Merge Inn

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

Congrats to Burt Price. The blogpost hit 161 views as of the posting of this so you are the winner. As a reminder, I sent you a reply in the last blog post. Please contact me or let me know how I can contact you for your $10 reward. Thanks, everyone for the views and comments!

Want to be updated when the next blog goes live? Join my newsletter at: https://tinyletter.com/Hakuzo

Note: I do not have control over the number of ADs placed on this blog. It is an automated process and I've noticed that there have been a large number of ADs displaying and inturrupting my blog on Mobile devices. I will see If I can do something about lowering the number of ads if at all possible.

Take a seat and wait while the steam boiler cook up a meal at: Merge Inn

Today I bring you a very simple merge game. This one is food themed and so far out of all the merge games I've played, it doesn't hard sell you to buy land or other oddities. There are many micro transactions in the game as well as a couple of free daily. There are a few things to keep track here. The purple bar is your level. As you progress along the level you gain items that help you merge and create new foods. Energy is something in every game of this genre, though this game has a cap of 100 energy that can be recharged, it does recharge much faster than any other game of this time. Next is coins. This is the main currency you will use to expand your inventory space. Once you max out this space you can use the coins to buy energy tanks that give you a chance to refill your energy faster. Lastly is the premium currency the every popular blue diamond. This can also buy you 5 upgrade slots at a time (beyond the max buyable by coins.) or they can be used to buy other items you need, reduce time for item generators. There are many uses for these gems, note, in a recent update you can now use them in a new daily mini-game that replaces the daily spin wheel.

The blue chech is a milestone check you unlock by reaching the different levels. You collect this to give you some items you need to progress through new challenges in the game as you beat levels. 

As you complete orders (levels) you gain a star that is used to open this chest. This chest gives you even better rewards and needed items to progress through the story.

When you click on the shopping cart, you open up the shop menu. You can collect free piggy banks here that give you coins every day. Note that the dail-spin wheel is no longer an option and a new daily system is in place (not screenshots available.) From here you can buy missing foods or things you need to progress faster.

The second button on the bottom of the screen is the Collections button. This page shows you all the items you have ran across in the game and with that it will give you rewards for every stage you complete. The boxes with colored question marks are levels that give you blue diamonds instead of coins for unlocking them.

The scroll button brings you to side jobs. These are missions that rotate out every couple of days and gives you a lot of things to do if you have spare energy from waiting for all your item producers to refill. The rewards can be very minimal for the effort you put in.

Options screen and settings is the last button. Nothing fancy here.

Here is the main screen. You start off with very limited space and you have to merge items together to start opening up the play field. As you level up this playfield neven expands. Because of this you will use the storage drawer to hold things you don't need yet or completed items you have to hold onto to fill orders.

You start off with 5 spaces in the storage area. You can spend coins or diamonds to expand this space. The price to buy a single space goes up exponentially. I have yet to find the maximum number of slots available to buy. There is a bug where when I updated to the current patch, that all the spaces I bought were removed, and I got the coins back for the amount I spent. I think this was because there was a cost rework for these slots.

Here are the orders. Random residents of this area will visit you with speccific requests. Once you complete them you get experience, a star, and various items that help you unlock better equipment to produce foods from.

Lastly, when you complete every order on the list you get puzzle pieces. These give you a small preview of the new items you will unlock in the future. As you do so the main screen will also change to this picture once you complete all the pieces.

Overall:

 5 of 5 cogs.

I am very suprprised by this game. It is very gernerous and this is one of the rare few merge games I acutally want to work to unlock everything in. Its a relaxing game where you don't have to focus on doing some limited time events to get everything. You just play when you can or let it idle and recharnge and you can play all day.

Story:

  0 of 5 cogs.

To be fair, there is no actual direct story here but there is a very loose one with the charachters in the game and the progression of levels. There isn't a deeper meaning unless there is some hidden lore in each picture you unlock.

Amount of ads:

 

 only optional

You have a chance to watch some optional ads for only a couple of small things. There is a very limited number of chances to watch ads so you really don't want to stay online unless you watch ads to refill energy on reduce timers on item producers.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I have only ever seen this game advertised once in a video Ad. From what I remember and the screenshots shown in the store, there is no clickbait. It is 100% legit game that doesn't try to push you hard to spend money.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are HD cartoons that remind me of early 90s cartoons. This game has a nice and relaxing style and the food will make you hungry. Do not play this game on an empty stomach!

Gameplay:

 5 of 5 cogs.

Byfar the best merge game I've played. It is chill and relaxing to play. There is no stress of what to do, you get ample space to do everything if you focus on orders one at a time. Due to randomness, you sometimes complete later requests due to some of the item producers creating 2 different branches of items.

Free play:

💯%

Very much so. This game is very generous to you and you can play as much as you want without hitting a paywall. This is a game I highly recommend to try out and play. Any one can easily play this game and make progress in it.

Fun factor:

🐭 Full of animals.

What can I say? I enjoy games that feature non-human charachters.

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.

Or you can donate with CashApp at:  #HakuzoSionnach.

Magic Jigsaw Puzzles

Want to be updated when the next blog goes live? Join my newsletter at: https://tinyletter.com/Hakuzo

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

The metal workers have pieced together: Magic Jigsaw Puzzles

If you enjoy the blog, consider leaving a tip through paypal at the bottom of the blog. If you wish to send via another platform let me know and i can look into other accounts. Also follow or let other steampunkers or mechanics know about the blog.

Today I'm going over a simple puzzle game. Lately I've missed putting together jigsaw puzzles because i currently have no place to put them undisturbed. This app gives me the ability to do so virtually with a touch screen.

There is only one currency in this game. You get more based on the size of the puzzle you take on. These coins are used to purchase more coins from the center. You even have an option to upload any picture and turn it into a puzzle.

Along the left you get two puzzles daily. You have to watch a video before each one of them. You can choose different sizes but the biggest is locked behind a monthly subscription paywall.

There are so many ads on this game. You have a constant strip ad at all times unless you become a VIP. If you click on the yellow ^ button, you can turn on border pieces only to do the outline on small puzzles. If you choose a bigger puzzle, you work on a section at a time. Just slide the pieces close enough and they lock together. If you overlap pieces, click and hold on a completed portion for it to fade out, revealing only the pieces on top.

You also have background choices but... most are locked behind vip status. You only get about 6 free options to choose from.

The more puzzles you complete earns you level stars that unlock new picture sets and other rewards.

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Overall, the game runs well except it lags a lot during odd times. You are always thrown into a fullscreen ad when you first play. I would rank it higher if the ads were handled better.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

The story has veen stolen by clockwork pirates.

Amount of ads:

 

Too many 😲

You cant play for long without dealing with some form of ad.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

The few ads I've seen have matched what you get. A simple jigsaw puzzle engine.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The puzzles are HD and the piece shapes are fun and pfairly standard.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Again laggy at odd times but the system is smooth. The puzzle pieces fit together well and you get the feeling of completing a puzzle.

Free play:

40%

This game has many paywalls and to get the best experience the game tries to force you to become a VIP and pay monthly. At 7.99 a month, id rather buy a physical puzzle.

Fun factor:

😞 half and half. 

Far too many ads to be fun for the f2p community.

Thank You for reading my blog. Please consider donating to the tip jar as these are tough times and every bit helps. You can follow by email or via follow on desktop websites. f 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.

Castle Battles

Want to be updated when the next blog goes live? Join my newsletter at: https://tinyletter.com/Hakuzo

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

Today the steam engines bring: Castle Battled

Today is a rainbow-colored game called Castle Battles. This is an RTS that can be played in a short time.

At first, when I saw this game I thought it would be a fun and quick RTS I could play whenever I had downtime.  This game has simple mechanics but don't let the art and colors fool you.

This is a free to play game yet it contains DLC to buy the full game. There appear to be 4 different campaigns but you have access to only the Blue Meatstachios. There is a very strange comedy for this game.

This is as far as I could reach. I don't know why but level 5 is impossible for me to beat. I am no stranger to RTS games yet this level has a ramped-up difficulty curve compared to the previous levels. Even putting it on easy did not help as the enemy overruns you in a zerg rush style attack before you can build up materials.

Here is what the first campaign looks like.

This is the hexagonal field. You get a castle then you must build forts to claim new territory, very similar to how Protoss work in starcraft. You have limited reach until you build more nodes. The green hexagons are food tiles, the yellow is gold and the dark-colored ones are stone quarries used to make more castles. As you see. You can't build more castles because the distance is too far, making this level impossible to progress on. Food is supposed to help your workers in some way but this resource is never displayed. Last is gold. It takes 2 gold coins to gain one battle unit... Very slowly. Lastly, you can speed up time to 8 times when you don't want to wait to be overrun.

Overall :

 1 of 5 cogs.

This game looked promising but it was just a real let-down. I quickly got turned off to this game.

Story:

 2 of 5 cogs.

There is some story. Cheesy and nothing to be excited about.

Amount of ads:

 None.

No ads at all. Just paid DLC content.

Accurate Advertising?:

50%

The video ads are kind of accurate. They only show you a small part of the graphics and then claim it's an easy and fast RTS. 

Graphics:

 1 of 5 cogs.

Hard pass on the graphics style. There is too much going on and it can be headache-inducing.

Gameplay:

 1 of 5 cogs.

Nothing is clearly explained. You are rushed through and not given enough to learn how to use the basics.

Free play:

25%

There is only a little amount of actual free-to-play content. There is a DLC required to do anything more.

Fun factor:

😠 letdown.

 

This game was a big letdown. It had potential but fell very short.

Thank You for reading my blog. Please consider donating to the tip jar as these are tough times and every bit helps. You can follow by email or via follow on desktop websites. If you enjoy these reviews please show others this blog.

Throw a cog(tip using PayPal) to your blogger.

Idle Brick Breaker

Want to be updated when the next blog goes live? Join my newsletter at: https://tinyletter.com/Hakuzo

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

Today, the mechanical spiders of the web bring you: Idle Brick Breaker

Today's game is another one filled with neon art. A simple game that you watch more than play.

The game has two currencies. Dollars and gems. Gems are premium currency used to buy upgrades. You get level after level of random block shapes with increasing hp. You can gain diamonds from tasks or every so often challenges show up. Very rarely, bricks can have a single gem.

Balls, at least 12 different kinds. The first button with the purple ball brings to the ball menu. You get a random 3 to choose from. Each one does different things. Poison balls make bricks take more damage from other balls. The prices to upgrade these become silly, fast.

The bulk of your powerups come from these cards from the second button with the magenta square. These upgrades take a lot of premium currency.

The yellow bolt is a menu that holds temporary upgrades or tasks to earn premium currency. Very time consuming for very little offered. 

Prestige is the way you reset. You gain massive bonuses that help you progress along with the infinite resets.

Perks show up under levels. These last for one prestige. When you hit certain levels, you get a perk. They give you boosts until you decide to restart from level 1 again.

Overall :

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game is simple, but you spend more time watching. You can click on a block to do 1 point of damage. There is no upgrade I found to increase that damage.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

Your story is in another dirigible. 

Amount of ads:

 

None except for optional ones that give very limited powerups or dollars.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

Straight forward. All video ads I've seen match the content exactly.

Graphics:

 

2 of 5 cogs.

Simple, hyper-casual game graphics. This game was most likely created by a single person, in a short amount of time.

Gameplay:

2 of 5 cogs.

Just an idle game with limited interactivity. You spend time just staring at the screen or letting it idle offline.

Free play:

90%

Free to play and get everything but it is very grindy to do so.

Fun factor:

💤 sleep-inducing.

Thank You for reading my blog. Please consider donating to the tip jar as these are tough times and every bit helps. You can follow by email or via follow on desktop websites. If you enjoy these reviews please show others this blog.

Throw a cog(tip using PayPal) to your blogger.