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Not pictured: the amount of sheer chaos that can potentially happen in a single match.

Happy Wars is a free-to-play online multi-player game by Toylogic and published by Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox 360, Steam,note  and Xbox One.

The core gameplay pits two teams of comically-sized combatants to fight their way to the opposing force's castle to destroy the Big Tower inside while protecting their own. Along the way, they must construct towers (which acts as respawn points for the team that captures it) throughout the map to respawn outside the castle area. There are also turrets and other weapons laying around the environment such as bombs or collapsing bridges to hold off the enemy. There are two ways to win a match (or round) of each game: either destroy the opposing team's Big Tower by breaching their castle, or have the most captured towers before time runs out.

Each player starts the match at level one, and by achieving objectives, such as building towers or slaying enemies, they can level-up. Increasing in level unlocks new skills for the characters, including powerful Team Skills which require teammates to join in. After a match, players are rewarded with experience points to raise their ranks as well as Happy Stars to obtain items with in-game currency to upgrade and customize their combatants. Players can purchase high-grade items through the item shop or Happy Cards (basically booster packs of equipment) with Happy Tickets, but they're going cost what you got in your wallet. The game's combatants consist of three character classes with future updates to add sub-classes to the primary three. They are as follows:

  • The Warrior: The melee-centric class. Warriors tend to have stronger physical weapons and armor.
  • The Cleric: A sort of utility class. Clerics can summon materials to build various fortifications and siege weapons, and additionally serve as healers for their team.
    • The Engineer: A sub sect of the cleric class focusing more on tactical weaponry and a new team skill allowing the engineer to mount an offensive assault mech.
  • The Mage: An offensive-centered magic class. Mages can buff allies and themselves by enchanting their weapons, as well as being able to launch magical spells, such as fireballs or lightning storms.
    • The Zephyr: An advanced version of the Mage that trades out some of the direct-damage capacity for battlefield control in the form of wind attacks that can shove opponents around, draw them to a specific spot and other things.

The game features a single player story campaign, as well as competetive and cooperative multiplayer. The game was released on Xbox Live Arcade on October 12, 2012 for the 360, and April 24, 2015 for the Xbox One.


This games features trope examples of:

  • After-Combat Recovery: Sitting still for a few seconds will fully restore your HP and AP instead of the gradual increase you get by being active.
  • Allegedly Free Game: The game itself requires Xbox LIVE Gold membership in order to play it, despite being free-to-play. Even single player modes are locked-out to anyone with a Free account. There are also premium items that can obtained with Happy Tickets, which are bought with Microsoft Points.
    • It should be noted however that none of the items you can buy are anywhere near the strongest of their type. On top of that there isn't a single item that can be bought with money/Microsoft Points that can't be obtained through normal gameplay anyways. This includes the super premium items. However, getting these via Happy Cards Lite or regular item boxes is EXTREMELY rare.
    • To top it off you can actually EARN happy tickets instead of just buying them once you reach league play. You get 5 tickets every 50000 points you earn. Some people don't buy happy tickets just because it's much more satisfying to simply earn them and then kick the crap out of the people who buy them anyways.
  • Anti Poop-Socking: Though it hardly deters players from extended gaming binges, league players can earn a log-on bonus of one extra league point for each hour they're not connected to the Happy Wars server (up to a cap of 10 league points).
  • Automatic Crossbows: The Ballistas which Clerics can build serve as stationary examples.
  • Back Stab: Attacking a target's back doubles the damage that the attack used deals. It can be increased further using the Ambush Attack Up buff.
  • Badass Adorable: Due to the art style, pretty much any character counts.
  • Badass Crew: The Knights of the Order of Light in the single player campaign.
  • Black-and-White Morality: Subverted. Although the story campaign mentions conflict between the King of Light and the King of Darkness, it's mostly over trivial and goofy things, rather than a battle between Good and Evil.
  • Black Mage: The Mages, obviously.
  • Blow You Away: The Zephyr.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: The Slayers during special events.
  • Bounty Hunter: One of the Special Match modes that can happen.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: If players are lucky and grind enough, when they open a card pack with Happy Stars to get a new piece of equipment worth a damn they have a chance of succeeding. If the player spends some Microsoft Points and buys Happy Tickets, they get several pieces of equipment of the type they want, guaranteed.
  • Came Back Strong: You have the option of using Happy Tickets or Happy Stars to make yourself stronger after an enemy kills you in game.
  • Character Customization: One of the big draws of the game. You can customize your adorable castle siegers in many ways possible. Although some customization parts have to be bought with Happy Tickets.
  • Colony Drop: The Mages' Meteor Storm team skill.
  • Compensating for Something: One of the post-match responses the losing side can have towards players using end of game taunts as of the Berserker update.
  • Combat Medic: The Clerics, serving as healers, and decent fighters with adequate equipment.
  • Cycle of Hurting: A player can get caught in this when being attacked by enemies with status inducers such as Freeze, Stun, or KO without a defensive buff of their own to counter the effect.
  • Dangerous Terrain: There are the usual video game hazards of bottomless pits and water, alongside such things as a giant zombie fish. Each map also has stashes of bomb rocks that can be rolled downhill towards opponents.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Subverted in the ilomilo update by introducing a special gametype called Precious Life, which introduces respawn times as long as 30 seconds.
  • Developer's Foresight: There are a few campaign levels where the objective is something other than destroying the enemies big tower and said levels are deliberately designed to make it extremely difficult to effectively attack the enemy castles gate either by a short time limit or by it being very heavily guarded by respawning enemies. However it is possible to destroy the castle gate in some of these levels and if you do then the moment you walk through the door you are immediately teleported outside the castle.
  • Dual Boss: The Dark King and the Marshall for the final mission. They're not too difficult.
  • Elemental Powers: The Mage's spells; depending on what's unlocked they have different enchants and offensive spells, including fire, lightning, wind, and ice.
  • Escort Mission: Save the King operates like this. One person in the game becomes the king. Their teammates must defend him while he enters the enemy castle - the enemy team must kill the king to become him and head towards the other castle.
  • Fake Longevity: In order to progress further into the Story Mode, you must raise your ranks in online multiplayer first. Prior to the patch, this was a huge pain in the arse for players since the there were frequent disconnections.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge: The Rush and Group Rush abilities for the Warrior and Berserker allows them to plow forward, knocking enemies out of their paths.
  • Game-Breaking Bug: Prior to the patch released in November 2012, matchmaking is very slow and glitchy, with games ending due to failed connections being rather common.
    • Even as of May 2013, netcode issues still plagues the playerbase. Games have failed to start due to matchmaking problems and many players have reported multiple client drops in-game. In the worst of scenarios, players have joined games where they could not hurt their enemies, build anything, destroy the big tower, or do little or anything other than watch the clock wind down and see materials/towers get caught in an endless loop of being destroyed over and over.
    • The Berserker update broke the entire game's playerbase, literally. The update was initially launched without any fanfare to the surprise of new players and a handful of veterans. However, the update did not launch with an auto-update mechanism so the only way to get the update was to delete the game, clear the Xbox 360 cache, and redownload. As a result, those with the update are unable to play the game with the part of the playerbase that didn't. There are also reports of Berserker-updated players having their items and happy tickets reset upon receiving the update.
  • Game-Over Man: You'll spend your respawn countdown looking at the character that killed you do a cute little dance.
  • Glass Cannon: The Berserker.
  • Guest Fighter: The Blue Knight and Barbarian from Castle Crashers, and Steve? and the Creeper from Minecraft.
  • Halloween Episode: Halloween-themed maps and items are added during the Halloween season.
  • Harmless Lady Disguise: The final mission in the campaign tasks you with chasing down the Dark King and the Marshall to rescue the princess. There are mooks scattered around the level dressed as the princess to throw you off your search.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Fish used as swords, Mailboxes as hammers, and the list could go on.
  • Instant Armor: The Cleric's Sacred Armor Ability.
  • "Instant Death" Radius: Class slayers and castle bosses have this.
  • Interesting Situation Duel: Some of the maps qualify. And in Co-Op mode, the computer-controlled enemy team will share a theme. So it's entirely possible for a legion of Knights to engage a group of Killer Tomatoes under the sea.
  • Joke Item: A fairly significant portion of the armory; used tin cans are helmets and fish serve as weapons in the game.
    • Lethal Joke Item: Even so, many of the joke items actually have superior stats to more serious weapons and items.
  • Ladder Physics: The way you run up a near-vertical ladder against an enemy castle, you'd think you just built stairs.
  • Level-Locked Loot: Every item you can equip carries a weight rating. You need to level up a fair bit before you can equip the heaviest items.
  • Life Meter: The HP Meter.
  • Limited Move Arsenal: Type 2. Each class can use 11 special skills (4 skills tied to the A and B buttons, 3 tied to the Y button). However, you only have enough enough skill slots for 9 special skills per game. At least two of your class's skills will be unavailable for use when you reach level 5.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Warriors and Clerics are the two classes uses shields.
    • Warriors also have a Super Guard that power up their shields to become Deflector Shields. They also have a team skill called Iron Phalanx, forming a barrier of team-mates with shields (including Mages).
  • Magic Music: The Cleric's Sacred Song ability provides an HP and AP buff.
  • Magic Staff: Mages uses them to shoot magic projectiles.
  • Mana Burn: Weapons with the AP Damage Attack buff.
  • Money Multiplier: You can earn up to 30% extra Happy Stars by playing games with Xbox Live friends.
  • More Dakka: The Gatling Gun, which is an Engineer-upgraded version of the Ballista.
  • New Meat: The first chapter of the single player campaign states it's your first day on the Knights of the Order of Light.
  • Non-Combat EXP: Healing and buffing teammates, activating/taking part in team skills, and building towers or other constructs.
  • Not Quite Flight: The Warrior's Rocket Man ability let's you fly a short distance and explode into your enemies. Can be used to jump to high terrain or over a Cleric's Wall, but not over bottomless pits, lava, or water.
  • Old Save Bonus: Unlocking achievements in other Xbox games would earn players a free premium item during a couple events, notably the Castle Crashers and ilomilo promotions.
  • One-Hit Kill: Tornado, which is one of the Mage's Team Skills.
  • Play Every Day: The treasure map feature. Logging in once a day earns a player with money. On the 7th and 14th day, the player is typically given a premium item or even a super-premium and the 21st is a guarenteed super premium.
  • Power Equals Rarity: Premium and Super Premium items. Most other items in the game fail to measure up to these three item rarities, even after they've been powered up to level 15.
    • And now, there are Evolved Weapons, which only certain Super Premium weapons can do when they are at least Level 10.
  • Protection Mission: A campaign mission has you protecting townsfolk from alien invaders. Rather than fail you for not protecting the townsfolk, they're instead added to the last group of enemies you fight in the mission if they are killed and not revived.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: Literally the only difference between a male and female character in this game is the fact that females wear a bra.
  • Rain of Arrows: The Mage's Lightning Arrows team skill causes this. Even mentioned in-game word for word.
  • Reward from Nowhere: Item Boxes earned in-game.
  • Ridiculously Fast Construction: Building towers and armaments with nothing but a mob of players and their hammers can take as little as a few seconds.
  • Ring Out: Most maps contain areas where you can hit your enemy off the map, into water, or into a pool of lava.
  • Royalty Super Power: In Save the King mode, becoming the king automatically boosts you to Level 5 and gives you extra reach on your weapon. Subverted because you move at a snail's pace and have access to only three skills (though they are each rather useful). However, Dash, despite lasting for only a short amount of time, still propels you at the regular (boosted) pace.
  • Save the Princess: The intro of the story mode features the forces of Darkness kidnapping the Princess, who the Knights of Order must rescue.
  • Selective Gravity: Drop down from any height or get hit in the air by your enemy, you'll drop like a brick. But if the level shoots you high in the sky halfway across the map, you fall at a much slower pace.
  • Shapeshifting: The Mage is able to shapeshift into other things with the "Shapehift" ability to try and fool other human players. That doesn't stop the AI enemies from finding you, though.
  • Shoryuken: The Warrior's Charged Attack when at Level 5.
  • Shifting Sand Land: Desert and Zodiac, which both have Antlion sand traps that will eat you in about 5 seconds if you're not careful. Or you can knock your enemies into said traps and watch them die. Whatever pleases you more.
  • Shout-Out: The Berserker update changed around most of the player speech bubbles. More than a handful have been changed to reflect on current internet memes. Expect to see players running around saying "U mad?" or "Do you even lift, bro?".
  • Silly Reason for War: The entire reason why the two kingdoms fight each other in the first place. Disagree about whether staying inside or exercising keeps you warm? This Means War!
  • Spin Attack: The Warrior and Berserker's Spin Attack.
  • Spiteful A.I.: Often times, a player will be chased by a mob of AI enemies around the castle's perimeter while the rest of the player's team is hard at work breaching the castle. They will not stop chasing that player until they're either dead or have made considerable distance between themselves and the mob with mobility enhancements or the use of Dash.
  • Squishy Wizard: Aside from having generally poorer armor and physical attacks, mages also lack the ability to block with a shield.
  • Storming the Castle: What a match turns into when one team has all the towers and the time hasn't run out.
  • Super Drowning Skills: Zig-zagged; you can't fall into rivers in one of maps or you'll sink to your death, yet there are 2 maps taking place beneath the ocean floor.
  • Teleport Spam: The Cleric and Engineer's Teleport ability and The Zephyr's Wind Swap ability.
  • Under the Sea: Coral and Deep Sea, which pit you on the ocean floor. Don't mind that oxygen isn't necessary underwater.
  • Video Game Dashing: The Warrior has a dash lunge that can be used to cover ground faster than typical running. Rush can also count as well.
    • The Cleric and Engineer's Dash ability, which increases the person's running speed fora set amount of time.
  • Video-Game Lives: One of the last missions of the single player campaign uses this as plot device. The Kingdom of Dark is supressing your ability to respawn. If you die, you don't come back, but capturing control towers along the way will give you one respawn each.
  • Zerg Rush: For a game based on raiding castles, a stand-out example is in one mission in the single player Campaign where you and your small team has to defend your castle from rather large waves of zombies.
    • There is also a Castle Defense Special Challenge that happens every once in a while. May 2014 was one of those times.

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