Tap Away

 

[Note: The image for this game has been updated to a different color as of the time the screenshot was taken.]

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

I want to welcome back the blog into the new year and thank everyone that has read over my blog. Please consider donating to PayPal and if you don't like that option, I do have Cash App and you can send any donations to #HakuzoSionnach.

SCAM WARNING: I continue to see new ads circulating of games that claim to pay you hundreds of dollars in one 1. These games are complete scams riddled with many ads. If you find a game claiming to give you 4 digit figures in one pay-out, report them immediately to Goggle Play or any of the game stores you use. (Some have disclaimers now on screen because they seem to be getting in trouble but yet these games remain in the stores.)

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Don't let the packages overfill the steam tank: Tap Away

I will start off the year with a hyper-casual game that has been floating around on the internet ads for some time. This is a simple game with many ads you must watch for rewards or ads that display when you complete a full level. If you do not wish to see ads just play in airplane mode but you won't be able collect the unlockables. This game is very similar to another game I have reviewed in the past so bear with any simularities there may be.

The main game consists of a 3d cube made of smaller 3d cubes that have to be removed in a certian direction. A lot of the lower levels are extremely easy and you have no blocks that do not have a clear path, The default skin shows arrows in which way the block moves but this skin can be hard to see for people that may have vision problems. Once you get to a certian level, you unlock a powerup that allows you to destroy many blocks at once, at the cost of coins.

When you complete a level you are greeted with a random Emoji and gain coins. You also progress to fill a bar that will give you a cosmetic. Once you fill the bar you are forced to watch an ad to obtain the cosmetic. As far as I can tell there is no other way to earn this cosmetic without the ad, but that being said if you complete a box, you can indeed watch the ad at a later date if you are not connected to the internet. Later as you progress you unlock daily missions that give you bonus coins as well.

Just a quick shot of the optiosn when you click on the gear icon on the main screen. We won't dwell on this one too long as it is very standard throughout most games.

Ther first cosmetics you can change are the skin blocks. You can use your coins to buy one at random or by one of 3 expensive skins with coins. You have the option to watch videos as well in one sitting to unlock all the skins before you progress too far in the game. It depends on your playstyle and how long you want to work to unlock these cosmetics.

These second tab is special skins you unlock by uncovering presents hidden in the blocks. These you can only obtain while playing online and with watching an ad after you collect them. Unlock the other cosmetics that unlock, you have to immedately watch the ad to get these.

The shortest cosmetic list is the trails. This is a partical effect that happens when you click on a block and it rockets off like a meteor. You can only unlock the last 6 with videos while the first 3 have to be found in a random present while playing.

The next tab brings us to the particle effect that displays when you tap on a block. There are several you can unlock on the onset with videos and then others you unlock from presents or from playing in endless mode. I will cover endless mode near the end of this blog.

Another short cosmetic list is the winning effects. This is what happens when you clear a level of off block and you trigger even more particle effects. Some you can unlock with coins but two of them must be found in random presents.

Sometimes instead of presents you find puzzle pieces hidden between blocks. If you complete several of these you can unlock special skin shown in the next page. You have the option to get a free piece for watching videos, and as far as I can tell you can not buy any with coins. 

Here are the special animals skins you can unlock. As you see you must complete 6 total puzzles to be able to unlock one of these skins. I feel these are the hardest cosmetics to unlock and are left a lot to random chance to find the pieces.

One of the last 3 modes you eventually unlock is this very... complicated endless mode. As you clear away blocks, you find more and more hidden inside. Each layer contains smaller and smaller blocks unless you clear the outer layer completely, then the next layer grows in size. This mode has a high chance of giving you presents or puzzle pieces.

The second to last mode is a challenge mode. In these levels you have to clear each block in a set amount of moves which means you have to carefully plan every single move to clear away cubes in time. These modes give you a one time clear reward of coins and there is no real reason to redo any of these levels.

The last game mode I have not been able to see as I did not progress enough before the writing of the blog. I will leave this as a surprise to figure out.

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Overall, this game is a very middle of the road hyper-casual game that anyone can play. You can clear all the content in a few sittings and then after that there isn't anything here to keep players coming back for more.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

There is no story in this game at all.

Amount of ads:

 Many!

There are many ads. You have to watch an ad after every completed standard level. You have to watch ads to unlock cosmetics. and there is a constant banner ad at the bottom of the screen.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

The ads for this game are very frequent but they have been accurate. I normally try to pick games to review that have current ads playing and lately with all the scam videos it has been impossible to find actual good games to review.

Graphics:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are basic and generic squares. Nothing exciting about them beyond the few skins there are. Some of the trail and win effects are interesting but again there is nothing that really jumps out in this game graphicly.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The gameplay is very simple and minimal. It cah be fun for a time but it does get repetitive very fast and because of it this game is slowly sliding down in ranking. Anyone can easily play this game and it doesn't seem to be too demanding on the phone's capibilties. Sadly this game is very short in content with no regular updates.

Free play:

💯%

The game is 100% free to play as long as you can stand the ads. 

Fun factor:

😐 average.

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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Pull the pin

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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Never pull the Cotter Pin! Pull the Pin

Today I bring you a game you've seen in every mobile ad on the internet. The classic 'pull the pin' for treasure. This is a very simple and fun little game to play. You have to pull out the pins and collect a lot of marbles. Sometimes you have to pull pins and remove obstacles before you can collect the marbles. Lastly, you run into marbles that are grey, you must have colored marbles touch these to turn them all colorful. All the marbles must be in color for them to count.

The basic game is to pull the pins in the right order to collect all the marbles like an 80s board game called Kerplunk, inside of a bucket. There appear to be hundreds of levels you can go through. There is one currency and it is coins. You earn coins from completing levels, completing challenges, or from houses that idly produce coins for you over time. 

Your first cosmetic unlocks are different marbles. Each time you buy one the price increases vastly. The game is fairly easy to earn coins in. You can watch ads and it gives you a major boost to get enough coins for the next unlock.

The next cosmetic that you find is the pins. These you can only unlock by playing enough levels then you are forced to watch a video to earn them. If you can't watch the video because of connection loss or no more loaded ads, you can come here and watch the ads later to unlock them. There are also themes that you unlock in similar ways. It seems my screenshot here got ate by the gear spiders.

Challenges unlock every 15 levels or so. You have to pay coins to be able to even try them for a chance to get double the coins back. So far all the levels in this game have been extremely easy and that could lead to boredom very fast.

When you complete the level, you get a preview of the pin or theme you are unlocking, an emoji at the top of the screen, and any daily challenges you beat. 

Now onto the idle elements of the game. You can use your coins to buy more and more houses that produce many coins when not playing. Now, I don't see the point for this as there is a very limited number of things you can buy with coins, and at that point, it seems like you are just trying to max out the total number of held coins. There is a level here for when you collect stars from building up houses. I do not see the point of this level as nothing affects it. Also, you must completely build up one home before you can buy a new one akin to Monopoly.

Lastly, you use coins to buy and upgrade the house but to upgrade the land and increase the coin production modifier requires you to watch Ads. 

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Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game is very simple in all ways. Someone finally made a game based on all the click-bait ads. I don't foresee many playing this game for too long before they get bored and move on to the next click-bait-based game.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

The story you seek is in another steam tank.

Amount of ads:

 

many!

Not only is there a banner ad at the bottom of the ad, but a non-skippable video also plays after every level beyond 15 if I remember. Then you are forced to watch ads to unlock or progress through parts of the game. There is a remove ads button but I don't know how that affects the unlocks that require ads.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

This is a game that is featured in many click-bait ads and isn't click-bait. The video ads for this game are accurate along with the screenshots on google play.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

This game uses very simple 3d images. They are flat colored and appear to have baked in shadows in the textures. This game follows the hyper-casual format with very simple assets and fast gameplay.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Simple and repetitive gameplay. You pull pins in a logical way to collect all the marbles in a bucket. The idle element only adds a brief respite from the repetitive gameplay.

Free play:

💯%

This game is very much free to play. You have a lot of ads to deal with in exchange for no other micro-transactions that I remember.

Fun factor:

🍰 Easy as pie.

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Please comment and share this blog with others.

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.

GoToy

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Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

The rusty cranes have dredged up: GoToy

Today's game is a very simple claw game. There are no microtransactions in this one and this will be one of the shorter blogs to go over. The game is very minimal and there is not too much to go over. 

There is just one generic currency here. You gain money to buy one of 3 upgrades. Depth is the biggest one to focus on as this allows you to find higher-priced toys. As you go deeper, the cost to increase depth raises to an exponential point where you have to watch ads just to progress. The balance is not very friendly. The other upgrades are claw upgrades that allow you to grab more toys per run and then idle cash. Idle cash seems to cap at 3000 no matter how much you upgrade it. From my experience, don't bother to upgrade unless an AD shows up in that slot.

Each level of depth gives you 2 new toys taht will show up. Every 10m of depth adds only 20 to the point value of toys. After you get to nearly 600m, the game really slows down a lot.

Toys float left and right in the void and you have to maneuver the claw around to grab the toys using the touch screen. Sometimes evil toys will show up and if you touch them, you lose some of your collected toys and the run is ended unless you watch a video to revive.

After you collect all the toys, you get greeted with this screen. You can watch a video to give two to three times the amount of cash. Even at that, with later depths, it barely adds enough to help you progress.

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The game is very simple and can become very boring very fast. The game is extremely repetitive and I do not see a point in collecting all the toys because you can easily miss toys at lower depths and never have a chance to get them. 

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

None. It's an endless game with no story.

Amount of ads:

 

 many ads everywhere.

The game has optional ads, but it also forcefully will display video ads after you do a run unless you watch an ad to gain double or triple the money. There is also a banner ad at the bottom of the screen that always displays on the main game screen.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I saw a video ad for this game. The ads on goggle play are fully accurate.

Graphics:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are very simple and generic. The toys are not too detailed and appear to be only flat colored. 

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Repetitive and can get boring very quickly. This game is designed to show you far too many ads to make it fun.

Free play:

💯%

You can play this game for free without the need of paying anything. There is a choice to pay to remove ads.

Fun factor:

😐 Mediocre.

This game doesn't have much going for it and I'm afraid anyone would get bored from this one too quickly.

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