Kuma Sushi Bar

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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

Time to take a ride on the Sushi boat: Kuma Sushi Bar

.

.

NOTE: This may be the last blog for a bit due to some complicated issues I can not over-come quite yet. Keep an eye on my twitter @hakuzo_nightfox for updates.

Today I bring you a very anime inspired game called Kuma Sushi Bar. Kuma literally means bear in Japanese. As thus, you are a bear that makes sushi. You inherited this bar and it's your job to fix the mess. There are only 2 currencies in this game to deal with, the gold coins and dollars. You pull in customers by clicking on the flier button which brings only 1 customer, or click on the tv and watch an ad to bring in a full room of customers. Note: This game can only be played in landscape mode.

As you level up the bar on the top by collecting star, you can unlock rarer customers that will leave you larger tips. I think the customers under BAD are ones that will make a mess of the place after they are done and you have to click on their mess to clean up.

As you progress, you unlock new employees that help you make food when you have to rest. Each one has unique skills that can be utilized even when you rest.

When you click on the hammer, you get all the spots you can fix and it takes dollars to do so. Once you clear a spot, you can then buy a furniture item to decorate with. Each item give you stars that level up your resturant.

Here are some of the items you can unlock. As you progress in the game you can do things to unlock more options. Generally you have to be able to watch an AD to unlock these things from a random event.

As you progress, you can but a staff room that allows your employees rest in between customer rushes and you can talk to them here and learn tips to help you prepare more items. To get here click on the Right arrow.

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

Or you can donate with CashApp at:  #HakuzoSionnach.

The left Arrow brings you to another part of the restaurant. I have not made it this far yet so this will be a surprise for you to find out.

You can click on the present to bring up this screen. This is the shop screen, but it also houses a daily reward. You can also get here by clicking on the scroll on the main screen.

When you get a lot of customers in you can click on the image of a knife that shows up at the bottom of the screen. You now are faced with the prep table. You click on ingredients that you must put in the right order to make food. It is pretty easy to figure out what to do. Once all the ingredients are assembled you click on it to prep the food. Then you click on the matching callout to have your cat employee give it to the customers. Sometimes you run out of food and have to wait for it to restock.

You can upgrade your ingredients and recipes as well. You can access these via the scroll on the main screen. Each upgrade gives you more star progress and reduces the time it takes to prep the food or even increase the amount of pay you get. These can be upgrade further after you level up the restaurant. 

Just the quick shot of the option screen. Nothing exciting here.

You can progress through tasks each day to unlock more designs that you can buy. These do not require you to watch any ads to unlock.

Overall:

 

5 of 5 cogs.

Overall this game is pleasing and relaxing game. This game is a nice change of pace compared to al to of games I have reviewed.

Story:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Story isn't really that apparent in this game. You have to make a lot of inferences and some times you get snippets when you talk to the employees in the break room. 

Amount of ads:

 

 Optional Only.

There are no pop-up ads to worry about. All the ads are optional and you do not need to watch any of them.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I do not recall viewing any ads for this game. I only found it on the play store. The screenshots featured in the store is what drew me in to this game and I plan to play through until I upgrade the shop fully.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are soft pastel colors and very pleasing to look at. The graphics make it a fun and relaxing game that doesn't take much energy to want to play.

Gameplay:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The gameplay is simple and all point-and-click. The recipes are easy to figure out and the game is fast moving until you run out of fliers and have to wait for them to refil.

Free play:

💯%

This game is easy to play without paying anything into it. The game is very generous with the dollars you earn so you can nearly play as much as you want without worry.

Fun factor:

🍣 Sushi.

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 on 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.

Or you can donate with CashApp at:  #HakuzoSionnach.

Medieval Merge

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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

.

Time to get medieval in: Medieval Merge

Today's game is a merge game that doesn't give you very much room to work with. You arrive at a town overrun with enemies and strange vines. You must create or find weapons and tools to complete the quests. You can have multiple quests at once that are tracked by a quest log. This game also features limited energy that prevents you from playing long at all. There is also a premium currency that is used to buy more energy or missing pieces you need to merge up a step.

When you click on your scroll button, you get a list of all the quests that are around you. Some of them are locked behind a level cap. From my understanding, you can have up to 6 different quests at one time from my time playing this game.

The main game screen has a very limited amount of space compared to other games like this. The game starts you off with many producer items that take up space and you are forced to manage several different items lines at once.

Now like other merge games, you get a backpack where you have to buy more space with coins. You really have to focus on this one to get the most space that you can.

A quick view of the Option screens. Nothing stands out here that I feel I need to talk about.

If you run out of energy, you can click on the green plus button by the energy vials and watch a video to get free energy or pay premium currency to continue playing.

Next, we move along to your player level. As you complete quests you gain experience and gain a new reward for each level. You have to level to unlock new areas to explore.

We finish up the screenshots of this game with a picture of the shop. This game is very microtransaction heavy.

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

As much as I like merge games, this game just felt too tedious and I gave up playing this game after trying it out for the blog. This game doesn't offer much that is unique compared to other merge games.

Story:

 3 of 5 cogs.

This game has some story. I didn't get very far but it seems to be a fairly standard story. Town gets taken over by monsters and the hero must fix everything because the villagers are inept.

Amount of ads:

 Optional only

There are only optional ads in this game for getting more energy or recharging item producers.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I do not recall ever seeing an ad for this game as I just downloaded it from the play store. The screenshots in the play store are accurate and not clickbaity.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

I know I gave this game a middle-of-the-road rating but this game does have nice graphics. The style is very cartoony and has exaggerated shapes. The style is a bit unique compared to other games I've played.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Tedious and very constrained compared to other merge games. I lost interest in this game because it's too difficult to do anything to advance.

Free play:

💯%

Yeah, the game is free to play but it's extremely difficult to get too far without obtaining more backpack space in this game.

Fun factor:

😐 Mediocre.

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 on 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.

Or you can donate with CashApp at:  #HakuzoSionnach.

No blog this week.

 No blog this week. Internet has been acting up and feeling a bit sick. Tune back next week.

Gold and Goblins

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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

Today the steam drills dig up: Gold and Goblins Idle Merge

Today I bring you a game that reminds me a lot of Lego Rock Raiders for the PC. You shoot out goblins from a cannon and then merge them to force them to mine up rocks. 

The game uses simple idle mechanics of buildings generating coins that you use to buy more goblins or upgrade mines once you dig them up. Each rock or gate has a number on it. A goblin can mine any stone regardless of the number displayed. If a goblin has a higher number than a rock or object, it mines it extremely fast. If the goblin has a lower number it can still mine but it gets a time multiplier added. It's hard to tell how time is calculated in this game because it seems a bit random. As you progress on you unlock the ability to go to event levels. The other buttons in this screenshot are locked but I will go over these soon. In the normal mode, you get purple vials that are used to upgrade your cards. These upgrades are permanent. There is one premium currency, the Green diamond. This game does not give out these gems too freely and it takes a lot to make them useful.

Now lets move on to the even level. It is the same screen but with the addition of keys hidden in rocks. These keys are the first goal to aim for as they unlock bonuses for your main mine. Each event mine has a theme to it that effects the drops you get at the end. Most of these events last for 24 hours but some events last for 3 days. With this screenshot I can go over the other buttons here. The chest is a shop that I will go over soon but this is where you can claim free random cards every few hours. The next button is all the cards you own. Event cards are seperate than the main mine. It says these cards are permenent in this game mode but I can not verify that until I have a repeat event. To the right of the goblin button is a wheel. These also refill a charge every hour and you can watch a video to get free goblins, vials or time boosts. The last button is the event button. You use this to switch between mines.

Here is the settings. A lot of links to social media a and linking to cloud saving.

Here is a portion of the shop. There are may things in here to help you advance quicker but a lot of this is expensive. I feel the prices for the stuff in this game is over-priced compared to most other mobile games.

Now we come to the main mechanic in this game. The semi-gotcha style card system controls a lot about what you can do. Each mine you find uses a different goblin and ontop of that you have to have them at a high enough level to run the mine. Some cards affect mining speed or the amount of coins you can collect.

When you click on a card you can see how many you have and the number of viles it costs to upgrade a card. These numbers start to get expoential fast. 

Here's a shot of some of the things you can view on the wheel. You get at least 1 free spin a day.

When you hit the event button you get a preview of the them and what kind of rewards you can collect for collecting keys.

This game has a small amount of achievements that do not give you many rewards for completing them. According to this, there are at least 6 events that seem to rotate around.

Lastly, here is a preview of what you can collect from a chest. There are different levels of chests that offer rarer cards in them.

Overall:

 5 of 5 cogs.

Overall this is a fun game. You have a lot of waiting to do sometimes but that is also the issue. The goblins do not continue to mine unless they are next to a new valid target. Placing your goblins is important. The events are very short and seem designed to eat money if you wish to make it to the top 100.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

There is a little story in the begining then nothing else.

Amount of ads:

 

  optional only.

You only have optional ads to worry about.

Accurate Advertising?:

50%

At first, the ads for these games were straigh forward. Those ones got my attention on the game. Later on they use click-bait ads like a game I have previously blogged about. I feel this is a very cheap way to get people to play.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are high quality and have an odd charm to them. For a mobile game these graphics look great on my phone.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game doesn't have too much mechanically going on to keep you playing and there is limited things you can do. I feel the only thing that keeps someone going are the many events and the sense of wanting to discover more in this game.

Free play:

💯%

For the most part, this game is very easy to play through without paying anything. The gems are very rare to earn and but you don't need them to progress.

Fun factor:

🔨 Hammer time!

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.

Or you can donate with CashApp at:  #HakuzoSionnach.