Confusing mobile game ads are basically a meme now, with perhaps none quite so notable as Hero Wars. For years, we were taunted by auto-playing ad rolls of logic puzzles everyone knew didn’t represent the game. It seems like Hero Wars ads have changed lately, and I will confess to you: I kind of like them?
We’ve all seen those ads for Hero Wars: the ones that made the game seem like some kind of puzzle game, where you needed to move sliders in the right order to reach a weapon or treasure without unleashing monsters on your little guy, or getting dissolved by acid, or getting hit by arrows. The internet is awash in people complaining that the actual game is nothing like this, though according to YouTuber Hero Wars Central, in 2019 developer Nexters actually added some of these puzzles to the game, and it seems like the game got more puzzles over the years. (The ads later shifted to feature a sort of tower minigame, which is apparently in the game now as well.)
These puzzle ads were maddening, which is probably what made them effective: you’d watch a (fake) player pull the wrong lever or do things in the wrong order, while screaming “No, you idiot!” uselessly at the screen. Or, the solution wouldn’t be clear, and it was hard not to want to try to solve the puzzle for yourself. These ads would get a hold of my brain, and I’d find myself pausing the ad to think about the solution, which felt like a one-way ticket to actually buying Hero Wars, which I did not want to do.
But I haven’t seen a Hero Wars puzzle ad in a while. Instead, these days I can’t escape these basic dungeon crawler ones, such as this:
Or this one (where your guy would let a baby die if only he hadn’t seen a picture of a sexy lady?!?):
Or this one:
These ads all basically follow the same formula: some kind of misfortune befalls your little guy, often involving a sexy lady, and then your guy ends up in a dungeon with a number over his head. Killing monsters with lower numbers adds the monster’s number to your number; the guy usually kills one higher-number monster just to show you that you die and start over if you do so. Sometimes your guy can kill multiple monsters at a time, but it’s not clear why. Sometimes a boss monster will get extra numbers added to them, in amounts and for reasons that aren’t explained. These inconsistencies in the gameplay and rules seem weird for an ad, but I guess make it more interesting than just watching someone do basic addition for a whole minute. It’s my understanding these ads are a bit more representative of what Hero Wars actually is, but are not footage of actual gameplay.
I do not choose to watch these; I watch a lot of YouTube videos about video games, so they pre-roll a lot. They aren’t good: I could do without the sexy ladies (or, uh, bestiality?), and the weird stuff that doesn’t follow the rules, and the deeply off-putting “yeah!” the guy shouts. But despite having them foisted upon me, I have to admit that I often watch the entire ad. I find them weirdly soothing, like a Sesame Street lesson in math. Unlike the solutions to the confusing fake puzzles, I know how to identify which number is bigger and which number is smaller. I know what order to do basic math in so that the final number is bigger than the boss’ number. I know why the little guy will fail when he picks the wrong enemy–that number is too big, guy! I would know, because I am a big boy who knows math! It’s satisfying to watch the guy’s number grow and shrink and grow again, a linear cartoon journey that has its own little pleasures, plus the payoff of getting to watch the video I wanted to watch in the first place when it’s over.
If one purpose of video game ads is to show people what's in a game so they can decide if they want to buy it, Hero Wars is not doing a very good job at ads. But the ads do make me feel something (mostly, the satisfaction of knowing basic math), which is what all good art should do. Are they good? No. Are they art, video games' endless quest? Looking for clips for this blog turned me on to the wonderfully-named YouTube channel Hero Wars Ads As Art, so you be the judge. Fair warning: you might have to watch a Hero Wars pre-roll ad before you watch the Hero Wars ad you meant to watch on this channel. But that’s two ads, which is more than one ad! Look how good at math you are!
