Gold and Goblins

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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

Today the steam drills dig up: Gold and Goblins Idle Merge

Today I bring you a game that reminds me a lot of Lego Rock Raiders for the PC. You shoot out goblins from a cannon and then merge them to force them to mine up rocks. 

The game uses simple idle mechanics of buildings generating coins that you use to buy more goblins or upgrade mines once you dig them up. Each rock or gate has a number on it. A goblin can mine any stone regardless of the number displayed. If a goblin has a higher number than a rock or object, it mines it extremely fast. If the goblin has a lower number it can still mine but it gets a time multiplier added. It's hard to tell how time is calculated in this game because it seems a bit random. As you progress on you unlock the ability to go to event levels. The other buttons in this screenshot are locked but I will go over these soon. In the normal mode, you get purple vials that are used to upgrade your cards. These upgrades are permanent. There is one premium currency, the Green diamond. This game does not give out these gems too freely and it takes a lot to make them useful.

Now lets move on to the even level. It is the same screen but with the addition of keys hidden in rocks. These keys are the first goal to aim for as they unlock bonuses for your main mine. Each event mine has a theme to it that effects the drops you get at the end. Most of these events last for 24 hours but some events last for 3 days. With this screenshot I can go over the other buttons here. The chest is a shop that I will go over soon but this is where you can claim free random cards every few hours. The next button is all the cards you own. Event cards are seperate than the main mine. It says these cards are permenent in this game mode but I can not verify that until I have a repeat event. To the right of the goblin button is a wheel. These also refill a charge every hour and you can watch a video to get free goblins, vials or time boosts. The last button is the event button. You use this to switch between mines.

Here is the settings. A lot of links to social media a and linking to cloud saving.

Here is a portion of the shop. There are may things in here to help you advance quicker but a lot of this is expensive. I feel the prices for the stuff in this game is over-priced compared to most other mobile games.

Now we come to the main mechanic in this game. The semi-gotcha style card system controls a lot about what you can do. Each mine you find uses a different goblin and ontop of that you have to have them at a high enough level to run the mine. Some cards affect mining speed or the amount of coins you can collect.

When you click on a card you can see how many you have and the number of viles it costs to upgrade a card. These numbers start to get expoential fast. 

Here's a shot of some of the things you can view on the wheel. You get at least 1 free spin a day.

When you hit the event button you get a preview of the them and what kind of rewards you can collect for collecting keys.

This game has a small amount of achievements that do not give you many rewards for completing them. According to this, there are at least 6 events that seem to rotate around.

Lastly, here is a preview of what you can collect from a chest. There are different levels of chests that offer rarer cards in them.

Overall:

 5 of 5 cogs.

Overall this is a fun game. You have a lot of waiting to do sometimes but that is also the issue. The goblins do not continue to mine unless they are next to a new valid target. Placing your goblins is important. The events are very short and seem designed to eat money if you wish to make it to the top 100.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

There is a little story in the begining then nothing else.

Amount of ads:

 

  optional only.

You only have optional ads to worry about.

Accurate Advertising?:

50%

At first, the ads for these games were straigh forward. Those ones got my attention on the game. Later on they use click-bait ads like a game I have previously blogged about. I feel this is a very cheap way to get people to play.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are high quality and have an odd charm to them. For a mobile game these graphics look great on my phone.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game doesn't have too much mechanically going on to keep you playing and there is limited things you can do. I feel the only thing that keeps someone going are the many events and the sense of wanting to discover more in this game.

Free play:

💯%

For the most part, this game is very easy to play through without paying anything. The gems are very rare to earn and but you don't need them to progress.

Fun factor:

🔨 Hammer time!

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.

Idle Raids of Dice Heroes

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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

Today we will raid for more resources in: Idle Raids of Dice Heroes

Today I bring you an idle game that uses dice in a kind of D&D game. This game isn't bogged down with all the ads you play on this app. This game does not have an arbitrary energy system and you can play as much as you want. You can only collect 6 hours of offline time and you can watch an optional ad to double your income. 

You start off the game with a basic unit. It isn't the strongest unit there is but it is balanced and had a very low critical win or fail chance. You can click on the raid button to start a raid a little faster if you are actively watching the game but other than leveling up characters, there are no interactive features to this game.

As far as I can tell there is no upper limit to the level you can reach for a character but every 100 levels the unit gains a star and seemingly a multiplayer boost to the amount of gold they can find.

Here we take a quick spin to the options menu by clicking on the gear. The Achievements are hidden behind this menu for some reason and as far as I can tell you do not gain any in-game bonuses for completing them.

Even though this is an endless idle game, there is in fact a finite number of missions you unlock. This acts as a control that directs what you unlock as you play on. In the end, you gain 5 or 6 different quest givers. I feel this is an interesting way to give you visual progress of your adventure.

There is a finite amount of units you can buy. There are 9 per biome and 3 biomes. Each warrior gets a boost depending on the area you are in. Depending on what quest you are working on, you can have all 9 characters on the scene getting you the maximum amount of gold per area. The problem is the initial unlocking of the units is through quests but the last 3 in each group require the premium diamonds to buy. These diamonds are rarely given on login with an ad or from completing quests. The rare warriors give you the highest chance to gain lucky raids and multiply your gold.

Sometimes when you raid, you can collect rare items. You will save these to complete quests but once all of those quests are completed, you can then sell all the items for diamonds. This is by far the best way to farm diamonds for free.

The map of the game offers a finite area with increasing danger. Each area has a chance that raises the rate your raids will fail. You can mitigate that with the upgrades in the next screenshot, but only to a point. Each area of the map has different items you gain for quests.

As you level up units, you can unlock upgrades per playthrough. These give you boosts based on better raids or even opening up slots for more units. You can see all the upgrades you have by clicking on the See all button. 

You can access the shop by the trophy on the bottom of the screen Here you can pay to buy things with real money or you can click on the heroes tab to bring up the next screenshot. This game seems to have very affordable prices on permanent buffs. I do not know why the achievements are not in this tab.

Here is a sample of some of the legendary heroes you can buy with diamonds. The Driade (should be spelled as Dryad,) is one of the best units you can buy with the highest luck. I would recommend buying the Driade and the most expensive ones first. 

Lastly, on the bonus screen, you have an option to prestige. This resets your game to a point. All levels reset to 1 and you keep all the other progress. You have to rehire each hero again but it doesn't take long to get through this game. 

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Overall this game is a nice time waster. There isn't much in the way of interactivity but there is a lot to unlock as the game plays itself. There isn't much going on that keeps you coming to this game, like events or such.

Story:

  0 of 5 cogs.

There is no story in this game. I feel if this game had some story added to it, it would make this a richer game to play.

Amount of ads:

 

   optional only

This game has only optional ads. This is nice as id doesn't eat your data or bog you down with annoying ads.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I do not recall seeing any video ads for this game but the screenshots in the App store seem to be accurate as well. Certified clickbait free.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are crisp and simple. The portraits for the heroes are highly detailed and give depth to the game. The rest of the graphics give a clear and concise view of everything and make it easy to navigate the game.

Gameplay:

 3 of 5 cogs.

At this moment, this is an infinite game with a finite goal. You can easily play through and do everything in I estimate a month at max. I don't see anything that will keep you playing beyond that.

Free play:

💯%

Fun factor:

📉 rapid falloff.

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.

Guidus Pixel Roguelike RPG

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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

Delve into the deep dungeons with: Guidus

Today's game doesn't have a title screen and throws you straight into the main camp. As you progress through the game, you save more people for your main camp. I do not know how many people there are to save but they each seem to have a specific function in the game.

You can click on the campfire you can change your class. You can unlock a random class by spending 1000 gold coins. You can also raise the initial level by paying coins as well. You also have a chance to watch a video to gain a free class or soul as the game calls them.

Across the bottom screen are buttons that lead to subscreens. The first one I will talk about late. The second one seems to be linked to a character you rescue later. I assume this NPC will catalog every enemy that you fight like pokemon. 

The third button is your active inventory. This is where any keys and potions you find. Anything else you find in the dungeon will also go here as well.

When you click on the pause button you get to see all the options. This game comes in several languages out of the box which is surprising for a mobile game.

The second option screen allows you to manage push notifications and cloud saving.

The first button is a special list of equipment that gives you boosts when you defeat bosses. These are permanent boosts among all playthroughs.

If you manage to make it through an area and beat a boss, you get to see a victory screen and you return to the camp. Even if you lose you keep the gold you find. Along the way, you can find special artifacts that give you a major boost just for the current run like Binding of Issac.

To move around is simple with the cross button. you move around and everything happens on a step-by-step basis. Like a game from sega genesis called Fatal Labyrinth. You move around from stairs to stairs as you go deeper into the dungeons. You can hold the arrow button to do a charge attack or special move based on what creature you have.

After you beat the tutorial you unlock the princess. When you click on her you go to the shop. Here you can watch options ads to gain bonus coins or a time skip.

You unlock this screen when you visit the fox NPC. This screen shows you all of the artifacts you have found before and a description detailing what they do.

And just for fun, the Shaman fox NPC to show off the level of detail in the pixel art.

Overall:

 5 of 5 cogs.

Overall, this game is a lot of fun and brings back memories of similar games to this. There is a lot to explore and find in this game as I haven't even scratched the surface of the game.

Story:

 5 of 5 cogs.

There is a lot of story in this game that you seem to learn as you continue on. I haven't even made it through the second area yet because this game is so vast.

Amount of ads:

 

 low

The game has a banner at the bottom of the screen that always displays while you are online. Beyond that, there are only optional ads for various bonuses.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I do not recall watching any ads for this game as I think I found this game just randomly on the play storefront page.

Graphics:

 5 of 5 cogs.

This game has a lot of great pixel art and it's pretty easy to make out what creatures are. The hud assets and menus have a nice feel of older RPG games.

Gameplay:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The game is pretty basic and simple. Everything happens on a step by step, but unlike Fatal Labyrinth, the enemies still move around on their own.

Free play:

💯%

Yup, you can easily play everything you want on this game with no paywalls or energy limits.

Fun factor:

🔪 Rouge-like.

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.