Random Dice

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Today's mobile game is: Random Dice

This game is a very interesting mix of, PvP, Tower defense, and merge game. I didn't know what to think about this game, but I ended up enjoying this game. 

Here's the first screen you are greeted with. There are two currencies. Gems are the premium currency for this game and are earned by daily quests and winning in PvP. The second currency is gold. You get it the same way but it's more common.

This is the base of your deck. You get five different kinds of dice to start with. You can unlock more dice from the shop or co-op chest (Card box). The basic dice tend to be very weak and rarer dice offer better attack patterns. You collect multiple copies of dice to level them up using gold.

This is the store that you can buy packs of dice. The rarer the dice, the more it costs to buy. Further down you can find packs to buy gems, and chests that give a lot of dice when bought with gems.

This shop has skins for the battlefield. I've gone against someone that had a skin and it changed the battlefield for me as I do not have any skins unlocked.

This menu is for special modes that cost premium currency. There appears to be a way to win more gems back.

Here you get free items from the daily menu. Then you get more for completing the tasks. If you complete all of them, you can use the reroll once a day to get a new task, or replace an incomplete one.

This is the main PvP mode. As you kill one of the enemy squares it will send one to your opponent. You collect SP to put more dice on the board and spend SP to level up the dice up to stage 5. Each wave has a set time and after so many waves a boss shows up.

Overall:

5 of 5 cogs.

This game really amazed me with several simple mechanics combined into something new. There is a lot of luck involved so it's possible to beat someone with higher level dice. I will note here that I've had issues with stability and have been disconnects several times during a match.

Story:

🚫

There is no story at all.

Amount of ads:

There are no ads that are blasted in your face like most games. You can only watch ads to get a one-time PvP boost or to gain another co-op play. I recommend playing as much co-op as possible because it gives you gold and cards very quickly.

Advertised as seen:

💯%

Every ad I've seen has been straight-forward. They do not use tactics I've seen in so many other ads to get you to play.

Graphics:

  2 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are very simplistic and nothing stands out about them.

Audio:

    1 of 5 cogs.

The sounds are very similar and blend into the same tone.

Gameplay:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The gameplay surprised me and I find drawn to keep playing this game. It's rare that a game grabs my attention so deeply.

Free play:

 💯%

You can play this game without dropping money into it.

Fun factor:

😎 "Oh Yeah."

This is a fun game. I don't know how long this game will keep my attention, but it is a fun game to pick up and play. It's a fast-paced tower defence.

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Tap Chest (Idle clicker)

I would like to thank everyone that has read any of my reviews. I wish everyone a happy holiday during these trying times.

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Today's game is Tap Chest

This is an interesting game. You collect gold from chests by tapping on the screen. You collect the coins and can use temporary auto clickers in a cookie clicker fashion. This game has a lot of DnD vibes.

Welcome to the lone chest in the middle of the forest. This is a pretty standard fantasy set up. 

First is the chest. The bar under it fills up the more you click. Once the bar is full the chest opens, giving items, gold or diamonds.

There's a lot to unpack on this screen. There are two currencies. Gold and red diamonds.

This game is very generous with this premium currency. You can also watch videos for more (with the button above the map with the video icon).

The bottles give you temporary clicker boosts.

I'll go over all the other buttons as I get to them. The last thing I will mention is the keys. After a point, you earn keys that will instantly open a chest. Also, the lightning bolt is a special power that auto opens all chests when full.

The next button is the creature of the bottom left. These creatures help you fight enemies that spawn once a minute. Killing the enemies gives you more items.

The level button gives you this menu (scroll down for even more things to upgrade.) You can level up a chest or buy a new one. The chests evolve as you level them up and drop better items.

Quests give you premium currency and allow you to progress quicker.

The shop is filled with microtransactions. The only things to worry about are keys and the backpack upgrades. You won't need to worry about this for a long time.

The joy of any RPG, random drops. Each item you collect permanently upgrades click power. Enemies drop them or you get them from chests.

Lastly is the map. I recommend saving up 12k diamonds and buy the last area that gives you the biggest boost. Don't bother buying any others. There's a lot of upgrades that require diamonds.

I seem to be missing the screenshot that has the reincarnate button. When you get all chests to a minimum of lv 99, you can reset the game. I never got to that point before I had to write this review.

Overall:

 4 or 5 cogs.

This was a fun game, but nothing to keep you playing for long. There are a lot of interesting collectible items that give the feeling of an epic quest.

Story: 

🚫 None

Amount of ads:

There is a banner ad that loads up at the bottom of the screen at the most random of times. Like most games, you can watch ads for premium currency.

Advertised as seen:

💯%

All ads I've seen have been straight forward with real gameplay. The screenshots on google play also do not hide anything.

Graphics:

4 of 5 cogs.

This game is 100% pixel art. The art has a nice retro game feel and it's very simplistic. The items look great as do the chests and enemies.

Audio:

 2 of 5 cogs.

Nothing to say. The music is fantasy sounding but nothing to keep your speakers on for. The sound effects get very annoying quickly.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Simple, fast, and easy to pick up and put down for idling.

Free play:

 💯%

The game is easy to play for free and the premium currency is given very generously.

Fun factor:

😎 easy and chill.

A game that is fun and easy to play. Just don't tap too hard 

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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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Crush Them All

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Today's game is: Crush Them All

You can get the game here:

Today I bring you a simplistic idle game created by Godzilab Inc. Offline idle is not infinite and is based on your overall progression and power level.

You are greeted with a quick and generic story. Then you are thrown into a quick tutorial.

This is the main game screen you will see the most. The small box with a 09 is a skill on cooldown. A 3-star unit gives you special skills to attack enemies with. There isn't much interactivity except for leveling and skills.

On the left side, the red donut-like gem is the premium currency in this game. You use it to buy more team members to fight on screen, or more artifact slots, or buy new troops.

The multicolored triangle is a currency you get for ascending at level 130. This will permanently give bonus levels to each troop. These levels affect clans and dungeons.

Last is gold. It is used to level troops and upgrade the village.

This is the village. You buy and upgrade shops up to level 50 to make them automated. These will produce gold and must be manually collected after a time.

This is the collection screen. You can see each troop you own. You can obtain medals for each unit to upgrade its star level.

This is the dungeon screen. You get a limited amount each day. Here you get special currencies to buy artifacts that give you big boosts. That covers all the basics of the game.

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

This is very simple and easy to play the idle game. The game practically runs itself and you have to ascend a lot in this game, at least 20 times to get every building in the village.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

There is a short intro story, that has zero influence on the whole game. After that, there is no story at all.

Amount of ads:

Aside from a single in-game ad to try to get you to buy something, there are no outside ads. You can watch optional ones get a couple of small boosts or premium currency.

Advertised as seen:

✳️✴️ 60%

I've seen several ads where you collect pieces of armor and then magically upgrade the troop to a new type. This simply is not the case. Most of the ads are very misleading. The screenshots on the play store are accurate.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game features clean and crisp pixel art. All of it appears to be fully original.

Audio:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The game has nice sound effects and the music is calming. There isn't much to set the audio apart from any other game.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The gameplay is simple but it can get repetitive very quickly. I do not see many features that will keep someone playing for too long.

Free play:

 💯%

You can play this game without spending any money at all. It is possible to unlock everything from playing the game a lot.

Fun factor:

😌 Above Average.

This is a clean and crisp game. You can play as much as you wish and can progress fairly quickly with daily play.

I hope you enjoyed the illumination of another game during these confusing times.

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