Agar.io

Want to be updated when the next blog goes live? Join my newsletter at: https://tinyletter.com/Hakuzo

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

The steam vents reveal: Agar.io

Today I decided to download and play an old IO game. Agar.io has been around for some time and has very simple gameplay. Not much has changed since the last play but that being said, nothing has been improved either. When I restarted, my achievements are there but my status has been reset.

You now have a set of free rewards. I do not if these are recurrent or change monthly. There are a few currencies that I will cover later.

There is a shop menu loaded with a lot of micro-transactions. All of these require real money except for the skin shop. This menu gives you access to powerups that are temporary and only last an hour.

The Skins button allows you to use coins to buy skins. There is a lot to unlock here. Eac h skin increases in price and gets very expensive and requires a lot of gameplay to unlock them all. Some skins only unlock as you level up. You can make a custom skin for using 90 DNA, which is the premium currency and harder to obtain without paying.

Every 24 hours a new Daily Quest is given to you. From what I remember, they are very simple things you can do in a single game. 

The third way to unlock skins is from shards you gain from mystery potions. They take time to open but you can open them faster with DNA. You can only hold 3 at a time and you have to wait it out.

The main game is very simple. You move around by touching the screen and sliding around. The main object of the game is to go around and eat pellets just like Pacman. A recent addition adds mushrooms that seem to give you a big size boost. As you get bigger you have two options. You can split yourself to become smaller and take over smaller and faster players or you can fire pellets to make an opponent bigger and slower as your speed increases slightly. As time goes on your mass slowly starts to drop.

The has also been a new party feature added. It seems that you can join with others and be put into a private game.

Lastly is a very new game mode that takes a page from PubG. You have an area that slowly shrinks. I have not survived long enough to see the timer click down and the initial game seems to be safe to run outside the circle for about 2 minutes.

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

I would have ranked this higher but this game suffers from a lot of the same issues it always has. The servers are very laggy and at times it's not easy to play. Or there is a lot of teams that play and feed each other to take out anyone that plays

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

No story.

Amount of ads:

 

 Many in-game ads. 

The game will post an ad at you to buy something in-game every time you return to the main screen.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

The screenshots on google play match the gameplay and are accurate.

Graphics:

 2 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are very simple and do not have much effort put into it even after all of these years.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Simple gameplay but many laggy servers and unfair gameplay.

Free play:

💯%

You can easily play this game for free but it gets very boring fast.

Fun factor:

😐 Average.

Thank You for reading my blog. Please consider donating to the tip jar as these are tough times and every bit helps. You can follow by email or via follow on desktop websites. f 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.

Hero's Quest

Want to be updated when the next blog goes live? Join my newsletter at: https://tinyletter.com/Hakuzo

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

Grab your steam-forged sword and take along: Hero's Quest Automatic RPG

Blogger.com is now working again and I am able to post finally. I am sorry for the delay.

This game says it is an automatic RPG, but that name is misleading. There are no idle or automatic elements to this game at all except for battles are automatic. The game is a Rogue-like in that you have a limited number of battles to gain enough gold to buy the next weapon upgrade. You gain more moves by defeating bosses. Each room section normally contains at least 1 boss.

As your progress in the game, you earn tickets that allow you to buy new characters or unlock new relic slots. You can watch optional videos to earn 500 tickets at a time. I recommend to do this a couple times to earn the Dark Knight to gain a defense boost.

This game has 5 slots for equipment. You click on one of the slots and you open a menu that allows you to buy a item. The price becomes expoential and it is impossible to get more than about 2 items a run through. Each of these items you keep during every reset. The left over gold goes to obtaining tickets. This game you can not spend a lot of time grinding levels so every move must be percise. Starting off you have to push past the level 1 creature to a higher level one and earn your first weapon. Sometimes you can gain items from creatures and having multiple items of the same kind will add a multiplyer to that item, In theory if you collect enough of a lower level item it can be partially better than the next stage up but I don't see enough of a boost from what I've collected in my playthroughs.

Next is just the option screen. Nothing too exciting to see here beyond basic things.

Here is the basic of the game screen you see. To move you slide your finger around in the direction you want to go. When you do a vitual joystick appears on the screen. Move over a monster to fight it.

You can only sit by and watch as you fight an enemy. If you lose the fight, you revive with 2 energy used up. So choose your battles carefully.

The stats are like any other RPG but it takes a LOT of points to make certian stats actually give you any bonus like Luck. The first few runthrough you want to go pure attack to make the most progress. As you progress on you have to focus on Defense to survive. Agility and luck are useless to focus on as the armor and rings will boost these stats.

Here is an example of a higher level boss. You can not see the level of any of the bosses and the bosses do not respawn when you kill them unlike the other creatures that do.

Overall:

5 of 5 cogs.

Overall, the concept of the game is a little different and I really do like how this game handles a new game plus. You have to really pay attention to some things and as you gain better weapons, you can move on

Story:

 1 of 5 cogs.

This game doesn't seem to have a direct story but there is a small amount of story that could be gleamed from the type of monsters you figh or the areas you see. Other then that, there is no direct story.

Amount of ads:

 Many.

There is a constant bar advertisement as seen in the screenshots above. There is also optional ads you can view for additional tickets or time.

Accurate Advertising?:

80%

This game is a bit misleading in the name. This is not an idle game. The only automatic part is combat. Everything else is mannual play. The google glay screenshots do fairly match the gameplay but don't tell you enough.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

This game reminds me of many classic RPGs like Final Fantasy and similar games. This has a good clasic feel to it.

Gameplay:

5 of 5 cogs.

The game is fun but can become tedious and repetitive. The game does not leave much room to experiment with stats too much to make an effective run through.

Free play:

💯%

You can play this game as long as you want without paying for anything. You can buy an upgrade to remove the ads and gain extra battles for a run.

Fun factor:

😄.Great classic Fun.

Thank You for reading my blog. Please consider donating to the tip jar as these are tough times and every bit helps. You can follow by email or via follow on desktop websites. f 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.

Survival RPG 3: Lost In Time

A test of putting the game logo first in the post to have a better preview image show when I link my blog.

Want to be updated when the next blog goes live? Join my newsletter at: https://tinyletter.com/Hakuzo

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

Time to get lost in: Survival RPG 3: Lost in Time

Please share this blog with many others and leave comments at the bottom for any games you'd like to see reviewed. See a game that looks good but sounds scammy? leave a comment with the name of the game (Android only please, I do not have an IOS system.)

Sorry for being a week late but things have been very chaotic lately. That aside, let's get into the last game in the Survival RPG series. This is the third game in this set. Very similar assets as the first two games but with a difference that I will explain next. I will keep this post light on screenshots again as this game is loaded with the story and I don't want to spoil anything.

Welcome to the biggest change in this game series. They added the ability to choose what you look like with different clothing colors and hairstyles. When you are happy with your looks you can join the game.

After a cut scene, you arrive in a new area unlike any found in the first two games. As you can see you are transported to the distant past. You have to survive and figure out what happened to you.

Instead of just one major map, this game takes on multiple maps like the second adventure. This makes the areas easier to explore and allows you to find all the hidden items faster.

This time you are back to gathering materials all on your own and figuring out how to craft new things. Once again when you build enough of one item, you no longer need to build them, but this game does seem to have a lot of reusable items like in the first game as well. In this game, I will make this note here. Candles are no longer infinite and have a time limit before they run out.

The same equipment screen you've seen 3 times already. You will rarely look at this screen honestly.

This game has an expanded food list compared to the first game. The cooking mechanic is back and you can cook things, Except for the dino eggs. 

Everything you collect so far is mostly the same in all three games. You collect branches and vines in every game and it would have been nice to see some kind of mix up like say using bones instead of the sticks.

Lastly, is the tools menu that you will never look at often unless you get a new item. At this point, I really wish the HUD would have been improved and made a little more fancy to match the higher detailed sprites in the rest of the game series. 

Overall:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The third game adds a lot graphically to the game and adds in a lot of story. The downside is there are still some things that could have been done to make the game feel less repetitive. You still have to grind and gather many sticks and other materials. That grinding is very boring and takes away from the gameplay.

Story:

 4 of 5 cogs.

This game has added a vast amount of story compared to the first two games. There's a lot to learn and experience so I will not go into the details of it.

Amount of ads:

 many

This game still suffers from a forced full-screen video ad every time you go through a cave. This really needs to be toned down still.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

Google play has similar screenshots to the ones I have here. Once again I have never seen any ads for this game so I can not tell you about their accuracy. 

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

I would give this a 5 out of 5 cogs but the developers have missed their chance to make the HUD better and use different items in the game instead of recycling the same assets again. 

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

I'm giving this game 4 out of 5 cogs because this game becomes very repetitive especially if you played through the first 2 games and it's just the same gameplay again. There are not many innovations in this third rendition to give you a reason to play them all in order. You can play just the third game and skip the first two if you want.

Free play:

💯%

Still 100% free to play and make it to the end of the game.

Fun factor:

😐 A bit repetitive.

Thank You for reading my blog. Please consider donating to the tip jar as these are tough times and every bit helps. You can follow by email or via follow on desktop websites. f 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.