Boom Beach is a base building combat strategy game. Build a city from the ground up, recruit an array of colorful action heroes to defend it, and take the fight to the enemy. Player vs. player and player vs. AI combat both play a major role in the game's structure, and finding meaningful success is predicated on your ability to find worthwhile allies. Players can form or join alliances that help them pool together their resources and coordinate attacks against other players and computer controlled combatants.

A strong front line doesn't mean much if you don't have the infrastructure to support it, and that's why growing and upgrading your base is important. Balance has to be found between upgrading your forces and upgrading your resource producing buildings. The world outside your city is huge and populated by millions of other players. The most profitable way to grow your city is to raid neighboring civilizations and scavenge resources from the map. But be careful, as raids leave you open to reprisal from your enemies.

Boom Beach is a free to play game, but it's supplemented by microtransactions you can use to buy yourself additional resources and upgrades and speed up the in game timers.