Idle Inn Tycoon

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

Rest your steam-powered horses in the stables of: Idle Inn Tycoon

I am reducing the overall number of screenshots in my blog due to many issues with my connection that are out of my control to fix. As a result, the blogs will be shorter from now on.

Today I bring you back to the past, where steam power was more essential and magic ruled the lands. Here you become a manager of a run-down Inn in the middle of nowhere. The king of the lands thinks you will fail but still wants a cut all the same. The game is simple. You idly make money from every single thing in the game and you have to wait to gain enough money to buy the next upgrade. Clicking on the exclamation will give you all your current goals to complete. Eventually, your Inn becomes 5 stars and you move on. From what I can tell, the money you make at a maxed Inn becomes useless as money does not transfer between Inns.

Each room in the Inn has several upgrades that affect how much income you get a day. All the upgrades use standard gold except for 1 item you can buy with premium currency to get a very small buff to income. These optional items are not really worth the gems. As you progress, some items require having available magic and you must upgrade your mage room to get more before you can continue to upgrade stuff.

Here's a quick example of the missions you can do. You can click on the arrow and the game will take you directly to the item or room you need to upgrade. No need to search for it. Once you clear out all these missions you normally get a very small premium currency reward and you get more missions to do. Each mission helps you gain stars faster.

Be sure to grab your daily rewards from the shop stall icon in the bottom left of the screen.

Another small thing that drains premium currency is the card system. You can obtain these cards by buying them or unlocking them via the daily spin wheel or by completing some tasks. Rarely even video ads will give you a chance to get these.

When you click on the clipboard you can come to this management screen that tells you how far along something is upgraded or not. This screen will give will also tell you how much you pay your workers a day in the third tab. Other The second tab is for landmarks.

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Overall, this game is a good 'start' but there isn't much going on in it. There are some events that crop up that can give you extra bonuses but you have very little time to complete them.

Story:

 2 of 5 cogs.

This game has a story but I dislike the characters in this game. They are parodies of real-world actors or famous people and bad renditions at that. The personalities are rude and flat.

Amount of ads:

 

 optional only

None, only optional ads to get rewards.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I have not seen any ads for this game so I can only go on what is shown on google play. As far as I can tell there are no click-bait or misleading screenshots.

Graphics:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are simple polygonal and very rough 3d models. The characters lack depth or originality.  The rest of the assets are non-shaded graphics. Normally I don't have an issue with this style of art but it feels incomplete.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

This game is one that I feel could possibly be completed in less than a month of playing everyday. This game feels so incomplete and doesn't have much going for it. Once you clear an Inn there is no need to ever go back there. 

Free play:

💯%

You can do everything in this game for free and never pay. You don't even need to watch the optional videos to progress any. Overall this game doesn't feel very sustainable for long-term play.

Fun factor:

👶 Far too easy and not much depth.

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.

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. Please leave a comment with feedback if something needs fixing or improvement.

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Mana Maker

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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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?

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.

Potion Maker

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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Today we brew up a game with Potion Maker

Today is a very simplistic and anime-inspired game. In this game, you play as a magical girl that opened a potion shop. On the surface, the game has a charm but it has a very weak gameplay system.

Here is the basic game screen. There are 4 main currencies in this game. The main one is Gold coins. These are used to buy new upgrades, more ingredients, and pay for other multipliers. The other two currencies I will touch on later in the blog. The basic game is you choose from one of the random ingredients that scroll along the top of the screen. The first ingredient you choose affects what potion you make. It appears if you add the same color ingredients as the original object gives a major value boost to the potion yet you can throw in every ingredient you can with little to no consequence. As you keep piling in stuff you can then try to enhance the potion to a higher level. 

Along the way, some people will come in asking for a very specific potion. There is a hint giving as to which item to start with. You create the potion and enhance it to the required level. When you do, you get a temporary boost to other potions you make. 

I will now go over the next Currency which is the start. You get stars for enhancing a potion up to the maximum level. When you do you can use these stars to unlock a new character or a new outfit as seen in the next screenshot. This screen shows a Heart level. I assume this offers some sort of bonus the more people like you and you level up the quest NPCs you meet.

There are many outfits you can buy. We also meet the new currencies. Nyan tickets and rubies. Rubies are the premium currency in the game. You can unlock some as you play along completing quests.

After a point in the game, you unlock the ability to summon up to 5 cats that help you create potions, and by help, they just throw everything into the potion no matter what it is. Each cat costs tickets and works for only a few minutes at a time. I don't think they help too much other than lets you build up money in a potion passively.

I was not able to make it far enough to figure out what faires are or how to get them. It appears they give permanent buffs based on what one you unlock.  

Another portion of the game I was not able to figure out at the time of this blog. It seems possible that NPCs give you items when you level them up. So here's a second item to look forward to exploring on your own.

The stats screen shows you all the things you have done in the game. A basic section for all the numberphiles out there.

Achievements are where you get all your rubies for free. There are many things to do to gain the premium currency without paying into the game.

A common feature you find is the mailbox. I have not found anything that sent stuff to the mailbox yet so this may be for special events and such.

The settings button helps you to set up all the common options you find in many games. Set them up to your preferences.

Lastly is the upgrades. You find many things here that permanently buff your earning potential.  These upgrades become exponentially expensive once you progress further. 

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Overall, this game doesn't have much logical progression to keep you playing. The setup doesn't quite make the game compelling enough to keep playing to want to unlock stuff. There isn't anything engaging in this game beyond the quality anime style.

Story:

 1 of 5 cogs.

There is not much story. You get a small amount of story starting off and some small clips from the NPCs but the game is boring otherwise.

Amount of ads:

 

Optional Only

You only have the ability to watch some optional ads very rarely to get more Nyan tickets or some coins. You can't just watch a bunch of videos to get stuff.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I do not recall if I watched an Ad for this game but all the screenshots on google play are accurate.

Graphics:

5 of 5 cogs.

The game has high-quality and HD anime-style graphics. This is the best part of this game.

Gameplay:

 

2 of 5 cogs.

Oh, this game has so many weak game concepts that are just not fun. There is little logic to how to progress properly as you can just throw everything into a potion. I had higher hopes for this game but it failed to deliver a fun experience for me. I lost interest very quickly after playing it and made it harder to complete this week's blog.

Free play:

💯%

As far as I can tell you can effectively play this game for free and not pay anything into it.

Fun factor:

😐 Mediocre.

I want to give this game a higher score but it just falls short. There is nothing really fun or unique about the game other than the style.

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.