Farmville 2: Country Escape

 

Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

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Time to visit farm life with: Farmville2

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Let me preface this blog by saying this is a Zynga game and quite frankly this game is a very broken and laggy mess. I have a decent middle-grade phone and this game would constantly lag and freeze. This started to happen around level 15 and the game became entirely unplayable. Each progressive update made it worse. I really do not like this game or the practices of Zynga. That being said I will try to be as fair as possible.

Surprisingly, this game has some story and you inherit a farm. You start by buying some animals and growing crops. Each crop has different growth rates and is the main source of income. As you progress

The first big way you make money and earn experience is by this message board here. As you unlock more things, tasks become more complex, and require more produce, or somethings hidden behind some long-timers.

At the bottom of the screen is a book that contains all of the quests you get. These are the biggest source of experience and golden keys. Golden keys are used to expand and unlock things faster without getting the requirements for them. Be warned these keys are needed to expand your production buildings to allow more items to be produced at once.

Here all of your quests show up and you can scroll left or right to see all of them. You get a thumbnail image here to remind you what you need.

Under the book is a cash-register. Here is the shop where you buy all your main crops or animals for the farm and additionally you can buy some cosmetic items you can pepper around your farm as you clear land.

Along the way, there are many events that pop up frequently and really detract from gathering much-needed produce. Frankly, the rewards from most of these events are not worth the effort you put into them.

Overall:

 1 of 5 cogs.

Overall, this game is so similar to many on the play store that uses a similar kind of game engine. This one is very heavy with transitions and pushes you to spend money. This game has far too many bugs and issues to be worth playing

Story:

 3 of 5 cogs.

This game actually has a story and it's fairly generic. You unlock more as you progress along or play events.

Amount of ads:

 

 Optional only

There are some instances where you can watch optional ads to get golden keys or other things.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I have not seen any video ads for this game at all but for the most part the screenshots on Google Play match.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The graphics are Ok, but I am not a fan of the bug eyed characters in this game. The rest of the assets like crops or produce are nice.

Gameplay:

 

2 of 5 cogs.

The game is buggy and slow. I have no good words for the gameplay when I can play the same game elsewhere and with less money grabbing.

Free play:

80%

You 'could' just play a lot and struggle to slowly unlock stuff. Eventually you can join a community to get aid from others but even then it's very limited.

Fun factor:

😱 Bad Experience.

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.

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Survival RPG: Lost Treasure Adventure Retro 2d

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Greetings mechanics and tinkerers!

You find Survival RPG: lost treasure (part 1) floating on some driftwood.

Today I bring you a three part game. The first part throws your character into a deserted island and you have to collect everything around you to advance up a tech tree. I plan to review the next two parts in following blog posts. The game is classified as and RPG but there are no level-up components in this game. This is purely a top-down adventure title.

The game has very simple art and a map. You move around with the virtual keys on the screen. Everything uses a single action like a very old Nes style video game. You an tap on each of the different menus to access your inventory or cratfint menus. This game also has extra 'heart containors' that you can pick up very similar to the first Legend of Zelda game for Nes.

The button with a stick holds every collectable items you can pick up. You can click on the I beside an item to gain some information about it. These hints do not offer too much in the way of how some things area used.

When you click on the fish, you see a list of all the foods you can eat to heal. The I besides the food tells you how much health each food restores. In this game, there appears to be only 4 different types of food.

When you click on the shovel, you get a list of all the tools you have available. Once you create something like an ax, it will always be on you and never breaks. This menu is one you will never really look at again once you play the game.

When you click on the anvil, you reach the crafting menu. As you gather materials you unlock new recipes. There is no direct information that tells you how to get new recipes as they just happen based on any materials you collect. The best way is to collect everything you can just to unlock new things. You will travel back and forth to several places and you have to memorize locations of different items because you will need a tool to reach most things you find. Additionally, you can use gems to buy the missing ingredients to a craft recipy. You can earn more by watching optional ads.

The game has a map. The map is not very large to begin with and it appears you can beat this game in one or two sittings if you explore everything and think about what tool is used where.

When you click on the shirt button, you get a list of all the equipment you have crafted. Everytime you craft something it automatically becomes useable. When you craft a sword it goes here and your 'use' button that looks like a hand will change to the usable tool or weapon. If you say create a better sword, it over-rides the current equipped one to the best one despite holding both swords.

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game is very simple and has the feeling of so many old video games from the 80s. Everything is touch based and responds mostly well. The graphics are very simplistic and could use a bit more shadow details.

Story:

 3 of 5 cogs.

There is a very simple story in this game. As you progress there has not been anymore story revealed as you progress along. I have yet to finish this game so I do not know if more story presents it's self as you progress on.

Amount of ads:

 Lots

Everytime you transition to a new room you are forced to watch a full screen video ad that disrupts the play of the game. You have to wait 5 seconds before you can skip these. It makes it very difficulty to explore new places. You can also watch optional Ads for premium currency or there is an option to pay to remove ads.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

The Google Play screenshots are accurate to the game and don't hide anything. There is not too much going on visually here.

Graphics:

 3 of 5 cogs.

Very average pixel art sprites. The later games seem to have better graphics based on the screenshots. There is a lot that could be improve graphically in this game.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Simple and clean gameplay. There is not much to do and it is very limited but it is good for a quick single run-through.

Free play:

💯%

The game is completely easy to play for free. There are some premium powerups you can buy with real money and not the premium currency so there is no way to earn those ingame. This game is very much designed as a F2P game with many ads that slow down the gameplay when you enter a cave.

Fun factor:

👸 Fun for a time.

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Idle Brick Breaker

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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.

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Mage Dice

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Today's game: Mage Dice

This game is made by 111%. I have reviewed another game already called Random dice. The concept is similar but this is a single-player game with much better graphics. I am unsure which game came out first but I think this one is a later game.

 

The main game screen has a map that has a very limited number of levels. There are two currencies. Gold is used to buy runes to power up the basic dice or to buy permanent upgrades. The second is a premium currency used to buy more runes and rune pages.

This is the main game screen. The diamond-shaped currency is used to buy new dice. The bottom images will upgrade the power of the matching color dice.

The clock allows you to start a wave early for bonus currency. The fire rune besides is a special attack that hits all enemies. There is a special mana bar that changes how your dice attack for a short time.

Lastly is a red line that moves along the screen. When it hits a die it activates the attack. Each color is connected to a specific element.

This is the rune page. You can combine similar runes to make them stronger. The exclamation point is used to show the total bonuses.

Here you use coins to unlock a random powerup. The cost becomes exponential.

Here on the chest screen you can unlock them once a day for free or use currency to unlock runes.

Overall:

5 of 5 cogs.

This game is a quick time killer but it feels like you don't make progress very quickly. 

Story:

🚫 N/A.

There is no story at this time.

Amount of ads:

 

There are no popup ads telling you to buy stuff or for other games. There are optional videos for bonus gems and to unlock free chests.

Advertised as seen:

💯%

Google play preview images are accurate and as far as I recall, I have not seen this game advertised.

Graphics:

5 of 5 cogs.

The graphics have much greater details than random dice. They are colorful and cartoony.

Audio:

5 of 5 cogs.

This game has a kind of fantasy feel to it and the sound effects are lightly used.

Gameplay:

5 of 5 cogs.

Very simple and fun gameplay. I feel the game gets easier as you play more. You don't have to sink a kit of time into it.

Free play:

💯%

It's very easy to progress without paying. You only need 500 premium currency to advance rune pages (as of now). The premium currency is easy to obtain.

Fun factor:

😉 way better than random dice.

This game is simple and fast. There's not too much replay value yet, but it is a solid game.

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