Rank Insignia is a Mobile Phone Game by Lucky Chan Games released in 2018. In it, you enlist soldiers to make new insignia representing them come out on a 7x8 grid. Drag and combine insignias so they go up a rank, so two Privates become one Private 1st Class, two Privates 1st Class become one Corporal, etc. until they reach General of the Army (ranks can be different depending on the insignia set you pick). You can then send them out to destroy tanks and earn money to increase how many balls one insignia fires and buy other upgrades. A second installment called Rank Insignia Live was released in 2020 and a third installment called Rank Insignia Super Explosion was released in 2021. Two similar games called Jewels Princess and Battle Cat Hero were released by the same people in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
This game provides examples of:
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: The amount of soldiers you can have depends on the Max Units Capacity upgrade, but you can only send 24 of them into battle.
- Breaking Out: Gameplay is kinda similar to Breakout as while you don't have a paddle, you still slide in a way that makes balls hit tanks like bricks, they bounce off bricks and walls, and you have a limited number of them.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: You can pay for diamonds that can be spent on upgrades, including a few very powerful ones early on.
- Critical Hit: You can buy the critical blow probability upgrade to deal them to enemies, signified by the red word "Critical" above them. Damage initially starts at 200% but can be upgraded.
- Disc-One Nuke: The NCO Academy lets you enlist Staff Sergeants, rather than Privates. Their increased damage output and the ability to turn into higher rank insignias much faster can trivialise some of the early stages if you get it near the start of the game, with the only downside being the fact that training them is costly.
- Earned Stripes: The point of the game is that you merge insignias, so they go up a military rank and can deal more damage.
- Effortless Achievement: Most of the achievements for reaching lower ranks (like Corporal, Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, and Sergeant 1st Class) can be earned within the first few minutes of playing.
- Flunky Boss: Every boss has plenty of other tanks near them, which can block shots but they can also be used to bounce balls of them and potentially deal more damage to the boss.
- Helpful Mook: Enemies who are marked with an icon deal damage to those around them upon dying, like exploding in a small radius or causing fires on the sides.
- Money Multiplier: You can buy the "Earning additional gold" upgrade to increase how much of it you earn.
- Not-Actually-Cosmetic Award: All the medals you can purchase for diamonds also increase your stats slightly.
- Randomly Generated Levels: Tanks in each level are placed randomly.
- Shows Damage: Enemies appear normally colored, yellow, orange, or red depending on how much damage they have.
