Summoners greed

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

I must sadly call the contest dead now. No one stepped up to claim the prize and now it is off the table. I have no future plans to do any more contests since this one flopped badly.

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Today the summoners of steam summon up: Summoners greed

Today we summon up a Tower Defense game with a gotcha game system. You get to summon a random creature from the basic list. It appears as you progress you can choose to summon premium creatures using the in-game premium currency. A last stage is locked that you must clear the first main story to open so I have no idea what that stage requires.

The first summon you get is a basic slime. It has decent attack speed but a very limited range. The slime is the most common trope and meme in the RPG world and this game sticks with it as there are different forms of slime you can summon, among other creatures as well.

This game has 3 basic currencies and a 4th one I will cover later that is much rarer. The Green orbs you obtain from completing levels for the first time. The purple stone is the main premium currency and this takes a bit more work to earn. You get the purple gem from daily logins and then from achievements. The last currency is gold coins which are used to upgrade a monster's level permently or buy upgrades that I will cover in the next screenshot.

On the main map screen, you get a button that brings up player skills. These upgrades are permanent throughout all the games and restarts. I seem to be missing a screenshot of the enemy page. On that page you can view all the enemies you have defeated and get information of the abilities each enemy has.

When you click on the monster tab, you can see all the monsters you have summoned and their rarity. As you get multiple copies of the same monster it can be powered up and gain more attack power and speed.

When you click on a monster you can see the stats and skills the monster has, and you can see how many cards you need to upgrade the monster. Some monsters can be evolved using a rainbow gem but it takes a lot of these to do so, and the only way to get these stones is to buy them or successfully knock out an enemy that is very difficult to beat for a chance to get only a couple of these gems.

There is an invite a friend system that you have to invite 20 friends to unlock a free legendary monster. I feel this is a very hard to stretch that you have you invite so many people just to get some decent rewards.

Here are the achievements. As far as I can tell every one of them are infintently reatainable. This is by far the best way to gain purple gems. This is one of the most generious games I've seen with the amount of premium currency you can earn.

Here is the option/settings screen. The odd part is to switch maps you have to come here. This is a hidden things that you have to find just to advance to a new map once you completed the firest one. I find this is an odd place to hide such a key feature to the game.

Here is the list of maps and special challenges. If you click on the locks they tell you what you have to do to unlock them. Same for the challenges. It seems the firest milestone is to reach wave 50 in the basic map. Each map has a small amount of story based on the enemies you face.

When you first start a map, you can move around the monsters as you see fit. Once you start the game you can not move them around anymore, but you can click on a monster to bring up the upgrade screen here. Each level up costs gold coins. Some of the statues seem to have a maximum level where-as some of the other monsters do not appear to have a max. 

If you fail to defeat an enemy and it reaches the bottom of the screen they steal away your chest of treasure. You can restart the same level but generally you have to watch a video to do so most times. The first time you can restart the same level for free. It is generally better to use timewarp to start from an earlier level to gain more gold coins to upgrade your monsters.

As this screen shows you also have the option to buy a retry on the same level using the purple gems. It seems once every 24 hours you are allowed a free retry as well.

Every so often you can summon special monsters using the rainbow gems. These gems are very hard to obtain and it doesn't feel fair that you have to try getting them in such a short amount of time just to gain a very rare monster. I do not know if these open on as that third summon option later on in the game.

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

This game has an interesting twist on the classic tower defense game style and makes it less stressful. This system is very generous and relaxed to other tower defense games I've played in the past. Though to really progress to the later levels does seem to require a whole team of special monsters. 

Story:

 3 of 5 cogs.

There is a little bit of story inbetween when you fight a new boss. There isn't a deep story to this game with a start and finish, it mostly has just small snippits and mostly that is infered by the type of enemes you face and the information you read about them later on.

Amount of ads:

 

Optional only.

The game has only optional ads and there are no forced pop-up video ads that slow down gameplay. This game allows you to play as much as you want without being bothered constalty to buy something.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I do not recall seeing any videos ads for this game. The screenshots in the google shop are accurate and shows you what to expect while you play.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are simple and for the most part are cohesive. The art does seem a bit on the cartoony side and has a bit of humorous look to it. I feel the art adds a bit of comedy into the actual game.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game handels the T.D. aspect in a unique way. The creatures you summon are completely immune to any kind of damage even though some bosses can temporairly freeze them. The only things that can be damaged is the rocks on the field and those can be upgraded much later in the game. The only way to restore the rocks is to use purple gems to reset them. I did not have time to discover what the other maps are like sadly before I had to write this blog.

Free play:

💯%

This game is very generious for purple gems as you need a lot of them to upgrade various things in the game. Though it seems to be extremely hard to earn the rainbow gems in a timely manner.

Fun factor:

🌌 Magical.

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.

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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.

Idle Mythos A.K.A Genesis of Gods

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Today's game is: Idle Mythos

Idle Mythos is an AFK idle game. You get 12 hours of idle time which means you have to check-in at least twice a day to collect rewards and experience. You have to manually level up your heroes and manually challenge new levels to get stronger.

One possible hero here is Daji. She is a Chinese Kitsune that has a lot of lore behind her. This game appears to have many different people from all corners of mythology, each working to some goal.

This is the basic idle screen. It loops endlessly unless you click on next stage and go into the actual battle. There's a lot in this game and the tutorial does a fairly good job explaining what to do. There ware two main currencies. The first is a purple diamond that is the premium currency. You obtain a large number of these as you play through. They allow you to summon new heroes among other things. The second is gold and it is used to upgrade hero levels and merging equipment.

Here is a quick view of some of the heroes you may encounter starting out.

This is the basic map screen. You will unlock more places as you level up and you can do more types of quests or events to further power up your heroes. There is a PVP arena along with several other game modes that will take around an hour to complete each day.

The last screen here is an example of the equipment you can find in the game. The red equipment is the strongest in the game and requires you to merge 3 of the previous item together. Each item ads a large portion of power to each hero.

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

There's a lot to this game and far too much to cover in this blog. The game makes you feel like you gain power quickly. I play AFK arena and so far this game feels fairer than the aforementioned game. You can do every daily events within an hour of play.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

There is no story at all in this game except small snipits about each charachter. 

Amount of ads:

 

None.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

As far I can tell from the few advertisements every component shown matches. Except, the part claiming the first top up was only 1 penny. That was no where to be found and I wonder if it was a limited time offer.

Graphics:

5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are very highly detailed. Each asset is very defined and clear to make out on the phone screen.

Audio:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The audio files sound very familiar. I feel they are possibly open-source sounds found elsewhere.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

There is a lot of different things to keep you playing every 12 hours. Progression feels fast so far but I have not reached a point of any difficulty walls.

Free play:

💯%

This gave is very generous with giving you premium currency to buy more heroes with. You can progress well without paying anything.

Fun factor:

😏 better than expected.

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Minute Dungeon

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Today's game: Minute Dungeon

Let me start off by saying I'm sorry for missing the last two weeks. I have had a lack of signal making it hard to post.

Today is a simple game part of the "minute" series. These games share the same sources as Minute Slash. There are hundreds of pets and items to collect.

The title screen shows you the basic 8-bit glory that is this simple game. There is a permanent banner ad at the bottom.

This is your town/level select. Each dungeon can be leveled up after you beat them, allowing you to get stronger items.

There are hundreds of items and pets to collect. Each item has an independent level so if you replay a dungeon at a higher level you can get stronger armor. Different weapons do different kinds of attacks or have elemental effects.

Your player level is odd. It resets every dungeon yet your maximum hp stays every time you regain a level. This is a very interesting mechanic.

The basic menu. You can not change items in the dungeon but you can switch between 4 different sets. You can set up your stats to automatically assign stats. It is recommended you keep all state balanced starting out.

You also collect many different healing items. Each item has an explanation to tell you what each one does.

This is your auto-assign menu. You can move them around to adjust what you want based on the kind of build you wish to try.

Basic stats of the game as you play. Not much here to go over.

The blacksmith can allow you to upgrade your favorite equipment to make it stronger.

Lastly, pets unlock from every enemy you run into. This allows you to keep trying for the pet you want to help you. Each pet gives you bonus stats.

Overall :

 4 of 5 cogs

A very simple and easy to play game that gives you an RPG adventure that appears almost endless. Anyone can easily pick up this game and play as long as you like.

Story:

 1 of 5 cogs.

There's a little story with the tutorial and after there us no more.

Amount of ads:

There is a constant banner ad at the bottom of the screen. There are no optional videos to watch at all. Playing in airplane mode will save you data and you will not see the ads.

Advertised as seen:

💯%

The screenshots on google play match the gameplay. I do not recall seeing any video ads for this game.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs

Basic 8-bit art. It's very simple and minimal. Sadly its not the best 8-bit art.

Audio:

N/A:

I never got a chance to listen to the audio.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The game is a semi turn-based RPG. You must survive the monster onslaught until you beat the dungeon boss.

Free play:

💯%

You have nothing to buy. Play as much as you want.

Fun factor:

🧐 average.

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