Surprise! Being A Middle Manager Is Dull

2012-12-19T22:24:00Z

Middle Manager of Justice falls into the, “wait for things to happen,” genre of mobile gaming, where there isn’t much gameplay, but there is a lot of perceived reward. As the middle manager, it is your job to train super heroes and send them out into the crime ridden world to take care of business. Along with beating up criminals, your heroes will also stop runaway buses and rescue people from burning buildings.

At home base you can tell heroes to train, learn new skills, rest, and take time off to boost morale. Later in the game you can also have them research new equipment and health items, and do paperwork to help increase profits. Despite the variety of tasks, none of them are interesting to perform. Every task you send the heroes out to do is on a timer. Compared to other mobile games in the same genre, the time it takes to complete tasks is sped up dramatically. With the exception of a few late-game special abilities that can be learned, nothing ever takes more than a few minutes.

Middle Manager forces you to acknowledge every achievement, regardless of its impact or lack thereof. There is a checklist of small tasks to be completed, like, “stop five runaway buses,” but you don’t officially complete them until you enter the checklist and acknowledge their completion by tapping it with your finger. The same goes with money collected from towns that are pleased with your protection. You have to go to the map and collect the money manually. These things could have easily been relegated to automatic collection, but Middle Manager wants to hammer into your skull that you are earning things. It’s as if the game wants to show you that there is a carrot, and then remind you twice that you finally grabbed the carrot, even though the carrot is disappointing.

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Middle Manager’s presentation is where it wins the most points. The character and villain designs are charming, and the banter between manager and heroes (and heroes and villains) is consistently clever. It pokes fun at the office space lifestyle, and the clichés of the superhero genre. The dialogue does get repeated from time to time, but not so much that it loses its charm.

The big problem with Middle Manager is that it feels hands-off, but still demands your attention. The closest you get to interactive gameplay is the ability to select special abilities during battles. You can tap the icon to activate Surge Protector’s laser eyes, but other than that, you are strictly a spectator and the fighting just happens on its own. You are constantly rewarded, but nothing you get ever feels like a worthwhile achievement.

Bug squashing

In my early sessions, I ran into a bug where my heroes’ timers would not expire when I was away from the game. This meant I basically had to be present and playing the game in order for characters to perform their mundane tasks. An update for the game became available shortly after release and it appears to have squashed this bug, along with a few others. If you downloaded Middle Manager right when it released, make sure to add the update as soon as possible.

Double Fine's iOS Debut Brings Justice To The Free-To-Play Genre

2012-09-06T02:46:00Z

While Double Fine has released several downloadable titles, Middle Manager of Justice marks its debut on the iOS platform. The game was available on the App Store on the morning of September 5th but has since been pulled. A staff member from Double Fine posted on the game's official forum stressing that this version has bugs and needs "tuning" but that the official release will be in a couple of weeks. After spending several hours with this "preview" version, we wanted to let readers know what to expect when the free-to-play game is available again.

Playing the role of a character known only as "Middle Manager", your job is to recruit and train superheroes as you expand your base of operations. The superheroes are all quirky, original characters like "Masked Mummy" and "@Man", a hero obsessed with both social media and laser beams. You start the game by recruiting one of three characters and purchase more as you advance, unlocking alternate costumes along the way. Characters vary in power, health, and intelligence, stats which increase through training each time they level up or (in the case of intelligence) by direct intervention from the middle manager. By sending your team on missions that vary from battles to feats of strength, you earn one of the game's two forms of currency: coins and Superium. Coins are easier to acquire and can purchase new items, equipment, or additions for your base. Superium is used to speed up timed tasks and recruit additional heroes.

The majority of the missions in the game are battles with criminals and henchmen. Players can bring four of their superheroes into combat at a time, controlling the use of purchased items (such as healing and temporary stat increases) and the deployment of special moves that refill over time. These special moves can be purchased and leveled up at the base, each hero is allowed to bring one into battle. Characters can purchase and equip items that improve their performance in battle, like "Titanium Oven Mitts" to improve their power and bubble-wrap to improve their defense. Each fight gets you one step closer to facing off against an evil villain. Defeating them earns you a large amount of Superium and you move on to the next villain. Combat is simple in the first couple of hours and doesn't require strategy outside of tapping on your special abilities whenever they are available while your heroes auto-attack, but mixing and matching the special abilities of a full team might lead to more strategic battles further on.

The highlight of the game is the presentation. The art style is reminiscent of old Looney Tunes cartoons and creates a cohesive world for these bizarre and varied superheroes. Playing underneath the ambient office sounds is a subtle musical score that flirts with classic Superman themes while perfectly complimenting the cartoon aesthetic. The light-hearted nature of the world is conveyed through a surprising amount of text dialogue and character descriptions. Each battle begins and ends with a joke-filled exchange between the forces of good and evil, which help define the personalities of your superheroes but can be a hassle to tap through when forced to replay a particularly tough fight.

Middle Manager of Justice is also Double Fine's first free-to-play title, an inviting genre that is often as much a curse as it is a blessing. The good news is that (at least in the early hours) the game's micro-transactions are relatively tucked away and won't annoy players with frequent pay-walls. While you are welcome to use real money to purchase Superium to convert into coins or to speed up the recruitment of advanced superheroes, the game offers a wealth of content with no strings attached. The linear progression of the missions from district to district on a map and the inability to grind past missions for coins opens up the opportunity for future missions to cost real money, but the only hint of this on the map is a few off-limit areas labeled "coming soon". All of the actions in the early portions of the game (such as having the middle manager increase the morale of characters, or letting your heroes regain their health by sleeping) take under a minute to complete, so the option to speed things up using precious Superium is rarely tempting. Unlike other simulation games like Tiny Tower that are best played by briefly checking in several times a day, Middle Manager of Justice's addictive trickle of progression can be played for long stretches of time.

It remains to be seen how much the game will change in the coming weeks, but (unless Double Fine radically shifts the balance) the charm and accessibility make this an easy to recommend free-to-play title. While I'm only a few hours in, the game is an adorable management simulator and I'm excited to see where the addictive gameplay loop brings players willing to invest more time. Keep your eyes peeled on the App Store in the coming weeks for the official release of Middle Manager of Justice on iPhone and iPad.

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Middle Manager of Justice - iOS

Surprise! Being A Middle Manager Is Dull

Double Fine's iOS Debut Brings Justice To The Free-To-Play Genre