I recently visited the App Store looking for a hex based strategy game and found a game called Strategy War – Conquer the World from Appgeneration Software. I’ll be honest, I downloaded it because the reviews were pretty bad, especially with regards to the tutorial. My thought was something to the effect of, “How bad could it be?”

I downloaded the game, started playing, read through the tutorial screens, and thought the instructions were actually pretty clear. Then I got this weird nagging feeling, like, “Have I played this before?”

I continued reading, and low and behold, came upon the following, “Trees grow like virus…” That same line, or something very similar was in the tutorial for another game I recently downloaded, Antiyoy, from Yiotro Games.

The language isn’t exact, but the trees reference is what clicked it all into place. Strategy War and Antiyoy are essentially the same game, with similar units, very similar game mechanics (towers defend their hex and adjacent hexes, etc), and similar play.

At first I assumed that Yiotro was a fan of Strategy War at some point in the past, and decided to develop a better version, but after a little digging, I think it more likely that both are based on Slay, by Sean O’Connor. I have a message into Yiotro to confirm as much (got a reply, see below).

Yes, antiyoy was inspired by Slay by Sean O’Connor. I was playing android version of it (you can find it in google play). I really liked the idea but I wasn’t satisfied with implementation, so I decided to make my own version for me and my friend.

Either way, while I found the negative reviews of Strategy War’s tutorial to be pretty far off base, Antiyoy is the better game in my opinion. For one, you can cut the damn trees…