Idle Tower: Dark Forest

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Today's game is: Idle defense: Dark Forest

Idle Defense is a proper tower defense game. You have to build and upgrade towers to protect your home crystal.

Here is the main screen. There are two currencies, gold and premium diamonds. The tower can be upgraded to a point but then you must merge them to level them again. There are special combinations of tower types that will evolve into a new type if you beat certain levels.

You can also unlock demon helpers to defeat the monsters attacking your home. You can use diamonds or watch videos to get shards. The rarer the demon the more shards it takes. Note: I've used diamonds twice in the 600 summon but I never got any creature shares. I've only git pink shards used to upgrade demons.

Here you can spin for free once an hour or watch videos to get bonus goodies. If you spin up to 10 times a day, you get free demon shards.

Under the second tab, is a list of skills you can use in the battle to decent your home. You can spend gold to upgrade your skills.

As you ascend and restart your game, you unlock green orbs to power up different permanent buffs. You also use the green orbs to upgrade your demons.

The fourth tab gives you access to daily missions that give you bonus gold.

The last tab is a store for buying premium currency or watching videos for a few bonuses.

Here is a sample of the enemies you'll fight. Each level ends with a very strong boss creature.

Here is a sample of some towers you'll find in the game.

I'm sorry about the screenshots. For some reason, this game pulled up the bottom bar every time.

Overall:

5 of 5 cogs.

This game is simple to play for a time then forget about it. There are many towers to unlock but a lot of content is not yet available. The game looks like it was made during a game jam.

Story:

3 of 5 cogs.

You get a short introductory story and a small tutorial. After, there is no story.

Amount of ads:

There are no popup ads that play during gameplay. You can watch optional ads for bonuses.

Advertised as seen:

💯% 

As far as I've seen, the screenshots are accurate. I do not remember if I've seen ads for this game.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are great for this type of game. A slight but cartoony, but I do not fault with them.

Audio:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The music is eerie and reminds me of Halloween and haunted houses. The sound effects are simple and repetitive.

Gameplay:

 5 of 5 cogs.

Build, merge, repeat. The game is a nice mix of two games as one. Everything is tap and click and I've not noticed any bugs or glitches.

Free play:

 💯%

You can easily play and advance this game without paying any money at all.

Fun factor:

😎 Highly rated.

This game is very fun to play. It takes a while before I got any sort of bored with it.

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Random Dice

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Today's mobile game is: Random Dice

This game is a very interesting mix of, PvP, Tower defense, and merge game. I didn't know what to think about this game, but I ended up enjoying this game. 

Here's the first screen you are greeted with. There are two currencies. Gems are the premium currency for this game and are earned by daily quests and winning in PvP. The second currency is gold. You get it the same way but it's more common.

This is the base of your deck. You get five different kinds of dice to start with. You can unlock more dice from the shop or co-op chest (Card box). The basic dice tend to be very weak and rarer dice offer better attack patterns. You collect multiple copies of dice to level them up using gold.

This is the store that you can buy packs of dice. The rarer the dice, the more it costs to buy. Further down you can find packs to buy gems, and chests that give a lot of dice when bought with gems.

This shop has skins for the battlefield. I've gone against someone that had a skin and it changed the battlefield for me as I do not have any skins unlocked.

This menu is for special modes that cost premium currency. There appears to be a way to win more gems back.

Here you get free items from the daily menu. Then you get more for completing the tasks. If you complete all of them, you can use the reroll once a day to get a new task, or replace an incomplete one.

This is the main PvP mode. As you kill one of the enemy squares it will send one to your opponent. You collect SP to put more dice on the board and spend SP to level up the dice up to stage 5. Each wave has a set time and after so many waves a boss shows up.

Overall:

5 of 5 cogs.

This game really amazed me with several simple mechanics combined into something new. There is a lot of luck involved so it's possible to beat someone with higher level dice. I will note here that I've had issues with stability and have been disconnects several times during a match.

Story:

🚫

There is no story at all.

Amount of ads:

There are no ads that are blasted in your face like most games. You can only watch ads to get a one-time PvP boost or to gain another co-op play. I recommend playing as much co-op as possible because it gives you gold and cards very quickly.

Advertised as seen:

💯%

Every ad I've seen has been straight-forward. They do not use tactics I've seen in so many other ads to get you to play.

Graphics:

  2 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are very simplistic and nothing stands out about them.

Audio:

    1 of 5 cogs.

The sounds are very similar and blend into the same tone.

Gameplay:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The gameplay surprised me and I find drawn to keep playing this game. It's rare that a game grabs my attention so deeply.

Free play:

 💯%

You can play this game without dropping money into it.

Fun factor:

😎 "Oh Yeah."

This is a fun game. I don't know how long this game will keep my attention, but it is a fun game to pick up and play. It's a fast-paced tower defence.

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Tap Chest (Idle clicker)

I would like to thank everyone that has read any of my reviews. I wish everyone a happy holiday during these trying times.

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Today's game is Tap Chest

This is an interesting game. You collect gold from chests by tapping on the screen. You collect the coins and can use temporary auto clickers in a cookie clicker fashion. This game has a lot of DnD vibes.

Welcome to the lone chest in the middle of the forest. This is a pretty standard fantasy set up. 

First is the chest. The bar under it fills up the more you click. Once the bar is full the chest opens, giving items, gold or diamonds.

There's a lot to unpack on this screen. There are two currencies. Gold and red diamonds.

This game is very generous with this premium currency. You can also watch videos for more (with the button above the map with the video icon).

The bottles give you temporary clicker boosts.

I'll go over all the other buttons as I get to them. The last thing I will mention is the keys. After a point, you earn keys that will instantly open a chest. Also, the lightning bolt is a special power that auto opens all chests when full.

The next button is the creature of the bottom left. These creatures help you fight enemies that spawn once a minute. Killing the enemies gives you more items.

The level button gives you this menu (scroll down for even more things to upgrade.) You can level up a chest or buy a new one. The chests evolve as you level them up and drop better items.

Quests give you premium currency and allow you to progress quicker.

The shop is filled with microtransactions. The only things to worry about are keys and the backpack upgrades. You won't need to worry about this for a long time.

The joy of any RPG, random drops. Each item you collect permanently upgrades click power. Enemies drop them or you get them from chests.

Lastly is the map. I recommend saving up 12k diamonds and buy the last area that gives you the biggest boost. Don't bother buying any others. There's a lot of upgrades that require diamonds.

I seem to be missing the screenshot that has the reincarnate button. When you get all chests to a minimum of lv 99, you can reset the game. I never got to that point before I had to write this review.

Overall:

 4 or 5 cogs.

This was a fun game, but nothing to keep you playing for long. There are a lot of interesting collectible items that give the feeling of an epic quest.

Story: 

🚫 None

Amount of ads:

There is a banner ad that loads up at the bottom of the screen at the most random of times. Like most games, you can watch ads for premium currency.

Advertised as seen:

💯%

All ads I've seen have been straight forward with real gameplay. The screenshots on google play also do not hide anything.

Graphics:

4 of 5 cogs.

This game is 100% pixel art. The art has a nice retro game feel and it's very simplistic. The items look great as do the chests and enemies.

Audio:

 2 of 5 cogs.

Nothing to say. The music is fantasy sounding but nothing to keep your speakers on for. The sound effects get very annoying quickly.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Simple, fast, and easy to pick up and put down for idling.

Free play:

 💯%

The game is easy to play for free and the premium currency is given very generously.

Fun factor:

😎 easy and chill.

A game that is fun and easy to play. Just don't tap too hard 

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Zen Idle

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Today I bring you the chill game: Zen Idle

I've played a few games from Kongregate. This company usually makes in-depth games with great art and interesting game mechanics, yet this is the first hyper-casual game I've seen from them.

The objective of this game is to cram many balls into the room and squash them. The balls spawn at different times and they fall down to gates that add multipliers to the ball's value.

At the top of the screen is the money that you collect along with premium blue diamonds.

As your total spent on upgrades grows, you gain extra perks once you level. They are temporary between resets.

This is the screen to upgrade your balls. You can decrease spawn time or raise the ball's value. As you gain more wealth you can unlock better balls.

The second tab holds all the level upgrades. As you buy new areas, the red gates turn blue and give you a money boost for passing them. (See the last picture to see the gates.)

The third tab is special perk cards. These give you permanent boosts as you use premium currency to unlock them. You get 10 diamonds daily or can sometimes watch videos.

The fourth tab just gives you some extra and temporary boosts.

Lastly, is an example of the gate. Not much to say here.

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

This is a very chill game. Not much is here to keep you playing for too long.

Story:

 🚫 None. 

There is zero story in this game.

Amount of ads:

There are only optional ads you can watch for temporary boosts.

Advertised as seen:

💯 %

Every ad I've seen for this game has been truthful. They do not hide anything.

Graphics:

 1 or 5 cogs.

Come on. Flat colored shapes. All the graphics look like they were made by a kid. This is very disappointing as Kongregate has higher quality games than this.

Audio:

 4 of 5 cogs.

This is the first mobile game with memorable chill music. It sadly loops too quickly and becomes very repetitive. I would love to hear more tracks like this one.

Gameplay:

2 of 5 cogs.

Not much here. Tap on balls that get stuck and get money. There isn't much interaction here.

Free play:

💯 %

You do not have to pay any money at all to play this game.

Fun factor:

😐 average.

Not too much going for this hyper-casual game. It's fun to try for a time, but I lost interest rapidly.

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