Mana Maker

 

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Gather your forces as we mine for: Mana Maker

Mana Maker does not have a title screen. When you start up the game it throws you straight into this screen. You choose your gender and you are throwing into the game with no real tutorials. As you progress, you get a few text boxes that tell you how to do things, but instead, there is a help manual that is included in the game to help you along. The creator of this game does not appear to be a native English speaker so translations may be off.

This is the first of the two main screens you will see most of the time. This is where you collect mana to sell to the wizards of the world. The first button with the plus in a red box will be things to update your idle mana collection. The green box with the arrow allows you to upgrade manual clicks and mana storage. The diamond is videos you must watch to earn special mana crystals used to buy some things in the store you manage to collect gold. Lastly, the grey button takes you to our storefront where you sell mana to random wizards. At least there are no microtransactions in this game.

The first tab gives you options to buy workers and other upgrades that increase your idle collection. Each item is capped based on the store level and adds many walls you have to overcome. Each one of these upgrades uses only the mana you collect.

Here is the second tab. You can customize your character here also with the gems you get from watching optional ads. Here are all the upgrades for the things you purchased in the previous screenshot. These are multipliers that grow as you buy them. They are subject to the same upgrade walls based on the store level.

Now onto the second screen. The red box here takes you to all the fixtures you can put into your shop. These all items can be leveled up and require an upkeep of mana and gold. The gold can be negated with the hiring of a repairman. The green box takes you to upgrades for the shop to increase the size of the building or hold more gold in your safe. Also at the start of the year, you get shown a tax amount. You must make sure you have that much gold by the end of the game year. You can also click on a customer, (which is very hard to do), and they will tell you what kind of object they want to see in the shop if they have a red exclimation part. The problem is, you have to click the blue lock and then kick out all the customers just to put out a new item.

The fixtures are divided into several subsections here. Employees require a lot of mana crystals to employ but the do a lot to keep your store running for you.

Lastly is the upgrades for the shop sise and a few other items. Everything in the shop requires both mana and gold to be able to purchase.

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

This game is a very middle of the road game. It is a complete game loaded with some easter eggs but there isn't anything that really keeps you playing. You could potentially play through in one sitting and make it to the new game plus. The game is mostly stable but it does suffer from a few odd design choices

Story:

 2 of 5 cogs.

There is only a very small part of a story in this game. Most of it is just advancing along and buying more expensive machines to get more customers in. This game really forces you to have at least 1 of eachc individual item to make everyone happy.

Amount of ads:

  None except for optional ads

There are optional videos you can watch to unlock mana gems but other than that there are no other ads at all. This game is mostly ad free.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

This game is completely straight-forward and isn't doing any silly things. This is a very transparent game.

Graphics:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are kind of a tall and skiny sort of pixel art. This game reminds me of very early 90s computer games with simplistic graphics.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Again this game has very middle of the road gameplay for the tap mechanic. That being said, the shop aspect is an interesting to the game. Though it is a very simplified game and it looses depth real fast. I feel this game doesn't have enough in it to keep people playing for too long. 

Free play:

💯%

There are no microtransactions in this game at all. This is truly a game you can play without breaking open the wallet at all.

Fun factor:

😶 average.

Are you an indy programmer or game dev?

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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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