Trench Warfare 1917: WW1 Game

What the game is

SimpleBit Studios has made a First World War game that is, against expectation, quick. It's a side-on real-time strategy in pixel art: spawn riflemen, shock troops, machine gunners, snipers, tanks and flamethrowers, and push them across no-man's-land at the enemy trench. Sessions last minutes rather than afternoons.

Ten campaigns of 25 levels are included free, covering ten nations from Great Britain and Germany through to the Soviet and White armies of the civil war. A 50-wave survival mode, a sandbox for building and sharing your own battles, offline support and five languages round it out.

How a session plays

You watch your trench on one side and the enemy's on the other, and spend resources spawning units that march forward on their own. Decisions are about composition and timing: a line of riflemen to absorb fire, shock troopers to break through, a tank when the budget allows. The enemy does the same from its side, and the front line shifts back and forth until one trench falls.

Survival mode changes the role, giving you direct control of weapons while 50 waves come at you. The sandbox is the playground: pick a map and the weather, set up both sides, or spawn a thousand tanks to watch the result.

Why people look for it

WW1 is an under-served setting on mobile, and people who search for it tend to be history enthusiasts who want the trench setting specifically. The offer of ten full campaigns for free is unusual and gets noticed. The 4.7 rating from over 10,000 reviewers suggests the fast pacing works even for those who came expecting something slower.

Look and feel

Pixel art, side-scrolling, with small animated soldiers and muddy, cratered ground in the palette you'd expect of the Western Front. Five screenshots are on the page. Pixel games in this style tend toward clean, functional menus, and the unit spawn bar across the bottom of the screen is the main interface element during battle.

Updates and upkeep

SimpleBit Studios ApS is a Danish developer, and the level-sharing feature implies some server infrastructure the studio maintains. A 4.7 average from 10,000-plus ratings is strong. The listing doesn't describe update history, and the ten free campaigns may be the bulk of the content rather than a starting point. Only the App Store is linked here.

Good for

• History buffs

  Ten national campaigns cover the war's main powers and the Russian civil war that followed.

• Sandbox tinkerers

  Build a battle, pick the weather, and upload the result for other players.

• Fast RTS sessions

  Battles resolve in minutes, so a campaign level fits in a short break.

Before you install

Rated 12+, appropriate for a game about trench combat. It's free, and the listing specifies that all ten campaigns are included at no cost, though it doesn't say what, if anything, is sold inside the game or whether ads appear. Offline play is confirmed. Uploading custom levels will need a connection.

Languages are English, Russian, French, Spanish and Chinese. Storage requirements and account details aren't stated.