Holiday break.

 A very short update to let everyone know the blog will be on break until January 8 of next year.

My Little Universe

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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Airships have crashlanded in: My Little Universe

Today I will be posting a much shorter blog. This game is one you may have seen many times on ads across the netverse, and I got around to being able to review it. This is a simple game from a mechanical standpoint but the main focus on this game is to explore worlds that you create one hexagon at a time. Since this game focuses so heavy on exploring and adventuring I have only a limited number of screenshots to keep spoilers to a minimum.

The main point of the game is you have to figure out how to survive and gain more resources. You start off with some very weak tools that slowly get upgraded as you explore along. As you progress you will get 1 or 2 new paths you can build. I didn't notice that the amount got cut off in this screenshot, but the white square will list a couple of materials with numbers. You must gather those materials and fill in that hex of land. As your progress you find more complex materials or new forms of the same resource with better output. You can clear out a spot of resources and it grows back in just a few seconds. This leaves to an interesting mechanic as you can idle in the middle of this resource and it will auto-collect for you as long as no enmy is nearby to attack you.

As you progess along you will find a few upgrade facilities. Some allow you to process materials into new ones which are then used at these forges to upgrade your tools or make a couple of new ones down the line. You can watch ads to gains some of the missing materials if you don't want to stand around and collect them yourself.

The HUD can only show about 5 different materials at a time so you click on your backpack you can get the full list of everything you've collected. There is a lot to explore and it seems there are many planets you can visit. I still am on the first planet as there is a lot to do.

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

This is a chill and relaxed game for the most part. The enemies can be a bit wiely at times but when you die, you just respawn at your crashed ship. I still have a lot more to explore in this game and I hope that there is still plenty to find. From what I can tell, each planet has a set level design and there is no procedually generated content here.

Story:

 1 of 5 cogs.

There is a small amount of implied story but there is no direct dialog or any other real hints of story behind just stetting. You seem to be traveling planet to planet for some reason, but beyond that I do not personally know.

Amount of ads:

 

Too many!

This game is chucked full with ads. Every time you build a piece of land you are forced to watch a video. You can circumvent this by playing in airplane mode as this game does run perfectly offline. There are some points around the map where you can collect resources by watching optional videos.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

The advertisement is one for one here. The videos and screenshots are straightforward and no scam or clickbait here.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are very generic ans simple polygonal designs. Everything is flatcolored and there are no shaders used in this game. The art for the materials appear to be pixel art.

Gameplay:

4 of 5 cogs.

The game is easy to play. You have a virtual joystic that appears when you touch the screen and slide around. There are many resources to unlock and find. As you find one material you will eventually run into a new one that you need to collect. After a time, some materials are no longer needed and you can sell them at various vendors around the map for gold.

Free play:

💯%

This game is free to play and loaded with many videos. You can pay to remove the ads from the game but I do not know how this affects the optional ads. You can easily play this game without paying anything into it if you don't want to.

Fun factor:

👽 Extraterresial.

Are you an indy programmer or game dev?

If so, you can leave a comment or contact me on social media for a chance to have an interview with you posted to my blog. I am looking for many devs that focus on mobile programming. If you have a cross-platform game, that is fine too as long as it's on mobile.

Thank You for reading my blog. Please consider donating to the tip jar as these are tough times and every bit helps. You can get updates by joining my newsletter. If you enjoy these reviews please show others this blog by retweeting or liking my posts on social media.

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World Flipper

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

SWINDLER ALERT!: There has been a large number of mobile video ads on android devices. Each one of these videos shows what appear to be Asian-origin people with very bad voice-to-text voice-overs. These videos not only tell you the exact way they scam you, but they also claim they don't do it. Any apps that claim you can make hundreds of dollars a day are fake.

I have checked out some of these games. Each one of them follows the same pattern and all offer you nothing. A couple makes you think they are legit but they want you to pay them 5 dollars to collect 1000. These apps have you watch an infinite amount of ads and give you some wait time excuse or say that all claims are filled. Then you have to watch 20 videos to get your winnings. These apps are just gaining as much from ad views as possible before disappearing soon. I can not believe how much they spend on ads just to scam people into money. I will show a couple of screenshots of the games to avoid. As there are literally a hundred new games that dropped, and are in 'early access', that I can not post every possible one.

ISEKAI: Demon Waifu

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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The mechanical armies march on: ISEKAI: Demon Waifu

Today I bring you a game that is heavily advertised and as thus I didn't want to try it out for a long time because I feared it was another one of those kingdom vs kingdom pay to win games, but when I got into this I was surprised at the lac of actual pvp interactions at all. I will also note here, this game is marked mature, yet there is no actual 'adult' content I've ran across in this game. Not much actually happens here. This game is heavily stroy driven and has a lot of graphic novel aspects to it.

When I first played I got this premium Gotcha thrown in my face. It was a special even where you got a daily spin and had a very low chance of getting a rare consort. You can pay gold bars which is the premium currency in this game.

I seem to have lost a Screenshot for the main map of the game so I have to move on to one of the game screens you visit a lot. When you click on the capitol building you arrive here. You use the levy to collect your other resources, food, mana crystals and troops. You need to grab the food first or you can not obtain troops without it. Mana crystals are used to level up your generals you recruit to lead your armies. This game has a lot of things you have to collect around the map and you take a lot of time doing this rather than progressing through the game. I won't go over everything as there would be way too much to cover in this blog.

The harem tab takes you to where all your consorts reside. In this game you can have many demon wives. These girls you have to collect through various points in the game. Later on you can take them on dates and they earn you points to your overall kingdom's power.

Here is the screen of the consort. You are guaranteed one consort at the start. As you unlock more generals and consorts they all form bonds as well that can be grown to gain you even more power and reach with your demon kingdom. You can even give your consorts presents to raise their happiness or power. Over time you can also unlock new outfits for your consorts.

Now we hop over to the portal. Here you go on random visits throughout the world. Here you will run into many people and this is where you start to unlock more consorts. As you visit various women many times, they soon will marry you and your kingdom will grow in power. Not only do you have limited number of visits per your main level, but you also have to collect things to raise your luck to have a higher chance of finding a consort. This luck is used up every outing no matter if you find something useful or not. Later on you can also acquire one time use lands that give a boost of resources once you spend a lot of time to develop them.

Lastly, is the main part of how you progress through the actual story and the main way for your demon to gain levels. This is where all your troop collection comes in as the bigger your army the easier it is to progress. After you get to certain points, your generals are needed to fight bosses and hopefully you've been using your crystals to level them up.

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

This game was surprising. It has a lot of things that drag away time that you have to collect each day. Once you do that, there isn't much you can do in this game until certain things refill. I will take the time to talk about something I noticed in the reviews recently. Many people have gave this game a 1 star complaining about the PVP is pay to win. The PVP element is very minimal and not even something that gets you anything in this game. The game is heavily and mostly a single player game with just a dash of other player interaction.

Story:

 5 of 5 cogs.

Despite some very questionable translation issues, this game has a rich and deep story in it. Each consort has an individual story as well you have to learn as you make them happy. I know, this is a mobile game with a story, and that story follows a kind of graphic novel approach but is executed in such a way it isn't a graphic novel.

Amount of ads:

none

There are no ads at all, none. No optional videos for anything but this game does take up a bit of space on the phone.

Accurate Advertising?:

20%

Let me go over the advertising. In the google store, the screenshots are highly click-bait showing paid models posing in each screenshot. The video ads for this game contain a lot less click-bait than the main google store.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are gorgeous and HD. A lot of time has been put into the graphics even down to the detail of the HUD. There are many illustrations of character portraits and some of them are even animated.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The game gets very repetitive and you have many hours of downtime that forces you to play just a very tiny bit each day and suffers from many expensive microtransactions. You may get bored with this game very quickly as it takes a long time to gather everything else before you make any progress in the story.

Free play:

80%

This game is pretty easy to progress and get every consort unlocked except, there are 2 or 3 that are locked behind a VIP lv pay wall. Which means you have to spend a minimum amount of money to unlock these. So no you can not get everything with F2P

Fun factor:

👿 Demon harem, not for everyone and not for little kids.

Are you an indy programmer or game dev?

If so, you can leave a comment or contact me on social media for a chance to have an interview with you posted to my blog. I am looking for many devs that focus on mobile programming. If you have a cross-platform game, that is fine too as long as it's on mobile.

Thank You for reading my blog. Please consider donating to the tip jar as these are tough times and every bit helps. You can get updates by joining my newsletter. If you enjoy these reviews please show others this blog by retweeting or liking my posts on social media.

Throw a cog(tip using PayPal) to your blogger.

The Greedy Cave

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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The caves are filled with greed! The Greedy Cave

Today's game you think you are playing Don't Starve, but it is a mobile game about trying to survive a dungeon filled with monsters. This game is very difficult and remind me of Fatal Labynth for Sega Genesis. There is a hidden easteregg if you press and hold on the screen for a couple seconds.

Unlike Dont Starve, you can create a character. There isn't too many options to choose from, and I do not know if you can unlock more as you play.

You get plunked into a world that scrolls around like you are moving on a very tiny planet. You have the dungeon viewed here and on the sides are different shops or forgers to help you along. This game is odd as you can only keep golden equipment from the dungeons. There are ways to upgrade some common pieces up to gold but they are very rare.

So the first shop item holds these coupons you buy with real money. These items are then used to buy crystals which are used for various purchases of items. I find this a very strange system to use as it adds extra steps instead of letting us just by the gems.

Here are the second tab. As you see you the lowest set costs a single dollar USD. I do not know how much of a value this is as I did not have time to progress very far in this game. I hope to revisit this game sometime later once I get through my review pile.

There is a very complex inventory screen. You start the game with 2 pieces of gold equipment that has poor stats. As you progress you can use gold to unlock more inventory slots. I do not know if these are permanent upgrades or temporary ones. I also seem to have lost my screenshot for the Skill tab. Here you get a skill tree that use must use points you collect from leveling up. These give you abilities that can help you along in battle with a new attack or a healing ability.

The third tab has a list of temporary buffs you can pick up through the dungeons. These runes give you large boosts to stats that appear to also be temporary. Here you also see all the loot you will keep once you leave the dungeon. 

Here is one of the merchants that provide special potions for you to use in the dungeon. I never got a chance to really try these out yet.

As you progress on, you can unlock a cosmetic blacksmith that can make your gold items look different. These cost tickets as well. The difference is these cosmetics actually give you bonus stats.

This is a screenshot of some of the missions you can do to earm special crafting materials needed to upgrade you equipment. You can pie up some of these things as well from defeating enemies in the dungeon.

Now onto the main game screen. Here you get a reminder of your quests and you can see your stats in the top left. In the top right is a minimap that you can click on to see more details around you. The pack on the bottom of the screen is where you can set up your quick-use things like health or mana potions. This game has all the standard RPG elements you expect from games since the 80s. 

Lastly to wrap up the overview of the game is the map. This is a very beautifully rendered map. That concludes all the screenshots I have for you today and I will not move on to the scores section.

Overall:

 5 of 5 cogs.

This game has a lot to explore and it's impossible to do so in one sitting. Though There seems to be a glitch where if you do not finish a dungeon and return to town, you have a chance of loosing all progress. I do not know if this is due to losing signal or some other bug.

Story:

 4 of 5 cogs.

There is a bit of story you find hidden throughout the dungeons. The story seems to be locked behind maybe certain levels of the dungeon and is very random when you will find any of it.

Amount of ads:

 none

As far as I remember there are no ads ever shown in this game. It is nice to play though a game without getting hit by an ad every second.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I recall only ever seeing an ad for this game maybe once. The screenshots on Google Play show the real gameplay and doesn't have any click-bait.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are great in this game. They appear to be higher quality than that of Dont Starve. I feel the graphics are high-quality for the kind of game this is.

Gameplay:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The game play works as you expect it to. you clock on a square to move to it or interact with any other menu without issues. This game has all the basics of older RPGs and it's a great nostalgic trip.

Free play:

💯%

As far as I know you can gain tickets from completing quests. I have not played long enough to verify this so as it stands it appears to be fully F2P with microtransactions.

Fun factor:

👿 must survive at all costs.

Are you an indy programmer or game dev?

If so, you can leave a comment or contact me on social media for a chance to have an interview with you posted to my blog. I am looking for many devs that focus on mobile programming. If you have a cross-platform game, that is fine too as long as it's on mobile.

Thank You for reading my blog. Please consider donating to the tip jar as these are tough times and every bit helps. You can get updates by joining my newsletter. If you enjoy these reviews please show others this blog by retweeting or liking my posts on social media.

Throw a cog(tip using PayPal) to your blogger.