Merge Gardens

 

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Find the land of merging at: Merge Gardens

Today I bring you another merge game that falls into the same trap as others do, and gives you very little space and way too many items you have to merge. This one also has a match-3 mini-game that feels a bit tacked on and doesn't even match the theme of the game in any way. The game is similar to Merge dragons or Merge Magic. You combined 3+ of the same item to get the next stage up. You then have to collect and merge, in this case, nectar, to expand the areas around you. There are at least 3 plots of land you have to buy with real money that cost around $20 USD per plot.

You can click on the book to see all the items you have merged already and get rewards for each new stage you complete. 

When you click on the egg you can see all the animals you've collected from eggs. You can mearge 3 or 5 from this screen even though their eggs do take up space on the board.

Next up is all the mini-shop tabs. This tab uses purple gems to buy rare items with the premium currency. This game offers a fair amount of these gems as rewards for doing the match-3 minigame or other events along the way.

The second shop tab is where you can buy animal eggs. Some are easy to buy with coins but the others require more of the premium currency. You have to collect stars from completing the missions that show up along the left of the screen, just to unlock more options to buy.

The next tab is where you will access most of your building items. Here is where you build all your resource generation buildings. They get exponentially more expensive as you buy them.

This last tab is used for all the direct loot crates in the game. You literally do not get anything of worth in these boxes and you can find chests when your animals gather from trees.

This last tab is the real money shop. You can buy a range of things that doesn't give you much value.

When you click on the green play button you access the mini-game. This screen gives you an over-view of what you have to accomplish.

The mini-game is a basic match-3 game where the pieces look like plastic toys. As you progress on you can unlock power-ups to help you clear the board or earn objectives.

Here is a quick shot of the option menues. You can connect your game to facebook here to save all your progress incase you lose your phone.

Lastly, this is an example of one of the quests you have to complete to get stars.

 

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

This game has a common engine that many of these games use. This games doesn't offer anything unique to a merge type game. It uses a lot of under-handed things to try to get you to spend money. Loot crates being one of the biggest.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

There is really no story at all in this game. The event area's may have a very small intro of a story but this game doesn't have any direct story you learn about aside from the little clips in the item encyclopedia.

Amount of ads:

 

 None

There are no ads in this game at all that I can remember. There are no optional ads either.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

From what I remember of the video ads, there are no click-bait tactics here. All of the screenhots in the store are accurate as well.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

I like the art for the animals in this game but the art for the humans I do not like at all. The art for the match-3 is 'clean' but it makes to sense in this game and doesn't match the theme of this game. The art is kind of all over in this game.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The game is an average merge game with poor choice in tactics to earn money. This game feels scummy to play as you have such a limited amount of room and the game quickly throws things in that will eat up your space because it takes a very long time to merge them with other things.

Free play:

60%

You can kind of play the game for free but you run into many issues and hassles that you have to work around if you wish to play this game for free.

Fun factor:

😒 poor copy-cat.

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.

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Medieval Merge

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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Time to get medieval in: Medieval Merge

Today's game is a merge game that doesn't give you very much room to work with. You arrive at a town overrun with enemies and strange vines. You must create or find weapons and tools to complete the quests. You can have multiple quests at once that are tracked by a quest log. This game also features limited energy that prevents you from playing long at all. There is also a premium currency that is used to buy more energy or missing pieces you need to merge up a step.

When you click on your scroll button, you get a list of all the quests that are around you. Some of them are locked behind a level cap. From my understanding, you can have up to 6 different quests at one time from my time playing this game.

The main game screen has a very limited amount of space compared to other games like this. The game starts you off with many producer items that take up space and you are forced to manage several different items lines at once.

Now like other merge games, you get a backpack where you have to buy more space with coins. You really have to focus on this one to get the most space that you can.

A quick view of the Option screens. Nothing stands out here that I feel I need to talk about.

If you run out of energy, you can click on the green plus button by the energy vials and watch a video to get free energy or pay premium currency to continue playing.

Next, we move along to your player level. As you complete quests you gain experience and gain a new reward for each level. You have to level to unlock new areas to explore.

We finish up the screenshots of this game with a picture of the shop. This game is very microtransaction heavy.

Overall:

 3 of 5 cogs.

As much as I like merge games, this game just felt too tedious and I gave up playing this game after trying it out for the blog. This game doesn't offer much that is unique compared to other merge games.

Story:

 3 of 5 cogs.

This game has some story. I didn't get very far but it seems to be a fairly standard story. Town gets taken over by monsters and the hero must fix everything because the villagers are inept.

Amount of ads:

 Optional only

There are only optional ads in this game for getting more energy or recharging item producers.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I do not recall ever seeing an ad for this game as I just downloaded it from the play store. The screenshots in the play store are accurate and not clickbaity.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

I know I gave this game a middle-of-the-road rating but this game does have nice graphics. The style is very cartoony and has exaggerated shapes. The style is a bit unique compared to other games I've played.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Tedious and very constrained compared to other merge games. I lost interest in this game because it's too difficult to do anything to advance.

Free play:

💯%

Yeah, the game is free to play but it's extremely difficult to get too far without obtaining more backpack space in this game.

Fun factor:

😐 Mediocre.

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.

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Or you can donate with CashApp at:  #HakuzoSionnach.

Case Hunter

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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Dig up your steam-powered case files with: Case Hunter: Brain Funny Cases

Today I bring to you a simple point and click game where you play a detective. You have many scenes you play through and have to solve a few msyeries. A lot of these are very easy to play. This game is gender inclusive and features very rare gender fluidity. You have 2 main currencies and an energy bar that refills rapidly. I've nearly beat all the case files in just a couple of days. I will go over what currency is used where later in the blog.

You get a 7 day log-in bonus. You can watch ads to get double the currency. You can unlock at least 2 skins from the daily log-ins. 

Moving on you can use the ever common blue diamonds as way to unlock more skins. Each one of these skins appear to give a permanent buff to different categories in the game. I do not know if the effects stack but these effects only seem to work for the Tycoon style mini-game.

A very simple option screen. I won't spend too much time here as there is nothing special here at all.

Clicking on the shop menu brings you up to this menu. You can buy a few things here. Further down in this menu you can also buy special furniture themes for the hotel mini-game.

Each level gives you a breifing of what your goals for the level is. Each level generally only takes up only one screen, but sometimes you can move to other locations as well depending on the task. You literally must check everything to collect any items you need. Sometimes you can find blue gems in a level but there's a catch. A strange cat collects them in a kind of bank. Which you can only collect by paying real money.

When you complete a level you get a collection of coins. You can double these with a video if you wish. When you fill up the bar you can get a chance to collect a chest with bonus items. Sometimes you can earn blue gems this way. If you get a chance to collect a chest, you can also watch a video to claim all 3 boxes instead of just one random one.

After you play along the main case files, you will unlock the ability to run a hotel. All your coins go into buy a new room and filling it with various equipment. As you progress you unlock special rooms as well for your guests. Over time guests will have requests for you and you must give them different items. You get these items, at random from a timed delivery system. This often leaves you with a problem of sometimes not having any items. In that instance you can buy the item with blue gems or you can watch a video to get a small chance of the item you need being given to you. Lastly on the left you will get the ability to hire staff members that will also help provide for your guests. You can hire them for a short time using diamond or by watching a video. When you give enough diamonds or watch enough videos they become perment staff memebers.

You can click on the paint brush to enterinto design mode. Each item can be switched to a new theme. You can buy individual items yourself with diamonds, or watch a video to permently unlock the style for each room. Each style adds to your hotel's stars which are needed to progress more in the mini-game.

Finally when you clear enough files, you unlock special case files. Here it uses the same kind of mechanics but you have to collect clues and solve the mysteries. Most of these are easy and you could potentially solve them all in one sitting.

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Overall, this game has some promise but it seems to be in early development still. The concept is fun but there is not much content at all. This is a very middle of the road game, and very incomplete. There are many easter eggs in this game as well.

Story:

 3 of 5 cogs.

This game has some story as your slowly uncover clues about the drive the whole story. Sadly the story is incomplete so I can not score this any higher.

Amount of ads:

 Optinal only

This game has no random ads that pop in your face but there are many different optional ads you can watch to unlock stuff. This game handles ads pretty well when they load. Sometimes I have to fully close the game and restart it to get ads to properly load in the background.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I downloaded this game from watching a video but I think there are similar games like this on the market. I can not say for sure if I got the same one in the video as none of the evens are in this game. Lastly, the screen shots in goggle play are accurate.

Graphics:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The graphics remind me heavily of Gravity Falls or Rick and Morty. Not really much else I can add to that for this blog.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

The gameplay is straight forward but very lacking. The game has a good base to start with but there isn't enough content to keep anyone playing unless it updares frequently.

Free play:

💯%

You can unlock everything if you are very careful and watch enough bonus videso in the shop to earn the blue gems. This game won't take you long to complete so I hope this game gets more updates soon.

Fun factor:

🌈 colorful.

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.