Where heroes collide, literally. like a Pinball | Gameplay - The Wandering Ark

The Wandering Ark is a mobile strategy game that combines hand-drawn anime aesthetics for its cutscenes and chibi pixel art for its gameplay. In this game, players take on the role of the captain of a massive mobile base called the "Wandering Ark." The setting is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and the player's objective is to recruit legendary heroes, engage in battles against monsters, and rebuild civilization.

It makes no sense, but I don’t care: it's fun to bounce heroes around | Review - The Wandering Ark

https://www.taptap.io/post/6775970

The game features a unique pinball-style combat system where heroes, drawn from popular mythologies like Odin, Chang’e, Hou Yi, and Tyr, literally collide in a 5v5 battle on a rectangular arena. The combat is strategic, requiring players to set trajectories for their units to launch and bump into opponents for damage, and then bounce around the arena walls like a pinball.

Aside from the mainline story progression which was largely forgettable, the game includes additional features such as the Nuclear Garden, a Pokémon-like system where players can hunt and cultivate monsters to enhance their heroes. Dungeons provide a farming game mode for rewards and progression, separate from the main missions. Captain's Battle introduces a real-time PvP component with equally leveled heroes for fair competition. The game is free-to-play with gacha microtransactions, and while it leans very slightly towards pay-to-win in the PvP component, the overall free-to-play experience for me is enjoyable and forgiving. The progression system is smooth and does not feel grindy, without energy or stamina elements, and I was able to obtain some decent heroes in my first few hours of play;