Case Hunter

 

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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.

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Survival RPG 2: The lost temple

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Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

Today the castles of brass guard: Survival RPG 2: The lost temple

First and foremost, if you enjoy the blog, please let others know about these reviews. Also consider leaving a donation through paypal at the bottom of the page, to help me along as I develop these posts.

Welcome to the second in the line of Survival RPG games. Already this game has a more refined feel to it and gets a slightly bit more indepth as you continue on this line of games. This game has made several improvements to the main engine, even though the gameplay is mostly unchanged. 

You are greeted with this screen. When you continue a game, the new button changes to show the percentages of the game you have completed. The graphics of the tiles have been improved but the U has not changed any.

Again you can choose between one of the charachters in this game. When you start this game, it continues off from where you left off in the first game with a small recap. You once again start over with nothing. There is no continuation over from the first game like Mass Effect.

The first major change is that you will find yourself faced with a new Quests engine. Here it gives you a place that keeps track of what you need to find. So far these are a lot of fetch quests for you to do because like every RPG, you have to do everything yourself. You have to complete these manditory quests to unlock componets you need to start crafting things. In this game you can not make anything until you do some of these quests. Once you get along the quest line you are allowed to finally expore around outside of the village. When you complete a quest, it turns green, letting you know that you have to turn it in. If you click on the I, you get details of what the quest wants you to gather or do.

Here is a quick over-view of the main village you start with and the unchanged hud. In the top left the notecard holds all the quests you have active. The green check mark shows that you completed a quest in the list.

The crafting system has not changed other than you have to rely on villagers for a bit before you can craft anything of your own. I forgot to mention on the last blog, but when you craft an item and no longer need to make anymore the item is tagged as Maxed and moves to the bottom of the list. This is a nice feature to let you know you no longer need that item ever again. The game is very linerar and there isn't much room to deviate from this almost on rail games.

All your tools are here. They never break and you always have them. This game adds in a lot of new items to explore and find. 

Same old equipment screen. Once again everything autoequips to the best item and you get stuck with many outdated pieces of equipment as you advance through the game.

You get access to some of the same foods and you will see a lot of new ones on here. You can change your equipped food by long-pressing the button above the hand button to change your food. 

The last tab is the items tab. The same old mix of new and old items. You seem to have an infinte amount of storage space here. I have yet to reach any caps on the common collectable materials like vines or rocks.

Lastly is the map. This map is slightly bigger and the way this area is set up, I think there are multiple maps to this game. There's a lot more to explore but everything is a lot more clear in what kind of direction to go in. This game also uses terrain sprites to block your path in various places until you can got around them later.

Overall:

 5 of 5 cogs.

The second part of this game has a lot of improvements over the first. There is a little more to do in this game as there is a lot of new items to find and use. The game still feels very short as 

Story:

 3 of 5 cogs.

This game has a lot more story to it compared to the first one which wasn't much at all. This game has proper chapter breaks and feels like a fuller game now.

Amount of ads:

 lots.

There is still a lot of forced videos ads along with the optional ads for premium currency. They pop up a lot more often every time you move into a doorway or cave opeing.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯% 

As far as I can tell everything is accurate. The game is still as straight forward as the first and the shreenshots that are posted on Google play and the game's Facebook page are all true screenshots.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are a little better in this game except the GUI needs something to make it less plain.

Gameplay:

 5 of 5 cogs.

Similar gameplay as the first. You can clear these games in just a couple of sittings or less if you devote time to the small grind to collect all those parts for the expanding recipe list you unlock.The knowledge you gain from the first game allows you to progress even faster through this second part.

Free play:

💯%

You can play this game for free without the need to spend money. There is another shop tab with microtransations like the first game. I just ignored the shopping cart button this whole game so far.

Fun factor:

😎 fun tropical retreat.

Over all, fast and simple game. Doesn't offer much replay value though, other than 3 different parts you play through, and reset every time to nothing.

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