Research, script, visuals, order of information...this is just really great content.
I really like the documentary style. Well sourced, good visuals and amazing speech tempo. If you got more ideas i'd be glad to watch and support ^^
You have such a great voice for explaining, Skoottie! Could listen to you for hours :D
Never knew auto battles were such a recent idea
I guess it depends on how strict your definition of auto battler is,
Tower defence games containing no real time elements (upgrading/selling/special abilities/buying mid round) might count,
straight up chess and checkers could be considered auto battlers.
Take the game Astronarch for example, its not a skill in micro based game, everything is set out before combat then you click start.
Similar to how games are called rogue-like or containing rogue-like elements.
What is the essence of an Auto battler
I love this new type of content, you should definitely make more videos like this! You did a really good job on this video
Good content!
One game I'm sad you didn't talk about was Storybook Brawl. I think it isn't quite as popular as SAP without a mobile version, but the whole experience is Hearthstone Battlegrounds evolved and streamlined.
Good video, but I would have loved broader context. I feel like mahjong is less of a direct influence than deck building games like Ascension, Dominion, and Star Realms.
Also, check out Storybook Brawl. It's a very solid design with its own take on familiarity as well as a few dedicated streamers.
This was a fantastic video, no idea what I'd like to hear next but I am looking forward to it
wait... so you are telling me that i was there from the very start of auto battlers to now and still love em? crazy
This video came out of nowhere but was very enjoyable. The first I played was auto chess and never really thought of the correlation between that and super auto pets too much. Cool vid man!
You forgot about Ogre Battle, the oldest precursor. You move your teams on the RTS overworld, and battles are automatic when those units (bands of characters) clash.
I love any clip where NL's commentary skates just half a second ahead of his thought process.
I LOVE this skoot. please continue being creative
I've told a few of my friends who love MTG they should check out Super Auto Pets, and every single one was confused how it was even remotely similar. Glad I can just show them this video lol
Nice change of pace, loved your video essay style!
as someone who recently got heavy into auto battlers, that pokemon defense mod looked dope. great vid!
Hey this is very interesting !
I've though about doing this work myself many time but you did a way better job that I would've done!
I think you could have mentioned games such as Snkrx as branch of the genre.
This video was a joy to watch, keep up the great work, glad to see you branching out
Auto battlers have kinda overtaken tower defense as my go to strategy. I like macro strategy and multiplayer TD games are pretty much gone. The Bazaar is an upcoming auto battler with asynchronous multiplayer. I hope their insistence to incorporate blockchain doesn't kill it.
Auto battlers are, imo, the evolution of idle games
If mobile games wheren't so universally trash, this genre could easily dominate the market
Y'all tpught candy crush was too big for it's quality? Imagine if this genre was treated with more respect
It's CRAZY how influential the warcraft 3 custom map editor was. Almost every game mentioned in this video comes from w3 some way or another. Pokemon Defense was a w3 custom map, dota is based on a w3 custom map, teamfight tactics is based on league which is also based off of that same warcraft 3 custom map.
And although it's not a custom map, it's kind of funny that the fourth big auto-battler (hearthstone battlegrounds) is based on wow which of course is the successor to warcraft 3. It's warcraft 3 all the way down...
Whoever didn't play Pockie Ninja didn't know the ultimate autobattler of 2010
Great video! I'd love to see more videos in this style/format
Loved this, watched it end to end, hope you keep it up
Love this kind of content! Cool to see you branching out as well :)
11:32, you talk about mtg and Hearthstone, so collectable cards game!( or just card game, i would love to hear about rougelike card game too)
I played all of this games because I'm a sucker for it but this is really well made video man good job
What a great video! Thank you for this and also for bringing back beloved memories of WC3
This was a great video Skootie. Nice
Big fan of this type of content! The Warcraft 3 Pokemon Tower Defense gamemode section was very interesting, never heard of it before.
I feel like I've played the pokemon game way before 2010 on W3 but W3 definitely had a bunch of types of similar "autobattler" games. Just watching this video unlocked the fact in my memories that there were pokemon games where you could fight and collect pokemon for stronger teams, basically games where you would send A.I. into battle against other players' A.I.
Great video, hope it blows up
Storybook brawl - a nice game from the genre that uses fairytale, storybook, and mythological characters.
Also, you forgot one aspect of autobattlers - it has the element of 'zero to hero' similar to roguelike games
Nice, I think you nail this types of videos. Would love to hear you talk about rougelikes :)
You didn't speak about the Starcraft arcade: Desert Strike, which I feel is key in the auto battlers developpement
oldest autobattler i remember is flash game bot arena 2 in 2006
damn that game was AWESOME
Mad props about the Pokemon Defense/ WC3 custom games.
Great video Skoottie I want more of this
Love your content... keep experimenting and making yourself better
It's crazy how many new gaming genres were initially mods of Warcraft and Quake/Half-life
Your going places skootie, wish you the best
Clash Mini is a kind of auto battler too, but it has not grown as popular as many of these games mentioned in this video yet
Check out StarCraft 2 tavern battle. It’s a big auto battler in China
Pokemon Unite better include an auto-battler mode someday. Considering the genre got started with a Pokemon mod and it now has a moba.
We have to get a history of rougelikes video skootie
Love the new content type. Hope to see more
Please make more of this type of content!!
I'm working on a game with autobattler elements, asking the commenters if there's any gameplay tropes from autobattlers they love/hate.
Great video, hope you make more like this
Ahh was hoping to see a shout out for Prophecy, fantastic autobattler.
This bout to go thermonuclear. Great content Skoot
I'm first seeing this after Backpack Battles took off. The story isn't over.
This is one of those videos thats gonna blow up in like 3 years
Holy shit Pokemon defence. You giving me a nostalgia attack here.
Awesome vid! Can you do a history of roguelites and roguelites and the differences between them?
Casually waiting for this to blow up in some years
I'd be interested in learning about the history of Rogue likes and Tower Defense games
This video was awesome
I really liked this video. Cool to see all the history of it.
2:36 that one chess screenshot where white serenely blunders the queen - Qc3?? :(
Well researched, great job.
I wanna see more games like SAP in the future - not only cuz it’s an Auto-Battler but because it’s a free browser game even if it’s also on Steam. I hope this can lead to another era of gaming similar to when flash-games owned the web.
Fantastic video, very well done!
Very cool video Skoottie👌
I love this form of content, I hope it works out!
ay love this type of video u should do more of them once in a while.....maybe with dif genres
It should not be understated how much influence warcraft 3 custom games had on the gaming industry, from mobas, autochess, strategy horde games and more. I honestly think if someone wants to make a hit game just look at the warcraft 3 custom games
good layout of the video - thx
A Nintendo Auto Smash Brothers would be an instant hit
There was an auto battler called Chess Rush. Imho it was the best auto battler ever made, it lacked western player base and it slowly died. Being mobile game only it was so much more accessible than tft with great UI, much more balanced and fun hyper mode, duo hyper mode, 4v4 clan wars. And the charachters looks would change with their levels, unlike Battlegrounds or TFT where it's just a color change.
I think being mobile only killed it because I don't think it's lengthy match times are suitable for smaller screen. Would have loved seeing PC version of it
Game was created i think before DotA Underlords came out, it was way ahead of it's time.