Game Quicky: Galatic Warrior (Android) ~ This is for EARTH!

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Official website

Today, I’m taking a look at a new Android game called Galatic Warrior. This game has been developed by two brothers from Spain. It started as a hobby and after seven months, this is their result. I have to applaud them since game development is hard. So, they mailed me and asked to give my opinion on their game, and as usual, I’m going to give my 100% full opinion on this game! Also, feel free to leave a comment on this article with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article. 

The good

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For a game that’s developed by mostly 2 people, this game looks amazing. The visual presentation of this game is top notch. I really love the artwork in the game. The only minor complaint I have is that the current icon isn’t in pixel art.

The UI of this game is very easy to use. I only have one minor complaint about it. When I’m in the upgrade menu during gameplay, the buttons in the settings tab and the shop tab overflowed at the bottom. The other minor complaint I have is that in the credits menu, the Twitter icon looks ugly in my opinion due to the bird not looking right. But, that’s nitpicking in my opinion.

This game controls quite nice. The only advice I would give to the developers is making an option to flip the buttons. What I mean is that the joypad is on the right side and the attack buttons on the left side. I think left-handed people would be happy to see that feature.

This game is fun to play in short bursts. To play one quick round and try to earn some coins to upgrade your character. This game also auto-saves, so no worries about loosing progress. Your goal is to kill all enemies that come to you in waves. They get spawned in random places in the area. When you kill an enemy, you get coins that you can use for upgrading your character.

This game is free! This game has microtransactions, but in a surprising twist, the microtransactions aren’t way too expensive. For 8000 coins, you would pay 4€ in this version of the game. Compare that to other titles, and you would pay 20€ or more easily.

You also keep your gold when you die. That way you can grind yourself to better armor and gear in order to better survive the arena.

There aren’t too many ads in the game. This is a big plus in my book! I know that it’s one of the only ways to earn money with your product, but if you overuse it, gamers can get turned off. Thankfully, this isn’t an issue in this game.

This game is still in development, so that means that each negative I say can be improved in future versions. The developer told me that they aren’t only creating more content for the game but also working on improving the game.

This game has achievements that let you earn XP for your Google account. Neat. And the XP you get is quite a lot, and you can earn each achievement by playing the game.

The bad

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The opening story always plays when you boot the game. I know you can skip it, but I think that this should play when you start a new game. And only once.

The difficulty in this game isn’t the best. In my playthrough, I wasn’t able to beat the first world after trying each level at least 20 or more times. I think the following suggestions would help to fix this issue:

  • A pouch slot, where you can store either one health or mana bottle.
  • Make the enemies do less damage in earlier waves. The further you are in the waves, the more damage the enemies do.
  • Introduce a new type of enemies in a more “safe” environment. What I mean is that it should be the only enemy on screen. This way the player can get used to the behavior and the pattern of said enemy before mixing the enemy types.
  • Archers are pretty OP in my opinion. I know you can roll out of the way to avoid getting shot, but when you are fighting, you can’t roll out of the way in time. Also, when you are walking towards them, they seem to be able to hit you at least once or twice. I think it would be fairer if they miss their shot in the early levels once or twice. Also, speaking about the archers, they can shoot in a diagonal line, but you can’t.
  • Give the player a rest period after 5 waves. So, thoughts can be collected before he/she continues. Or at least, give them a chance to heal for eg 50% of their coins.

I know that this game should be hard, due to the story and setting of the game. The story goes like this:

“In year 2370, when fighting in the arena was universal sport, a boy from planet Earth dreams of fighting in it. He wants it since he was a child, he admire great fighters like his father. But since the day he became 18 years old… he could fight in the arena! It was time to carry out his dream…”

But, this shouldn’t mean that this game should have a very steep difficulty curve. Ease the player more into the game, so this way they get more interested in the game.

Something I think this game really lacks is a total wave counter. When I played the first level, I kept continuing in waves and I never know when the level would end.

Conclusion

So, should you play this game? In my opinion, yes! At the current version, the game lacks polish in the difficulty curve and some very minor issues. But, like I said, the developers are still creating more content for the game and they are going to improve it. So, the game can only improve from here. Also, it’s free! So, you don’t have anything to loose!

There is a lot of potential for this game to become a very good game. The current version (v0.212) I played isn’t even finished. Also, the development is quite active of this game, the last update releasing on the May 30th. I’m really curious to see how this game is going to develop. I’m going to keep an eye on this game and play it again when the game reached a future stage in development.

If you want to follow the development yourself, here are the links:

Google Play – Twitter – Facebook

In any case, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog but until then have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score (of this version): 3/5

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Android Games #7: Has it been a year already?

Best-Free-Android-Games-Of-2013.jpgSo, it’s that time of year again. It’s time… where I talk about Android games that I want to talk about but don’t have enough “meat” on their bones to get a full article. So, look at these sort of mini-quick review of these interesting Android games. So, I hope you are prepared and you have enough space left on your Android device since you might want to download these interesting games. So, for those who know this series, in this series I take a quick look at Android games that can be used as a time sink. But, some might become more then just that. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the games and/or the article in the comment box down below. 

Word Crush: Hidden Words!

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Word Crush is a game where you get a grid of letters and you have to make a word or two out of them.

You see at the bottom how many letters each word or section of the word has.

The game is really fun to play, but I play it without an internet connection often. Since some ads are in v2.1.9 bugged out and don’t close when you press the “x”.

Oh, and if you are stuck, don’t forget you can form words going in a diagonal line.

Great word puzzle game, but the only annoying thing are the buggy ads.

Score: 4/5.

Color Net

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In Color Net, you have to put dots in circles. The playing field is connected with lines. Each circle is connected with at least one line.

Your goal is to put all the dots in a circle. But the catch is that you aren’t allowed to put two of the same color in a row.

I would change two things in the game. First of all, it’s a shame that this game doesn’t have a colorblind mode.

And secondly, I wish there was an easier way to saw dots. But overall, this is a great time sink! Give it a try, it’s free and the ads aren’t too annoying.

Score: 4/5

Ultra Flow

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In Ultraflow, you have to get the circle into the other circle. But here is the catch, you can only swipe once.

Your circle bounces against every wall, surface or edge. And you have a limited amount of bounces.

If you are stuck on a level, the game shows you how you need to swipe. You might think that this is cheating. Yet, in the later levels, you have to time your swipe. This makes the game frustrating at times, yet rewarding.

The only thing I don’t really like in this game is the soundtrack. It’s too repetitive in some areas and I often play this game with my own music playing. That’s my honest opinion.

Score: 3,5/5

Conclusion

I’m sorry that this article is shorter as usual. I have been quite busy this week and I wasn’t able to prepare more. But, I was thinking about writing one of these, so I did. In any case, I’m really curious what Android games you guys and girls would recommend to me. Hit me up in the comment box or on social media! Maybe your recommendation might get featured on one of these articles.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. I hope to see you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!

First Impression: Minecraft Story Mode (Android) ~ Tappin’ That Adventure, yo!

Minecraft_Story_Mode_Logo.pngOfficial website

Back in 2015, when I was at Minecon, I saw the trailer for Minecraft Story Mode. I actually attended the panel as well. And truth to be told, the game didn’t interest me at all. Which is really strange since I enjoy adventure games a whole lot, but this game didn’t grab my interest enough for me to put it onto my “to play” list. But in November 2016, I bought this game in a sale on the Android store. And now, I have to explain why it made it on the list of best games I played in 2016 as an honorable mention… So, let’s dive right into my first impressions of this game. When writing this article, I’m halfway into episode 4. There are 8 in total. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

This isn’t Minecraft!

Minecraft-Story-Mode-9-840x525.pngFor those wondering, I’m playing this game on my Asus ZenPad 8S. So, yeah. In any case, let’s talk about the story as spoiler free as possible.

At the start of the game, you get to choose how your character looks and the gender. Right after that, you are thrown into the game. In this game, you go to a building competition to decide who goes to EnderCon. But, it doesn’t take long before something horrible happens. A monster gets loose that tries to destroy the world.

Before I take a better look at the story, I have to say, that I find it sad that people bash the story and the game because “it isn’t Minecraft”.  Minecraft is a sandbox game, a game where you have full control of the situation. But that’s a rant for another time.

This story is made more interesting thanks to the subplots that are going on. Since for most of the story that big monster “takes a backseat”. The whole story is written pretty well in my opinion. I enjoy how the dynamic works between all the characters. And how each action you take, changes the dialogue of the game. And something I truly like is that at certain points, the story branches off. Like you could choose between two heroes you could save, and your start of the next episode would be totally different. But that’s to be expected with a TellTale game.

Something that makes the writing even more interesting to me is that the developers made an interesting attempt into trying to implement all the subcultures of Minecraft into one story. The Redstoners, YouTubers, Builders, Adventures… they are all present in some way in the game.

About the story, there is one thing that I think would improve the game, in my opinion, is a sort of skip button or speed up button. I think that would be a great option for people who are playing through an episode again.

Sit through this game

Minecraft-Story-Mode-51-840x525.pngSomething I saw other people be disappointed with is the fact that this game has way less gameplay than Minecraft. But, that isn’t a bad thing in my eyes. That isn’t the main focus of this game. The main focus of this game is to tell a story using the Minecraft setting and lore.

The gameplay is your typical adventure genre gameplay. It’s very close to point and click gameplay. So, the first gameplay element is the dialogues. You can choose between 5 dialogue options to react to a certain situation. The 5th option is pure silence. That isn’t available in every dialogue, but hey, it’s there. The only nitpick complaint I have with this is that in some cases, that time runs out way too quickly. By the time I have read the options, the time is nearly up and then I still have to decide which reply to go with. Thank you for the pause button at least!

The second element of gameplay is the exploration. I have to admit, I would have loved a bit more exploration in the game. The exploration parts are way to easy in my opinion. Yet, I can forgive the game for that, because you can beat various situations in different ways. This gives the game more replay value. You also solve puzzles in this game and so far, no puzzle has really stumped me. Maybe in the later episodes, I have some harder puzzles, but so far, I haven’t gotten stuck at all.

And the third gameplay element is the quick time events. Oh dear lord, the quick time events. I have nothing more to say that they are sometimes pretty annoying to play.

So, the final gameplay element is the combat. And I have to say, this isn’t great on Android. The combat is slow and when you miss an attack, you can’t attack again before the animation is finished. I don’t enjoy the combat sections very much.

The rest of the package.

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Now, let’s talk about the other parts of the game. First of all, the music and sound design. The music is good, but this soundtrack isn’t one I would listen to outside the game. It loses its charm without some visuals.

The sound design is pretty well done. Because most of the sounds are from the great sound design by C418 for Minecraft. So, no complaints there. Also, the sound packs way more punch when you play this game with a headset.

The voice acting in this game is pretty good. I have played this game once while I was on the train and I forgot my headset, and I truly missed the voices. Yeah, they are that good in my opinion.

Visually, this game is pretty good but not perfect. Maybe it has to do with my tablet, but sometimes things didn’t render for me. I remember one scene pretty well.The gang was feeling on horseback, and the horse for the main character didn’t render always. So, the main character was floating away. Apart from the very few creative liberties the designers took, the game looks like an adventure map built in Minecraft. And I have to applaud the designers for that!

The atmosphere and visual presentation of the different areas you visit are pretty great. There isn’t a place I would change or adjust.

So, I have to praise the controls for the most part in this game. I was afraid that this game would control pretty poorly on Android, but I was surprised. This game controls pretty great on my tablet. The only problems I had with the controls were during the quick time sections, but thankfully, I was able to redo those sections and not make my mistakes.

Oh, before I forget, there is something truly annoying in this game. The download speed for the episodes is just way too slow. At first, I thought it had to do with the download speed of my tablet, but no. I have tested it with various speed tests and downloading large files from the internet. It has to do with this game, I’m sure of it.

I think I said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. There are a few things I have left for the review, but nothing that special. In any case, it’s time to wrap up this article up.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then… have a great rest of your day and take care!

Gamer’s Thoughts: A little ramble about blogging

blogging-encouragementLet’s do something totally different this week. This week I have been thinking about various subjects I wanted to write an article about. While I think I got some great ideas, I realized something. All of the questions I asked myself would make for a great article to discuss how I see gaming & blogging. So, in this week’s article, I’m going to talk about how I think blogs could improve and how I see games. It’s time to put some of these gamer’s thoughts on paper. And as usual, feel free to leave me a comment on the content of this article down in the comment section below.

Why do I blog about games?

1.7One of the most important things when writing a blog is that you are passionate about the subject. That you write a blog about something you know you won’t get easily bored of.

Since I play a lot of games, I picked that as a subject. But truth to be told, I tried to blog about other things. In the past, I wrote articles with my views on life, movies, anime and much more.

But the articles about gaming just stuck with me. I loved writing them and creating them. At first, I was thinking of making a YouTube channel and making video reviews. But after a while, I got bored of it and I stopped making YouTube videos.

Why do I continue to blog about games? Well, it has several reasons. For one reason, I want to share my love of gaming with the rest of the world. It’s so rewarding for me to see how many people read my blog.

But where is the root? Why do I BLOG about games? What got me started? Well, my story isn’t as any typical YouTuber would say that he or she got inspired by somebody or the community. I just gave it a shot. I thought it would be fun to write an article every week and 5 years later, I still enjoy it quite a lot.

Can (game) reviews contain spoilers?

Shep-Red-Background-Spoilers-BWhen I write an article, I’m always thinking about if it’s fine to spoil the game or not.

It’s an interesting question to think about really. Since I can find arguments that are pro and contra.

I think spoilers in a review are fine since a review can serve as a reflection. When you would limit yourself to not spoil the end of the thing you are reviewing… It feels incomplete. You can’t talk about the end part in depth. Here is a perfect example:

Today I finished an anime I would love to recommend but the ending of the 2nd season ruined the series honestly. I’m not alone in this. The whole final episode was just in a totally different style than the rest of the anime that I threw me off. I spent nearly an hour reading different forum discussions and watching rants on YouTube on people who got annoyed by the ending as well. Oh, and if you wonder… It’s Haganai. It’s an amazing anime but the final episode of the 2nd season is just terrible in my eyes. It doesn’t wrap up the story at all.

When I would talk a bit more in-depth, I could warn those who are interested, so they can prepare themselves for the ending. But then, on the other hand, I might scare some people of giving the anime a chance.

So, I think spoilers aren’t good for a review since you might scare potentially interested people away. Also, some people read reviews so they can decide if they would buy the game, anime, movie, book …

It’s a very difficult balance for a content creator. Should you or shouldn’t you include spoilers. One fact stands, I’m glad we have people who put up spoiler warnings. Since then I could stop myself from hearing things I don’t want to hear yet. Since spoilers can ruin an experience. That’s something we can agree on, right?

A thought I had was: if I would use spoilers, I would only use it in a review. Since it’s a reflection of the game I just played. But I would avoid spoilers at all costs in my first impression series. (Notice the letters I put in bold please.)

Why a tablet is a must have for any game blogger!

380kvIn the past, I wasn’t a big fan of tablets. I thought that they were just a cheap laptop without a physical keyboard. Apart from in business situations, I never saw a real point for them.

But then I found it. The reason I bought a tablet and why I actually am glad I bought it as because it’s a cheap laptop without a physical keyboard.

When I’m playing I game I used to write my notes in my notebook. But then one day, I forgot my notebook at work and I wrote down some notes in a different notebook. I think you can see where this is going. I have notes everywhere. So, yeah. A tablet is a perfect place to store them all in. And when I forget my tablet at home or at work, I use my PC and edit my notes that way. Since I got them synced using Dropbox, I always have the latest versions of my notes at hand.

Also, it’s really easy to access the internet without having a clutter of tabs open. When I write an article about a certain game, I have a lot of tabs open with other peoples their opinion and various other sites with information on the game. I see it as a sort of secondary screen I can easily set up and use. While you could argue that an actual second screen for my computer could do the same thing… Well, it keeps my mind focused. A tablet is for research and PC is for the actual writing part. It keeps me focused.

If you wonder, I got myself the Asus ZenPad S 8.0. I bought it on a sale so I got it pretty cheap. And after almost 2 weeks of using it, I’m really glad I got myself a tablet. The previous tablet I owned was a cheap one. One where the battery died after almost a year.

Other uses for my tablet are: being able to read my notes for class while I’m on the train to work. Testing out some things in simulations on the go. Being able to quickly look something up when I’m not at the computer. Being able to review the Android games a bit better on a bigger screen and most of all, it’s a really helpful organizer.

Closing off

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. When I have more ideas for a ramble, I might write another article like this.

When you have something where you want my opinion… Well, feel free to contact me.

In any case, I think I’m going to wrap up this article here. Have a great rest of your day and I hope to welcome you in another article! But until then, take care :).

Rant: Let’s go mobile – please no.

Mobile-Gaming-600This rant might come as a surprise. I also write articles about mobile games and now I’m going to actually talk bad about it. I read an article today and something snapped inside of me. Something just made me sigh so hard, I almost blew over my nearly empty can of soda. I just realized something that will be a grave danger if we didn’t talk about it. Even if this might seem nonsense to you, I’m quite afraid it might happen. Feel free to discuss this in the comments, I’m kind of curious what you guys think. Warning: this rant has been written when I was a bit angry and disappointing by the news I open the next paragraph with. Just a heads up, m’kay. It might be not written as good as I usually write. 

Layton and Fantasy Life sequels go mobile.

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Thank you Kotaku for sharing my opinion. I simply can’t believe that Level5 is making this idiotic move. I have a lot of respect for Level5, since they made some amazing titles. But jumping on the mobile cash train is just making me sad. Extremely sad.

Apart from that, Nintendo is also moving mobile after a lot of complaints. I’m extremely afraid that they might do something stupid as well.

I could rant about how disappointed I am about this, but it might be better to explain why I feel like that actually. There is something going on in the mobile market that is really not good for us gamers.

Moving to mobile

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When I browse the app store lately, I notice that big titles like Final Fantasy and Fifa are appearing on the mobile market. This business scheme is just insulting in my eyes.

Why? Simply because those games don’t belong on the mobile market. At all. Since mobile games are meant as timewasters at the doctor’s office or waiting for a bus. Games that work well on mobile are games that are easy to understand and play. Games that have a simple idea behind them. That’s why Candy Crush is doing so well.

I’m quite sure that some people will disagree with me on this. They will try to prove that I’m wrong with examples of games that did well on the mobile platform. A game that actually did well on mobile platforms is Minecraft Pocket Edition. But then again, it’s a game you can enjoy in short bursts and it’s something excellent to do while you are waiting on something.

Why don’t triple A games belong on the mobile market? One reason is, that a tablet and phones aren’t meant to have long gameplay sessions on. Tablets where originally a decent alternative to a laptop for business men. But phones, they just aren’t meant for it. Think about it, you can’t call somebody because your battery died because you played too much games on it.

Also, because people want to use their phones more and more to do stuff on, where actually a tablet or a laptop is made for, the sizes of a phone gets… just out of proportion. I have seen phones that barely can fit in a pocket.

Target groups

My biggest issue is the fact that the people who play games on their mobile phones are a different group who play games on their consoles, handhelds and/or computers. When I see people play games on Facebook and their phones, I rarely see them play games on a handheld. Also, when I look to most of my friends who play games on consoles and other devices, I rarely see them play games on mobile phone. It’s because most people who play games on their mobile phones aren’t that interested in games to begin with.

I could try to explain it, but let me prove my point. When I went to Minecon a few years ago, the people who played Minecraft Pocket Edition had a separate room. Most of the people there were young mothers, males that did a lot of sport or very young children.

Or another example, the more popular games that started on mobile, get their way onto Steam, handhelds and/or consoles. Weird isn’t it?

Before I forget to mention it, the fact that you have no buttons to play with feels so awkward to me. Not only that, what you see on the screen then depends on the size of your fingers as well. Not only that, when you are in a situation where you need to do some sort of quick action, buttons are just better. Since you can press them and it’s harder to press them by accident.

No tablet for me

So, I’m already seeing some comments in my head. But if it’s on a tablet, it might be better to play on since your fingers take up less space or you can plug in a keyboard.

1379515873Hold the Android there. (Little phone pun, sorry.) First of all, I agree with the argument of the tablet being a better size to play games on. I honestly think that mobiles shouldn’t be powerful enough to play games like Delver or Fifa on.

But the argument of being able to plug in a keyboard or a controller is just, well, it makes for a whole different experience. Out of that idea we got tablet-laptop hybrids and a console named the Ouya.

I actually own a tablet. I use it to watch video’s on when I’m on a trip or in bed and I can’t sleep. It makes less noise and it’s lighter to carry then a laptop. In the end, I actually prefer a laptop.

Anyways, I think I’m going to wrap this one up. It felt quite nice to blow off some steam about this. It’s possible that I look back at this article later and my opinion might be different, but I think that the big triple A games shouldn’t go towards mobile platforms. If anything, they should rename it to “tablet platforms”. Since then my arguments about phones have less meaning.

So yeah, I might write more about this subject but in any case, I hope you found this interesting. While I could have written this when I was more calm and collected about the subject, I feel that, as a writer and creative person, you should allow yourself to publish something you created when you were in a different mood. But that’s a whole other subject. Take care and until the next article. I already have something in mind. ~

Review #024: Super Kid Cannon (Android) ~ Thank You!

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Official website

So, it happened. I can barely believe it myself. The guys over at SkyJoy asked me to review their Android game. Now let me be clear, I enjoy this interaction a lot. And in these moments I do my best to make it worthwhile their time and effort. I’m honest in all of my articles. I write my honest opinion. When I think a game is bad, I say so. But when a game is good, I praise it. Anyways, after testing and playing my review copy I’m finally ready to write my review of this game. I might not have finished it completely but that isn’t going to stop me from reviewing it. Since it’s still in development and from the level select it’s clear that this game isn’t completely finished. So, let’s dive right into this game. Feel free to leave a comment about your opinion of the game and or this article. 

First vertical game.

SKC_Bobby_Bubble_WheelSo, you might have played Doodle Jump. This game goes vertically. Or Kid Icarus, you go upwards a ton as well. But this game is different. It’s how they claim, the first game in it’s kind.

Let’s talk about the story first. Honestly, it’s a cliche story. Your girlfriend gets kidnapped. But this isn’t anything bad. It’s a mobile game and it’s a new genre. So, no harm done. Sadly enough, the trailer isn’t shown at the start of the game. Part of the trailer explains the characters and the story. Now they loose that. At the  other hand, the game loads faster now and the download is smaller. So, I understand why it’s not added. And that’s all I can talk about in the story.

This game takes Electronic Super Joy‘s approach of a menu. The level select with the option buttons at the bottom. And I think this is perfect for a mobile game like this. It makes the game more accessible and the screen is less cluttered.

One thing where this game truly shines is how it perfects the idea of lives compared to Candy Crush Saga (ugh, don’t get me started about that “game”.)! You get 5 tries in each level. And when they are all up, you can simply retry with those 5 lives. That’s mindblowing.

Negatives

SKC_DailyGiftLet’s change up the concept for this review. I find it pretty difficult to talk about mobile games in a normal style of review. That’s my excuse. So, let’s first talk about the negatives of this game.

First of all, there are microtransactions. I honestly have no big problem with them but they are a bit too much in your face. Everything costs money. A new skin, power-ups… all 1 buck. Thankfully there is a daily gift, which resets at midnight, so that’s a bit of relief.

Another negative is something they can easily fix. It’s not clear enough where a world ends. The banner is always in the middle and that’s pretty annoying. Why don’t you number your levels like “1-1” or “2-1”? Make a more clear separation between the worlds.

Also, there were some cheap deaths. I had a few moments where I kept rolling down and rolling down into pins. Or when I shoot upwards and the enemy decides to jump from platform to platform.

It’s 1-hit kill for you and the enemies. And you can only kill the enemies when they are standing on blocks with up arrows. This isn’t explained well enough and might frustrate casual players who barely play any other games outside of games on their mobile or tablet.

Another negative is how the game misses depth. At the moment of writing, the game’s goal is only getting up without dying. I miss honestly missions or a way to track points. I haven’t tried the Facebook connect out but I think it might be a leaderboard I miss. My advice to the developers is the add a sort of goal system. Like, try to be in every canon once or collect x amount of coins. Also guys, add time trails.

Also, I would like to be able to see my scores of past levels and how close I was to get it to the 3-star rating.

The final complaint is the music. There should be a bit more tracks. The few that are in the game can get repetitive for some gamers. While it didn’t annoy me too much, I can see it be an irritation to some.

Good game?

SKC_DiscoBall_StPatty_Yeti_Penguin_SkiLiftIs this game fun to play? Yes! While I might have a ton of complaints, the core gameplay is fun. The game can only improve from here.

The game might look easy to beat looking at the first few levels, it gets pretty challenging pretty fast.

Also, the visuals are pretty pleasing. They didn’t went for ultra HD in your face awesome graphics. Thank lords they didn’t do that. This makes the game run smooth on nearly every device. I had some minor flickering issues when the water bubbles where created but it didn’t bother me that much.

Also, the game is great on the battery. It isn’t a resource eater and doesn’t drain your battery like other games do.

And finally, a game where not everything is explained. No real hand-holding here. You get explained the core mechanics and after that, you are on your own. So, discovering things is much fun!

And that’s my review of the game. Let’s get on the conclusion. There are a few things I didn’t touch upon like the length, enemies and power-ups but I’ll leave that up to you to discover.

Conclusion

Final thoughts:

Huh, aren’t we skipping something? Yeah, my usual list of the good and bad. But I have written this article in a way that the 2nd part are the negatives and the third part are the positives. So no real reason to repeat it here.

Anyways, my final thoughts on this game are simple. It’s a game that is already fun but has so much potential to grow. I hope to see with the feature releases that the developers build on the core gameplay and not only add various new levels. Since that would make the game pretty repetitive and not fun.

So, for v0.8, the version I got as a review copy gets a score for that version. It might happen that I revisit this game and then the score will be different.

Anyways, thank you Skyjoy for giving me this chance and thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed your read and hopefully we meet again. Laters!

Score: 85/100

Simple Android games you should try out.

AndroidWallpaper

I’m a big fan of the Android Market. I often find myself playing games I find on there. While waiting for the bus the other day, I played a few games on my tablet. The following games are games I won’t have enough to write about for a full review but games you should check out. But before we do that, I have a few questions where you guys can have some input on. First, it’s most likely possible that I’ll find more than the games I’m going to mention here. So this will maybe turn into a series. Which name should I give it? Does NekoJonez plays Android sound okay? Anyway, I’m also going to link these apps here, so you can easily download them when you are reading my blog from your tablet or mobile phone. In addition to that, give me some feedback on the format I write for each game. If you want to know more about the game or things like that. Oh, my goal is that all games are 100% free too. Some might have in-game things you can buy or ads. Well, lengthy intro is lengthy. Let’s dive in. 

2 Player Reactor

(This app contains ads)

2_player_reactor_for_android-474583-1318928025I’ll start the list of this article like the awful NES game Action52 did with their first game, with the game that requires two players to enjoy.

In this simple game you have to be quick and precise. Your challenge will be always above your square, as well as your score.

You have to do simple tasks. Like guess the capital or check if the squares match each other.

When you tap on the correct moment, you’ll earn a point. When you tap on the wrong moment, you’ll lose a point. Self-explanatory. But there will be fun reactions, some you won’t expect.

You can go in minus, like you see in this screenshot.

This game has been translated in various languages, so you can enjoy this game in your native language. I played this game with my sister often in Dutch, since we Dutch people our brains don’t work in English THAT fast.

With various options and settings, you can leave modes out. Who has the most points at the end wins? There is also a “pro” version that supports 4 players.

I have one minor complaint with this game, and that’s on smaller screens, the text isn’t broken up to fit the screen.

Score: 4 / 5

Line Puzzle

unnamedAs simple as this game looks, as simple as you’ll get it. Made by DevSquare, this game has some amusing music.

In this game, your goal is that you have dots connect to other dots. The numbers represent how many dots you can use from that given square.

There are many puzzles, and some can get very big. There is a “daily puzzle” which reminds me from the Professor Layton downloadable puzzles.

With the points you earn, you can buy hints, helpful for when you are stuck.

Some bad points are:

– The bad English translation. The option menu is a great example.

– They use the technical terms for music (BGM) and sound (SFX).

Score: 4 / 5

Card Game

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(This game contains Japanese)

To finish off this article, I would like to talk about another free game released by the developers of Beasty Bay.

In this game, your goal is to put the same number on your main card OR one of the same kind.

You have 3 “jokers”. The mascot is a wild card, the monkey’ll change ALL cards that you can’t use, and the lady’ll show you the card up next.

You can bet, with virtual coins. The more you bet, the more you can win. You need to have a chain of at least 17 cards to play a mini-game and earn your coins back.

You can choose to skip the mini-game and get your coins back or play the mini-game and win the double amount, or more, of coins back.

Furthermore, you can’t go broke in this game because when all your coins are up, you restart with a fresh 50 coins. Each match is random.

This game might be in a Japanese interface, but it’s easy to find your way. After playing it for a little while, you can get easily the hang of it and enjoy playing. The music is adorable too, like the graphics.

Score: 4,5 / 5 (A 5 if it was English)

Closure

So, that are 3 games that are free that I recommend. I will scout the market and come next article with more games. Also leave great recommendations here in the comments.

I hope you enjoy yourselves with these games and that you find some new studios or developers you can follow on the Android market. Have fun and I see you next blog entry.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.