Merge Mayor

 

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Today we drive our steam-powered cars into town to become: Merge Mayor

Today I bring you a nice merge 2 game where you only have to focus on matching 2 of the same item and not 3 or more to form massive chains of clutter. This game is very simple compared to other merge games and is a lot more chill. You become mayor of a town that is broken and needs to be repaired from the ground up.

The main screen is the city map. It is a 3D voxel world even though the buildings have a lot more detail. You can move around the map to find each quest yourself or you can click the bottom-left of the screen to bring up all the current quests there are. You can click on the green play button to reach the main merge field like most other merge games. This game has 2 different currencies. Coins are used to buy landmark upgrades and Premium gems are used to buy extra items or used to unlock various things. I recommend saving all of these as you need them to open storage space, another part I will cover later in this blog.

Let us get the boring stuff out of the way. This is the basic options page. Not much to see here.

If you click on the button on the far top right of the screen on the building, brings you to the shop menu. Here you want to grab your daily pack of batteries. You can save up these batteries and merge them into better ones to restore energy for free. Other useful things show up here as well as the token shop to buy those rarer items you need to complete a mission.

Clicking on the hat will show you areas with landmarks. From what I can tell, these landmarks affect how much your production items can create before running out of resources. These landmarks require specific items to upgrade and lots of coins. After that, it also takes time to upgrade these buildings as well. 

As you gain more hats, you unlock more passive rewards that will help you progress in the game. The one displayed here ties into the next screenshot.

The third tab has a daily reward. You want to grab this as this item must be dragged onto the board and clicked to collect everything you need to progress in the game. This is the ONLY way you can collect more parts of the production buildings, which are the most important thing needed to progress.

The last tab is a special vault. As you use energy and spend gems, a percentage of them gets stored in the vault. You 'can' buy it to open it anytime or you can save up these keys you find and merge them to open this vault for free.

Here is a quick preview of what a landmark takes to upgrade. You can click on an item to see what producer makes it. 

You click on the number with a circle around it to see your mayor level. This only seems to give you a bonus reward and doesn't seem to affect anything else in this game as far as I've noticed.

Here is the main merge field. The objects with a yellow highlight are the buildings that produce all the different products. There is quite a bit of space in this game to work with compared to other games I've played and blogged about. The cardboard box will bring us to the last screenshot of this game.

This is the warehouse where you will store a lot of stuff to make space for merging rarer items. You have to clear away a lock and open a space to see what the next adjacent objective is. As you can see here there are a lot of locks that require gems to open.

Overall:

 5 of 5 cogs.

 

Overall, this game has kept me playing for a long time after trying it. This is one of my current top favorite merge games to play at this time.

Story:

 4 of 5 cogs.

There is surprisingly a lot of story as you rebuild up the city. The story is simple but there are some random special missions that pop-up that give you some small behind the scenes building of the game from the devs.

Amount of ads:

 

    Optional Only

This game only has optional ads. You only have to watch an ad to gain free energy, up to 3 times a day or to upgrade the daily reward to gain more items.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I only recall seeing the ad for this game maybe once or twice and this game doesn't use any click-bait tactics to get people to play.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are simple but they all match the theme of this game pretty well. The only odd thing is the people are 3d Voxel while the rest of the graphics are not voxel-based.

Gameplay:

 5 of 5 cogs.

Simple, Easy, and relaxing to play. This game has a lot to discover to keep you going for a while.

Free play:

💯%

This game is very generous to you. You can eventually unlock anything you need as you just play the game.

Fun factor:

🏬 Not so Sim City, but easier.

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.

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Forest Island

 

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Giveaway: I will be running a contest. If this blog post can gain 50 views I will give away $5 dollars USD to a single person. To enter this giveaway you must leave a comment here and try to refer a friend. If by some odd magic this post reaches 100 views, the giveaway will be boosted to $10. Rewards will be through Paypal for instant payout or Cash app for a delayed payout. I will announce the winner next blog IF we reach this goal and from there the winner can contact me via Email, discord,FB, or Twitter. If the goal is not reached by next week, the giveaway for this post will end. Please leave your preferred method of contact in the comment as well.

Take a relaxing cruise on the steamboats to: Forest Island

Today I bring to you a simple game full of animals. You start with a tiny island and you grow it by collecting light and hearts. As you expand the island you unlock more animals the rate of collection increases. There are many different objectives that pop up that give you bonuses but some of these require you to watch Ads to collect.

There is a daily log in full of bonuses. The tickets give you a time skip to gain a time skip for collecting light or hearts. The chests are the main way you get more cards of the animals you already have or have a chance to get special alternate colored animals that give you massive boost to light or heart production.

This is the main island you start off with. As far as I can tell this island is a set design and there is no randomness to its design There are several things going on here and I will break down what I can on this screen. At the top, you see several currencies. The first number with the paw is the total number of animals you have. The second is the hearts given by clicking on animals. Hearts are used to upgrade the level of your animals to make them collect more light. The box in the middle is the light you collected and this is what you use to upgrade the island. The hexagonal button on the bottom of the screen you can quickly upgrade by clicking on the red button or you can click the double up arrow to upgrade any part you want if you have enough light. Next are these green egg-like objects is used to upgrade special upgrades that I will cover later in this blog, which you can get these from the quest button under the trophy. The Trophy is a list of achievements. The last two buttons are the shop icon and a mail system which will sometimes send you updates about the game. Lastly is a rainbow gem that is used to buy extra chests from the shop menu. This is a premium currency that has very limited uses.

These tasks are the main way you gain rainbow gems for free. This game is very generous in earning premium currency.

Lastly, quests are ever-green and are the main way you collect the green eggs. These quests you can only have one at a time but this is the only way you can get these eggs.

The shop has many different things you can purchase or you can gain free chests as well here once a day. You can also buy gems as well under the next tab. 

There is an egg that shows up. Once a day you can hatch the egg for a chance to unlock a special bird that gives you very big boosts for every bird you own.

There are many birds you can collect but there is a very low chance of getting one when you hatch an egg. You do have a chance to get free chests or other rewards. You have the option to watch videos to reduce the timer until another egg appears but there seems to be a daily limit of eggs as well.

I now return to the big button at the bottom of the screen. As you progress along it takes a large amount of light to unlock a new part of the island.

When you click on the growth tab, you come to a list of very big upgrades that affect everything about your progress. These upgrades are ones you need to focus on for the most progress in this game.

When you buy a new island you get a small cutscene for each animal you unlock. This also brings you back to 'meditate' mode where you can sit back and watch the animals play and just listen to the music.

One of the quests you get from time to time is to enter into picture mode. You gain bonus light for taking pictures of the animals on the island. It doesn't seem to matter what you capture, it gives the same amount of light every time.

You access this menu by clicking on the paw button hidden at the bottom of the screen. As you level up the animals they boost the light each part of the island produces. Sadly at this time, it is very difficult to gain up hearts to level up all the animals.

The rare animal tab shows you all the cards you have collected to unlock them. Every level of the rare animal adds an extra animal that acts as the base animal per island. The more animals you have the more times the multiplier counts towards light collection.

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

This is a chill game that claims to be relaxing. A lot of the time you're waiting offline to collect light or hearts. Other than waiting, there isn't much you can do but watch the screen. Sometimes you can collect coins from cleaning up bits of corruption on the islands.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

This is the story you are looking for.

Amount of ads:

 optional only.

There are no ads that pop up except for the optional ads you can watch for the various rewards or advancement.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I've seen this game advertised many times and the ads never really show much, but from what is shown exact screenshots from this game.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Graphics are very simple and follow a simple shading style like many indy games I have seen lately. The animations for the animals are well designed and look fairly realistic.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game consists of simple tap controls. There isn't much you can really do in this game but try to make the numbers grow and idle as you watch animals moving around their small sections of the island. I considered giving this game a much lower ranting for gameplay but it has some simple charms to it. I doubt anyone will play this one for too long sadly.

Free play:

💯%

This game is very generous to those that play for free. You can collect rainbow gems just by playing and completing objectives and working to unlock everything. There are some balance issues that do make the game feel bogged down a lot as you progress and soon will become stuck waiting for enough light to continue on.

Fun factor:

☃ Chilly.

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.

Idle Kingdom Clicker

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Today's game: Idle Kingdom Clicker

(No link today as it's in early access so there's no link)

Today's game is an infinite kingdom builder game. You go about starting with a simple castle and you must acquire food, wood, and technology to grow. Prices climb exponentially as you progress. 

This is the main map screen. You gain food and must buy more land using that food. Across the top is food stores and production amount, followed by wood. Next is technology/research. Next is prestige trophies and lastly diamonds, a premium currency.

Here is a shot of all the food producers. Some you must research to unlock.

Here are all the building materials. It's conveniently all lumped into a single type and makes it simpler to progress.

Lastly, is all the research buildings. The university is what does the heavy lifting and must be used to buy new land types or building types.

Here is a simple foraging hut menu. Here you spend food and building materials to upgrade the level of the building. At stages, you get boosts that multiply your output.

The number two button opens a menu where you can select temporary boosts to increase output further.

This screen shows you how much you've produced per run. Here you reset and gain trophies that permanently boost your outputs. If you have enough trophies you can choose a new map with higher multipliers.

Next, we come to the actual research tabs. You will be grinding out a lot of techs to progress among the tech tree. Some open new buildings and others increase the output of your buildings. You will have to reset a lot just to start down this tree.

Welcome to the university. Here a portion of your technology is funneled into research. This is a very slow process. So be comfortable backing this game once a day.

Lastly, you can watch videos to get further temporary boosts. As of right now, you can not watch videos to gain premium currency.

I will wrap up with diamonds here. The only use they have is to buy chests that give you special temporary boosts, with a small chance to also unlock permanent boosts. You can skip this currency as you only get it through daily login rewards or you can pay money to get more.

Overall:

 

4 of 5 cogs.

The game is very easy to play and you spend a lot of time forgetting about it and let it gain stuff while you wait. It is still in early access and has several aspects to micromanage.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

There is no story at all.

Amount of ads:

There are no in-game ads beyond the optional videos you can watch for boosts.

Advertised as seen:

💯%

This game is honest with the screenshots on google play. I can not recall ever seeing a video ad for this game.

Graphics:

5 of 5 cogs.

All of the buildings are 3D and the menus are 2d buttons. The GUI is easy to read and all assets match and feel like they being in the game.

Audio:

 2 of 5 cogs.

There isn't much in the way of music. Every time you reset a shirt and very loud music clip plays.

The sound effects become repetitive very fast and it's best to turn off all sounds for this game.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Easy to play, pick up, and put down. There are a lot of incomplete things in this game as it's being actively worked on. New content takes time as it seems like only a single person is working on this game.

Free play:

💯 %

You can play this game without paying anything for it.

Fun factor:

🤗 mostly fun.

I have played this game a lot since almost the beginning. For a time I stopped playing and came back to find the new research system. This renewed my joy for the game.

I hope everyone is staying safe during these times. Take time to try out new games and experience new things.

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