Someone actually made one of those fake ad games, and it's pretty good!

You might remember seeing the ad because actor Antony Starr (The Boys' Homelander) is inexplicably in it, and because when you find the actual game, its main gameplay loop has nothing to do with what I just described. 

But enough about the fake ad. Let's talk about the real game. Developer Dan Lespect has released Real War, a game which takes the concepts of the ad's nonexistent game, and brings it faithfully to life, with Dan's own flair and style. Real War is pointedly not fake, as alluded to in the game title's byline. Perhaps more importantly and surprisingly, it's pretty good.

The developer has made the core concept of shooting at numbers in an on-rails style survival shooter into a satisfying little package that can be quite addicting if, like me, you have a thing for watching numbers go up and like to frequently make things explode in spectacular fashion on your screen. Gameplay is simple - you shoot the right fields at the right time to make your number and fire power go up, and you do the same to different weapons scattered around the field, while attempting to clear waves of enemies throwing themselves at your squad, or crashing into tires or negative fields. As expected, levels culminate in a boss fight against a larger, tougher enemy.

Images above sourced by author in-game.

Real War sports two gameplay modes - an endless mode that tracks your high score (mine is 378), and an adventure mode that sees you completing levels and earning coins. The coins can be used to remove ads - a feat that may take some time to complete, as beating a level earns 10 coins, and removing ads costs 10,000. There are other ways to earn coins, like joining the developer's Discord through an option in the game's menu screen, which rewards 200 coins, or watching ads for 100 coins.

Dan Lespect is only getting started, and is already working on other titles while providing ongoing support for Real War. There have been multiple updates to the game since release, adding things like the endless mode, and tweaking difficulty in response to feedback from players. A leaderboard feature is set to be released soon. The game supports English and French languages, and is available on Android and iOS. And yes, the game IS exactly as advertised, which is a concept we can only hope to see adhered to by all ads more faithfully moving forward.