Found in the Google Play Appstore - Listed Alphabetically
100 Crypts
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: a few minutes Jan. 2024
Publisher: 100 Gates
Version: 1.29
Notes: Went looking through some old games I hadn’t reviewed. I played about 10 levels and the game crashed. Pop up ads every two levels as well which was annoying since the levels only took a few seconds to play. Wasn’t interested in finishing. No option to buy an ad free version. Sucks when free to play with ads won’t at least give you the option to buy out ads.
2048
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: a few minutes Jan. 2024
Publisher: Androbaby
Version: 3.2
Notes: For what it is, it’s all right. There are pop up ads after every game over and when exiting to the main menu. Some reviewers made it sound like eventually ads would start playing mid level as well. No option to buy an ad free version though, which sucks.
2048 Kitty Cat Island
Rating: Bad (pop up ads)
Time/Dates: a few minutes Mar. 2024
Publisher: FUNgry
Version: 1.11.1
Notes: Vertical game play. Almost an all right game. Basic 2048 game with cute cat and base building elements. However there are pop up ads and a banner ad always on the bottom of the screen AND it offers optional ads for rewards. It’s becoming a big pet peeve of mine when a mobile game will reward the player for supporting them with ads but also use ads as punishment for playing for free. Pick one or the other you can’t do both it’s so disrespectful to the players. At least from what I saw the banner ad was just text and had no images or movement but I didn’t play after the pop ups after every level restart. Also, according to other reviews, progress isn’t possible without the special items which cost premium currency. The game does reward the player with premium currency for completing quests, but based on the microtransaction shop it clearly wants the player to dump money into that. Anyway, left a review so I wont’ forget what this game was like.
Adera
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: about an hour/July 2024
Publisher: HitPoint Inc.
Version: 0.0.92
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. The first chapter is free but the rest is paid content. No pop up ads though. Some puzzles were kind of frustrating but I got them all on my own in the end. Basic point and click with some hidden object scenes.
Animal Restaurant
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: 30 days/41 hours 2023-2024
Publisher: DH-Publisher
Version: 11.8
Notes: Shit game. Intrusive ads. I was enjoying it sort of. It’s almost okay as far as management games go. There’s a lot of chance/luck based stuff, but if you watch this ad right now you can get your reward. It pushes ads hard. Banner ads in some of the menus. Lots of gacha shit. Lots of microtransactions. The intrusive ads just showed up the last few days I was playing. It started trying to open my browser without clicking on any ads. Last time, I had just loaded the game and the game lagged hard and tried to open my browser again. I knew I hadn’t clicked on anything yet since I’d just loaded in. That’s not okay. I reported the game and left a review warning people about the intrusive ads.
Another Shadow
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: 1.5 hours/February 2024
Publisher: Dark Dome
Version: 1.0.61
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. Took me an hour and a half to play through, but I got stuck a lot. Had to look up a guide for a few puzzles. That skeleton pointing puzzle was not clear at all. But overall, I had fun. Was not expecting Laia to show up in the finale. I like linked stories. There were pop up ads during the cut scenes but none during the gameplay. Good escape room.
Axolochi
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: about 40 minutes June 2024
Publisher: HyperBeard
Version: 2.0
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Optional ads for rewards and it’s a bit annoying about that. There’s two ad watch buttons that can be accidentally tapped when scrolling in the enivronment and one ad attached to a jellyfish that floats distractingly around the screen. Also, you can’t mute the app. There’s a volume button in the settings but it only mutes the game. You’ll get jumpscared by the developer’s jingle everytime you open the app. It’s kind of obnoxious. The game is also very stingy with their premium currency (possibly pearls? Some kind of orb). The premium currency is used for unique axolotl unlocks. You can exchange coins for pearls but it’s not a fair exchange for how hard it is to get coins without dumping an excess of time into ad watches. There’s these minigames you can earn coins with, but again the time-reward ratio is nowhere near worth it. Last thing - the arms and legs on the axolotl are clearly just human baby graphics slapped on an axolotl body. It’s off putting and kind of awful looking. Another last thing - you can scroll around the environment and the axolotl will hone in on wherever you are and slowly creep into the frame while staring at you with it’s dead smiling face. It’s creepy and obnoxious.
Can You Escape 4
Rating: Bad (pop ups)
Time/Dates: a few minutes Apr. 2024
Publisher: MobiGrow
Version: 1.8
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. Big ass flashing banner ad for malware. So big it covered part of the tutorial dialogue boxes. Yikes. Then there was a pop up ad immediately after the tutorial level. Also yikes. This was another game I had played years ago but didn’t properly review. My original review was two stars without anything written. I agree with past me and left a written review about the pop ups and banner ad so future me never questions why I left two stars on it.
Castle Fusion Idle Clicker
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: 10 hours May 2024
Publisher: Shark Jump
Version: 1.9.7
Notes: Vertical gameplay. I love idle games that have an actual end. Well, mostly an end. Optional ads too and the ad rewards are actually worthwhile plus an optional banner ad for an x% bonus. There’s a meta story where the characters are in an endless loop and they swap roles and are unaware except for the rogue. After the 10th reset you and the other characters banish the rogue but the resets keep going. The story halts after that. There’s a “minigame” where you send heroes on quests for resources for the minigame and gems, the premium currency. The premium currency gets easier to grind as the game goes on. Overall, it’s a great idler. There’s actually an end, optional ads, and it’s easy enough to progress.
Crab War: Idle Swarm Evolution
Rating: Bad (not really an idle game)
Time/Dates: unknown amount of time between several months in 2020; 2hrs Mar. 2024
Publisher: Appxplore (iCandy)
Version: 3.68.0
Notes: Vertical gameplay. I played this game back in 2020. According to the achievements I played it a lot, like a lot. I don’t have exact times, but looking at the achievements and what I endured of the gameplay when I picked it up again, it had to have taken so much time. It’s exhausting. I played a bit of the early game before connecting it to Google Play and realizing it kept my hard earned game save. Early game is incredibly grindy. Late game throws so much bullshit at you and is still incredibly grindy. It took me a while to figure out what was so shit about this game. In this “idle” game you tap to spawn crabs then unlock auto crabs. When you exit the app and come back, you gather an amount of gold which can be spent on upgrades. But you don’t progress through the levels while offline. That means I can leave the game at like level 7000 and come back to still just level 7000. It’s exhausting. The game has to be open draining the battery and numbing the mind to make real progress. It’s not an idler. You can’t really idle it. And once you unlock the auto crabs it’s just staring at the screen. You don’t have to tap anymore and there’s no motivation to tap. Then there’s the mini events. I hate them. All of them. The skull beetle, the butterflies, the special event butterflies, the tap lightning bugs, the “multiplayer” one, the other multiplayer scoreboard one. Hate them all. So many all the time coming and going. It’s exhausting keeping up and you’ll have to keep up if you want to make any progress late game. Anyway, I uninstalled it and bitched about the grindy no offline progression-ness of the game. Now I won’t forget why this game sucks. I gave it a four star before. Can you believe it. I mean, true, there are no pop up ads only optional ads for rewards which is my general thresh hold for mobile game tolerance. But I can’t stand this game anymore.
Update 04/01/2024 - the devs “replied” to my review. Generic “oh we’re sorry you didn’t like it” but also added a bit about the jade beetle runes allowing “Endless Rush.” Like buddy the jade beetle’s runes are randomized and set in stone for like a period of two weeks before it re-randomizes. The player doesn’t get to pick which runes they want or have. I had the jade beetle I know how it works. Ugh.
Dark Chaser: Idle RPG
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: a few minutes July 2024
Publisher: Springcomes
Version: 28.0
Notes: Vertical gameplay. I didn’t encounter any pop up ads, but I only played if for like two days. Too much numbers. It’s the sort of game that throws high numbers at the player to make them feel like it’s fun but it’s not. Leveling up anything becomes a grind because it’s not balanced and the lvl ups only allow for a max of 100 levels at a time. So much tapping to spend coins on upgrades and it’s just early game. The resets feel unrewarding and plop you back at the beginning and you have to grind through again and again. Also there’s pvp section that makes it look like it costs 5gem (premium currency) to play and if you lose the other player takes 3gem from you but you don’t spend 5gem and instead you get 3gem even if you lose. It might be broken or there might be a translation miscommunication. I don’t know. It’s an empty unfulfilling game with no real gameplay.
Deep Town: Idle Mining Tycoon
Rating: Bad (pop up ads)
Time/Dates: unknown time sometime in the past; about 20 minutes Mar. 2024
Publisher: Game Veterans
Version: 6.2.02
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Oof. I played this game ages ago and uninstalled because I felt overwhelmed/uninterested anymore. Picked it up again because I didn’t leave a written review. After the tutorial is done there are frequent pop up ads. I hate pop up ads. Also this game offers optional ads for rewards. You get no rewards for watching the pop up ads. These ads appear very suddenly too while swiping and tapping to trick the player into accidentally touching the ad. Very shitty behaviour. I read through the reviews and this is apparently a new thing after the game changed owners. It wasn’t like this in the past. I hate pop up ads. Can’t leave a review about the actual game because I refuse to endure pop up ads even in free to play games.
Dots and Co.
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: about a half hour May 2024
Publisher: PlayDots
Version: 2.17.8
Notes: Vertical gameplay. No pop ups and I don’t know if there were optional ads for rewards, but there were certainly microtransactions for the power ups. And those power ups become very necessary after a while. It’s a chance based puzzle game. Yikes. Also some of the puzzles go off the edge of the screen. According to other reviewers, this is just how it is on phones with longer screen ratios. And it still hasn’t been fixed. I played this game sometime in the distant past and gave it a two star with no written review. Left a written review about the puzzles not fitting on the screen and the luck based shit.
Escape from the Shadows
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: about 2 hrs/Apr. 2024
Publisher: Dark Dome
Version: 1.0.39
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. Took me two hours to play through. I did have to look up not one but two walkthroughs for one issue. I couldn’t find one of four coins needed for a puzzle. I looked up a walkthrough and that walkthrough did not mention the coin I needed to find. I even used the search function for the word coin in case I missed it. Just straight up glossed over one of the coin locations. I looked up another guide and that one did thankfully have helpful pictures for each coin location so I could find it. The rest was pretty straight forward and I got it all on my own. Yay. As usual, there are pop up ads during cut scenes. However, this game is very cut scene heavy which means very pop up ad heavy too. Like so many small cutscenes that did not need to be there and were likely only created to put ads in because the players are used to it by now. Overall, though, still a good escape room game. Optional ads for hints, but they’re not always as helpful as they could be. I tried to use the ad-hint system for the coins and all it gave me was a wordless pic of giving four coins to the guy. Did not tell me anything about coin locations.
Escape Genius
Rating: Meh
TIme/Dates: 30 minutes/Apr. 2024
Publisher: APPFUSION
Version: 1.7
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Another old game I didn’t leave a written review for so I couldn’t remember the whys. The first 11 (10+tutorial) levels are free but the rest are paywalled. No pop up ads, so I was a bit merciful when reviewing it. The puzzles weren’t really puzzles though. It was more tap all over the fucking place and hopefully find the interactable spots. Huge and tiny hit boxes. Only took me 30 minutes to get through the free stuff. It’s all right, not terrible, but it’s not good either.
Eyes: Nonogram
Rating: Okay (pop ups and banner ad)
Time/Dates: a few minutes June 2024
Publisher: PINKHOONI
Version: 8.0
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Another old game I didn’t review correctly. It’s all right. Can’t stand pop up ads though. I can ignore the banner ad, but the pop ups in a chill puzzle game are shit. There’s an option to buy an ad-free version, but I have no idea what the price is because you have to go through the whole checkout process to see the price. Gross. Otherwise, it seemed fine. Other reviewers complained about their save data getting wiped unexpectedly and sometimes frequently.
Fake Novel: Lady Assassin
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: about 15 minutes Feb. 2024
Publisher: Sugoi Studio
Version: 1.6
Notes: Horizontal. Pop up ads and a banner ad on the bottom at all times. Not really that great, but it’s okay. It’s very meta, jokey self aware visual novel. It was originally published in 2016 and I played it a while ago but didn’t rate or review. I’ve been going through some of my old unreviewed games to make this compilation. It only took about 15 minutes to play through all paths in the main story, and there were secret side stories too but I didn’t try to find them all. For a free visual novel, it’s fine, but certainly not for everyone. Very dated.
Farawary: Puzzle Escape
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: a few minutes June 2024
Publisher: Snapbreak
Version: 1.0.6574
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Probably an all right game, but it has a lot of pop up ads like the long ones that take 2-3 click on the x to get out of them. They pop up in between levels and in the level select. To be fair, the full game only costs $5. The controls are a bit nauseating though. You swipe around in a first person view to see the puzzle parts.
Favo!
Rating: Meh (pop ups)
Time/Dates: a few minutes May 2024
Publisher: flow Inc.
Version: 3.11.1
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Kind of boring. And again with optional ads for rewards and pop ups with no rewards. I hate pop ups but pop ups in a game that rewards the player for voluntary ad watching is just awful.
The Frostrune
Rating: Bad (spyware)
Time/Dates: Apr. 2024
Publisher: Snow Cannon Games
Version: 1.3
Notes: Possibly horizontal play. So I played this a long time ago, gave it a two or three star review with nothing written, and I tried it again to see what’s up and leave a written review. Ugh, so gross. I installed and tried to play. It immediately asked for a bunch of really unnecessary permissions and access (like location, files on my phone, and contacts, etc) - things an escape room game does not need at all. I said no to the requests, of course, and the game wouldn’t load, of course. Wtf. On the google appstore page, there is a list of data safety stuff where it lists the permissions the game will ask for. It states the app will ask for your location and does not mention any of the other permission requirements. It also states that the devs will not give you a way to delete the data they take from you. Yikes. I uninstalled and left a review about the spyware/data farming shit they were pulling on the players without letting us know. I also reported the app to the appstore about those unlisted permission requirements. Such yikes. Hate it. So I didn’t get to play it because of shitty data farming tactics, couldn’t tell you about the actual gameplay.
Ghost Case
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: over an hour Feb/Mar 2024
Publisher: Dark Dome
Version: 1.0.15
Notes: Horizontal play. Another good escape room from Dark Dome. Pop up ads during the cut scenes but nothing interrupting actual gameplay. Has a bit of continuity with the other games. Story is fine, cliche but still fine. I had to look up a guide once and now I can’t remember what I needed to look up but I remember going “oh that’s obvious how did I overlook that.” I got the rest on my own. There is one audio piano puzzle that was kind of a pain. Overall, a good mobile game. I like finding good ones.
The Girl in the Window
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: about 40 min Apr 2024
Publisher: Dark Dome
Version: 1.1.33
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. A bit shorter than most of their games, but still good. I got a little stuck but got it figured out. As usual, pop up ads during cut scenes but not during gameplay. It’s respectful to the player not to interrupt puzzling.
Hamster Cake Factory
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: 1 day/a few minutes Jan. 2024
Publisher: mafgames (Idles Games, Tycoon Games)
Version: 1.0.60
Notes: Within a few minutes there was a pop up ad. I will not play a game that forces me to watch ads against my will.
Haunted Laia
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: 1 hour to complete Jan. 2024
Publisher: Dark Dome
Version:1.0.37
Notes: Nice little point and click escape room. The puzzles weren’t too hard and I was able to finish the whole game in an hour. I found all the hidden lizards too. There’s an ad-free version available for only $1, which is nice. I didn’t buy it. The ads were sparse enough that I didn’t mind. Pop up ads from time to time like some godam jumpscares. Story was all right too.
High school: Room Escape Game
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: a few minutes June 2024
Publisher: HunDong Game
Version: 3
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. Banner ad in an awkward place for the gameplay. Great spot to accidentally click on it which I’m sure was the intention. No tutorial and badly translated nonsensical story. Less a point and click and more a tap all over the screen and hope you find an interactable spot. Ugh. I didn’t encounter any pop ups but other reviewers mentioned pop up ads. There’s an option to buy an ad free version but there’s no way to know the price unless you go to checkout with your payment info which is real shitty. Like the ad-free is advertised on the main page at least put the price tag there too.
Humanity Must Perish
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: 30+ minutes May 2024
Publisher: Zetsubou Games
Version: 1.2.2
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. Eh. Another of the old apps I didn’t review properly. I remember the last time I played I didn’t get past the prologue. I’ve now played the whole thing, which took me about 30-ish minutes. I started skimming after the piss stuff. Which was the first interaction the android had with humanity. Half of the android’s judgment on humanity involved piss interactions. Why. There are two endings and nothing else. Perish ending is the better of the endings. What was that otaku shit. No ads, but I still don’t recommend it.
Idle Dino Zoo
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: 66 days/12 hours 2023-2024
Publisher: Tech Tree Games
Version: 1.0.1
Notes: Decent idler. Slow early game grind, then it sped up a bit, then it slowed down to a grind again. Game save does not transfer between phones. I started playing on one phone and got a new one and had to restart. Ads are optional and there are microtransactions.
Idle Guardians: Offline R
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: 1 hour/3 weeks July 2024
Publisher: Blade Fire Studios
Version: 1.47
Notes: Vertical gameplay. No pop ups. It’s fine. Just kind of boring. Open it for a minute or two, close the app, don’t open it again until I get bored enough, play for one or two minutes, so on and so forth. Not really rewarding or engaging. Just boring.
Idle Planet Miner
Rating: Okay-ish
Time/Dates: about 30 min./Mar. 2024
Publisher: Tech Tree Games
Version: 2.0.17
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Has some of the same bad grind issues that Idle Dino Zoo had. Also their game resource assets are the same as Deep Town (like the copper bars and copper wire are the same). I would open the app for a minute, do one or two things, then close it out. Not much to do unless you’re willing to stare at the screen or watch ads. Oh yeah, no pop up ads and ads are optional, but you can’t collect the daily login reward without watching an ad. I wasn’t expecting a new kind of shitty but I’ve found a new thing I hate. It’s also one of those apps that rewards the player for completing scammy other app tasks (there’s gotta be a word for this but I don’t know it). Like install apps and fill out surveys and you get in game currency and premium currency. It’s super shady and I hate it when apps offer stuff like this because often many of their players are kids who don’t know any better. So overall, it isn’t a terrible game but it is a bad game. Optional ads are the only real positive though which isn’t a lot but there are so many shit mobile games. It’s okay-ish in comparison to the garbage heap it lives in.
Idle Skilling
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: about 15 mins Apr 2024
Publisher: LavaFlame2
Version: 5.0.0
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. Not bad, but not for me. It’s an old game I had in my library but didn’t review properly. Tried it again. Very meta. It’s got this retro vibe, like feels like those old weird demo disks one would sometimes find in the mail for a game you could mail in to buy and shit. Like some games try to be retro and are just pixelated but this was actually retro feeling. Didn’t like the pulsing tutorial text bubbles either. I didn’t encounter any pop up ads, but again I only played it for about 15 minutes spread over a few hours.
Idle Space Manager
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: 5 hours/7 weeks; July 2024
Publisher: ColdFire Games GmbH
Version: 1.6.3
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Not a bad game, just not much to it either. The pixel graphics are nice. However, the gameplay is a bit too basic. There are four zones, thirty shipyards in each zone, and each ship can be maxed to level 1000. And that’s it. Also the microtransactions are a fucking joke. So each level up rewards the player with either premium currency or a boost. Apparently the boosts are worth far far more than the premium currency because it takes a lot of currency to buy boosts. It took me 50 levels to get enough free premium currency to get a 12 hour 10x boost. I thought I was getting 10 12-hour boosts but no, it was just one single 12 hour boost. Yikes. I looked at the shop and it would cost $10 real life dollars to buy that same upgrade. Yikes. So getting a free boost from the level ups was worth so much more than the premium currency and that’s um something certainly. The ads actually gave much better rewards than the microtransactions would provide. So, it’s not a bad game and it’s certainly a fun way to while away a few hours, but there’s not much to it and don’t look too closely at the microtransactions or currency exchange.
June’s Journey: Hidden Objects
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: 50 hrs/ Jan 31-Mar 13 2024
Publisher: Wooga
Version: 3.6.0
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. A shitty ported Facebook hidden object life waster game. Ugh. I felt like I wasted so much time on this but it was only a little over a month. Wow. That’s how exhausting and how little fun I was having with it. So it has an energy system where you spend energy to play the hidden object scenes. The energy replenishes over time. Pretty normal. But - levels are locked not by progression but by decoration points. You have to buy decorations for your island with coins or gems (both of which you can buy for a lot of money). Then you have to wait for the structures to build or pay to hurry them up. The microtransactions. Omg the microtransactions. So many and so expensive for the tiny amounts you get. So if you don’t have enough decoration points, you’ll be stuck farming the same level until you get enough coins to buy enough decorations. The levels have five stages of difficulty then you get a mastery ribbon. You get a loot box for reaching each stage. If progression were only tied to energy points, if you just have to master the levels to be able to progress, I wouldn’t be so hard on it. But the decoration shit slows it down so much. Oh and the mini events can suck my ass. Exhausting shit. That’s actually what made me quit in the end. There’s one even called sweep the board and a new one started and I just was so done with this game. Like you don’t have to play the events, but progression slows way down if you don’t. I was on chapter 19 at the time and looked up how much of it was left, hoping I was close to the end. No. There are hundreds of chapters left. Shit game. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the decoration point progression blocking.
LandMark – (nonogram)
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: a few minutes Aug 2024
Publisher: CoworkDream
Version: 1.6
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Weird vibes. It felt like the sort of game I’d expect to put a virus on my computer. Published back in 2016 and it feels like someone’s first game. There are two other games by this developer and neither are in English, so that explains the misspellings scattered around. It also has 20x20 puzzles. I get that people can play this on a tablet and it’s not exclusive to phone havers, but it’s still annoying that every nonogram game I’ve played has puzzles too big for phone screens. I didn’t encounter any ads, but other reviewers mention pop up ads.
Lanota – Music game with story
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: about 25 minutes July 2024
Publisher: Noxy Games Inc.
Version: 2.31.0
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. Oh boy. So there are no pop up ads. Good. But. Wow. I can’t believe they’ve done this. After the prologue levels, you have to wait a full 60 seconds before the start of every level or pay up. They do give you the option to watch an ad for 10 minutes of no wait times before levels which means you can play maybe three levels without waiting. And there’s no set price to buy the game. Because. Subscriptions. Yes this shit game has managed to be a new shitty that I haven’t encountered before. There are multiple level packs hidden behind micro transaction paywalls but there are also level packs hidden behind subscription fees. So you can’t just pay one price one time to play the game without the shitty wait or watch ads. No you have to pay over and over and over again on top of multiple one time priced packs to play the full game. Yikes. So you can only play (and by play I mean wait to play) the levels in the main chapters and the rest, which as far as I could see was a far bigger portion of the levels, is paywalled in some fashion. There’s also the moral message of “restoring the old world order” which uck.
Merge Cartoon: Renovate Town
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: 83 hours/3 months 2023-2024
Publisher: 1GRAM
Version: 1.3.5
Notes: It took me 82 hours from November 7, 2023-January 25, 2024 to complete all current content excluding apple event decorations. Because the apple event fucking sucks. There are three item types to turn in for points during the apple event and they are not weighted correctly at all. There’s juice merges, apple merges, then apple chance product merges. Apple merges, though they take the least work/energy spending, are worth the most points comparatively. The juice items are worth very little in comparison. Like a tier 4 apple merge was worth like 34 or so points but a tier 7 juice merge was worth like 19 points. Then there are the apple product items. Shittiest thing ever. The apples can be tapped for three types of items - apple slices which are merged to juice producers, peeled apples which are merged into a point product, and seeds which are merged into trees. The apples can be clicked on three times, giving three apple products and one seed (or clicked on twice and then merged, giving two apple products and no seed but you still get an apple merge item). The peeled apples and apple slices are randomly given but the peeled apples are given far far less frequently than slices. The peeled apples have to be merged twice before they become point items and only tier 3+ are requested for points. This wouldn’t be such an issue if you could refuse requests. But I kept getting blocked at peeled apple requests because they take so much effort and energy to get. Hundreds of energy points could go into one tier 3 peeled apple item. Compared to apple merges, where one merge would cost two energy points and give you 7 event points in return. It sucked. The worst part. The rest of the game though was great. I enjoyed it. The strategy and the feeling of accomplishment. Oh, one more complaint about the main game. I would often get bottle necked on one progression point when I should have been able to continue progressing. There was no reason to bottle neck the player on certain high tier quests when there were still things that could be done separate from that quest.
Merge Dungeon
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: a few mintes May 2024
Publisher: NANOO COMPANY Inc.
Version: 2.8.0
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Would be tolerable if not for the pop up ads. I hate it when devs offer reward ads and punishment ads like don’t do that. I do remember it getting super grindy in later game too. Can’t say how much time I spent in game in the past but it was more than it was worth.
Merge Meadow: Animal Collector
Rating: Bad (pop up ads)
Time/Dates: a few minutes Mar. 2024
Publisher: Extra Dimension Games Inc.
Version: 6.21.0
Notes: Vertical gameplay. I played this game some time ago and left a four star review with no written review. I downloaded it again to see how it was and why I uninstalled it before, because I didn’t remember it well. Frequent - very frequent - pop up ads. There are also optional ads for rewards and achievement/milestone rewards for watching ads, but the pop up ads do not count. I hate pop up ads. You can remove ads for only $1, so I may be a little bit too harsh on it because I hate ads so much. But I hate pop up ads so fucking much.
Miraculous Ladybug & Cat Noir
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: a few minutes Aug. 2024
Publisher: CrazyLabs LTD
Version: 5.9.36
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Wow. I gave this a 5 star way back when with the original no notes review. I do not remember it being this shit. I kind of remember the ads, but I remembered the fun more. The ads. Wow. So many pop up ads. So this is an endless runner a la subway surfers. The character speeds up the longer you run making it easier to mess up. With the speed comes lag which makes it even easier to mess up. When you game over you get the option to watch an ad to continue going. If you say no you still have to watch an ad. Wow. I played for maybe four minutes and I was forced to watch so many ads. And they’re the long unskippable sort that take several click on the x to close them out. And the worse part – you can’t buy an ad-free version. No. You can however pay a weekly subscription fee of $8 whole fucking dollars to remove ads. Eight dollars every fucking week. Wow. The fucking greed dripping off this game. AND – that’s not all. According to other reviewers, paying up doesn’t actually remove the ads. No. The ads still play. Paying up adds a skip button you have to manually tap to skip the ad. The. ad. still. plays. Wow. Hate it.
NonoBot – Nonogram
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: a few minutes July 2024
Publisher: GAMEFOX
Version: 1.5
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Story required 15x15 and 20x20 puzzle boards. Can’t easily play those on a phone. Also this is one of those nonogram games that punishes you for mistakes and if you make enough mistakes you’ll have to start over. The 15-20 size boards make that easy. I didn’t encounter any ads but there was a big no ad button on every level for buying out ads so I assume that would quickly become an issue.
Nonogram galaxy
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: a few minutes July 2024
Publisher: dayoffgames
Version: 1.1.86
Notes: Vertical gameplay. It quickly becomes only 15x15 and 20x20 puzzles. Phone screens aren’t made for those puzzle board sizes. It’s just miserable. I encountered one pop up between levels, but other reviewers made it sound like ads will become more frequent the longer you play.
Nora - Touch Your Feeling
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: a few minutes Apr 2024
Publisher: Soulo Studio
Version: 2.2
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. Has a three finger tap that sucks. Like mobile rhythm games cap at two taps for two thumbs. I guess you could hold the phone in one had and use three fingers on the other hand, but it’s still awkward. The game kept trying to connect to my google play account after every level even though I kept saying no. The app page has no info on their safety data information. Really shifty shit there. It wants to connect to my accounts but won’t tell me what they’re taking from me.
Nowhere House
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: 1.5 hours Feb. 2024
Publisher: Dark Dome
Notes: Horizontal play. Overall, good. I got a bit stuck a few times and looked up a guide. Pop up ads during cut scenes and not during gameplay.
Pipe Lines: Hexa
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: about an hour over a few days Apr. 2024
Publisher: BitMango
Version: 24.0419.01
Notes: Vertical gameplay. For what it is, it’s all right. Pop up ads every few levels and a constant banner ad. The pop ups were the sort that take 2-4 interactions to actually close them out. Hate those. At least the ads were all for games and not weird scummy apps. Hate pop ups though. The pipe assets kept doing a weird wiggling while placing new pipes like it was glitching a bit. Actual gameplay was fine, I played a few hundred levels but I couldn’t stand the pop ups. The banner ad I could have tolerated though.
Pocket Frogs: Tiny Pond Keeper
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: a few minutes June 2024
Publisher: NimbleBit LLC
Version: 3.8.2
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Another game I played ages ago and didn’t review properly. Eventual pop up ads paired with optional ads for rewards. Gross. Also there’s no tutorial. You just have to interact with stuff and hope there will be an info pop up. Usuall there weren’t. Like the pond hopping minigame. No instructions whatsoever I figured it out by spam tapping. I can’t tolerate pop ups but especially not when there is an option to voluntarily watch ads for rewards.
Pocket Plants: Grow Plant Game
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: 7 hours Mar-Apr 2024
Publisher: Shikudo - Walking and Focus Games
Version: 2.11.8
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Two premium currencies. Gacha. No pop up ads and optional ads for rewards. Ugh. So this game almost requires you to download a third party step counter app to progress. You have to use amethysts (one of the premium currencies) to unlock new plants. At the beginning of the game you get amethysts frequently but that gets throttled pretty quickly. And the cost of plants goes up. I got to world 4 of 10 and it was miserable. Like I went through the first three worlds pretty quickly but I’ve been stuck on world 4 for weeks. The second premium currency (rubies) is practically worthless. You can use it for the gacha or for speeding stuff up. But, you can get so many amethysts if you just download the publisher’s other step counter app which is also its own game. Yikes. There’s an achievement for connecting to the step counter app. Another achievement for logging in on a third party app (like Facebook). Why this app doesn’t have a step counter in it is a godam mystery. Early game is barely enjoyable and it gets less fun from there. According to other reviewers, the step counter app can’t even be reliable.
Project: Muse
Rating: Meh (pop up ads)
Time/Dates: like 15 minutes Apr 2024
Publisher: Rinzz Co. Ltd.
Version: 8.2.4
Notes: Vertical gameplay. I played a few levels on easy and it was all right. But there are optional ads for rewards and pop up ads for no rewards. Hate that. Like pick one or the other. Couldn’t say much about the actual gameplay, seemed a basic rhythm game. But loud ass pop up ads in a music game is a really shitty thing to do to the players. Like they know we’ve got the sound on because of the music in the game they know they can trap us into listening to nonconsensual ads in our ears and eyes.
Save the slime forest!
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: 6hrs over a few weeks Mar/Apr 2024
Publisher: Citrina
Version: 1.19
Notes: Vertical play. Active idler. The game has to be open to progress, no offline perks. I didn’t realize I could click on the slimes to access upgrades so progress was really grindy at first. After I realized I could upgrade stats for the slimes progress went much more smoothly. Optional ads for rewards and no pop up ads. Love that.
The Secret of the Necronomicon
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: 1.5 hours/Mar. 2024
Publisher: Minijuegos.com
Version: 1.0.37.5
Notes: Horizontal play. Good point and click escape room type game. There are three “play modes” so to speak. They don’t change much, just little things. You can play as one of three kids and each one has a different skill - like the nerd one can hack the vending machine and the other two have to use a coin to get into the machine. Took me so long to find the lighter it was hard. But not as hard as the glass for the corrosive liquid. That was almost hidden too well. It took me about an hour and a half to play through all three modes and get all achievements, but I got super stuck on the code a few times. The code is randomized with each playthrough. One number is just a roman numeral on a wall, the second was the blinking of the light above the lighthouse door, the third was a morse code number on a rock, and I have no idea where the last number was. I had to brute force the last digit and look up morse code because I don’t know it off the top of my head. It ends on a to be continued note and I hope there is more someday. Overall, it was good and I enjoyed it.
Sky Wings: Pixel Fighter 3D
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: a few minutes May 2024
Publisher: SHMUP Games
Version: 3.2.16
Notes: Vertical gameplay. I didn’t encounter any pop ups, but some of the reviewers made it sound like pop ups would appear at some point. Optional ads for rewards and the game won’t let you forget that. So many options to watch ads for everything. Also at the end of every level there’s a button to continue or watch an ad for better rewards. The watch an ad button appears a full second before the continue button. I almost touched it a few times. Oh, and the start was so shitty. It dumped the player right into the first level. With vibrations. No option to turn it off until after that level and a few more hand holding tutorial moments. Ugh. Oogh. Hated it. So much. It felt awful. Then there’s the gacha loot box shit. The only way to get upgraded planes is from the gacha gumball machine. There was also a upgrades menu that gives you a random upgrade when you buy one. No choices only randomized loot box shit. And the absolute worse thing - it wasn’t always like this. I remember playing this ages ago. I remember playing it and it wasn’t like this. There were no loot box mechanics. You got to pick everything for yourself as long as you had enough points. It was fun. I also remember when they updated the game to incluede a bunch of new features, you know, the gacha gumball machine. I gave it a two star review and uninstalled but I didn’t write why it sucked so here I am downloading it again and feeling sad about the loss of a good bullet hell game.
Sonic Dash - Endless Running
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: a few minutes May 2024
Publisher: SEGA
Version: 7.9.2
Notes: Vertical gameplay. A decent endless runer ruined by pop ups and mandatory ads. Optional ads for rewards plus pop up ads after every run plus required ads for character upgrades. Yuck. I played a lot of this game sometime in the past and I enjoyed it but I hate the pop ups. Game save doesn’t transfer between phones either so all my old progress was lost.
Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom Run
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: a few minutes May 2024
Publisher: SEGA
Version: 3.12.0
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Same issues as with Sonic Dash the first. Optional ads for rewards, pop up ads with no rewards, save file lost to the abyss. I spent a LOT of time on this game in the past.
Sonic Jump Fever
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: a few minutes Apr. 2024
Publisher: SEGA
Version: 1.6.1
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Didn’t encounter any pop ups but I didn’t play for very long. Played a few levels, didn’t like it much. This game has a weird mechanic where you have to tilt your physical phone to make your character move side to side while also tapping on the screen to make your character jump. It was just too janky to enjoy. I basically just tapped and rarely moved the phone because it wasn’t worth twitching my phone around to move the character.
Space Merge: Cosmic Idle Game
Rating: Bad (pop ups)
Time/Dates: a few minutes Mar. 2024
Publisher: Huseyin Bulut
Version: 1.4.3
Notes: Vertical play. Optional ads for rewards, pop up ads for no rewards. Like pick one or the other, not both. You can’t use ads as punishment and reward. Otherwise, it seemed an all right game. But I have no patience for frequent pop up ads.
Sudoku Quest
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: about a half hour June 2024
Publisher: HashCube
Version: 3.1.71
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Optional ads for “rewards” and banner ads in the levels. When you press play from the menu a microtransaction window pops up. You have to dismiss it to get the real press play button. This happens with every single level. A level ends and you press a continue button that takes you back to the main menu. There a play button comes up for the next level. Press the play button and the microtransaction window comes up. Dismiss the microtransaction window and press the next play button. Play the level. Press continue. Repeat. Gross. Timed levels too. Timed sudoku is always a terrible design. Never ending levels possibly. I scrolled up to level 2000 before I gave up. Other reviewers complained that the later levels get deliberately unfairly timed to force the player to watch ads to continue the level. Overall, just a bad game. The optional ads can’t save this game.
Summoners Greed: Tower Defense
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: about an hour June 2024
Publisher: PIXIO
Version: 1.76.7
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Kind of a terrible tower defense game. You can’t rearrange your monsters until a game over. The only way to speed up the game is to spend $4 to double the speed. That’s it. Not even an option to spend even more money to get it to go faster. The game is far too slow. I don’t think I saw any options to watch ads to speed it up either. Weird. No pop up ads, optional ads for rewards like coins and the premium currency. Neither of which can be used to speed up the game. Like one expects a certain amount of monotony and waiting around in a tower defense game, but this was painful. Also, if you lose you have to restart from the beginning unless you watch an ad. Gross. There’s farming and grinding then there’s this game. It seems like it’s punishing the player for playing. Oh yeah, there’s also “The Monitor” which shows up every so often to offer an ad for rewards. Everytime it shows up it pauses the gameplay for 10-15 seconds until you can say no and get back to the game. A banner shows up on the screen announcing the arrival of the ad offer, the creature slowly saunters onto the screen, then there’s a laggy pop up offering the ad watch and showing what you get for it. Every time. It’s obnoxious and time wasting in an already too slow game. It’s awful. So this is a bad game and a bad tower defense game all in one.
Swarm Simulator: Evolution
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: 1 ½ hours/6 weeks; July 2024
Publisher: Iron Horse Games LLC
Version: 1.7.18
Note: Vertical gameplay. I played this ages ago and got bored of it. Didn’t leave a proper review so I replayed it to see what’s up. And yeah. Didn’t connect to google play so I could play from the beginning. It’s fine until the first ascension. Ascending is both too easy and not worth it. I did enjoy it at the start. I got to the challenges and I wasn’t interested. The challenge rewards are worth it, but it takes so much active gameplay to complete them in time. If they weren’t timed I’d probably still be playing. I didn’t look too closely at the microtransactions but there’s a lot of it.
TAP! DIG! MY MUSEUM!
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: a few minute May 2024
Publisher: oridio
Version: 1.9.9
Notes: Vertical gameplay. If not for the pop ups I would have enjoyed it. Again with the optional reward ads and mandatory pop up punishments. There was no option to buy out ads either. Gross. Stop using ads as both a punishment and a reward.
Terrarium: Idle Garden
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: a few minutes June 2024
Publisher: Green Panda Games
Version: 1.30.4
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Optional ads for rewards but if you say no thank you you’ll still have to watch an ad but you won’t get rewarded. So gross. I hate pop up ads. And this will happen every time you level up. Unavoidable pop ups to progress. Gross.
Tiny Room Stories Town Mystery
Rating: Okay
Time/Dates: 8 hours/4 weeks July 2024
Publisher: Kiary Games ltd
Version: 2.6.24
Notes: Horizontal gameplay. Pop up ads between levels and optional ads for hints. You can buy out the ads but I didn’t take note of how much it would cost. I remember thinking it was reasonable. I got 8 hours of gameplay and it probably would’ve been longer if I didn’t cave and watch a ton of hint ads. Some of the puzzles were fucking oblique. Most of the hints would tell you how to get the answer and would have the actual code under a spoiler tag so you could try to figure it out or just look at the code and spoil yourself. But sometimes it wouldn’t be like that. Like one time the hint said “using the three coins you found figure out the code here it is” and it didn’t tell you where those fucking coins were. Like yeah it gave me the answer but how was I supposed to get there on my own. Were there other coins? I looked all over. Some of the hints left me thinking “oh duh of course” and others were fucking nonsense. Sure it would give me the answer but why was that the answer why would that be an answer. Also it got super heavy on easter eggs later in the game. Fucking cybertruck in one of the levels and funkos in a military dude’s office. Wtf. Oh and pop ups after cutscenes. Like there will be a pop up ad once the level ends and if a cut scene plays before the start of the next level there will be another pop up after the cut scene. These pop ups are only 5 seconds long but some have the double tap out nonsense. Overall though, it was okay. It could have been worse.
Transformers Bumblebee
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: about an hour June 2024
Publisher: Budge Studios
Version: 2023.1.0
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Pop up ads. Like one would expect a pop up ad after a run, but the ads will pop up while moving between upgrade menus and a few times the ads would even start as soon as I opened the app. Unhinged pop up behaviour there. Also it’s very marketed to little kids like the ads are all for little kid shows or other apps by the publisher. And there’s no way to buy an ad-free version, so you know the publisher intends little kids to sit through these ads. It’s disgusting. According to other reviewers, microtransaction purchases do not carry from phone to phone. Just awful treatment of players. Especially since some of the microtransaction bundles are like $50.
Tsuki Adventure
Rating: Bad
Time/Dates: a few minutes Mar. 2024
Publisher: HyperBeard
Version: 1.22.10
Notes: Vertical gameplay. There’s something wrong with this game. I tried loading it up for the first time and got stuck on the loading screen. Like not even the loading stuff showed up it was just a slowly scrolling background for the loading screen. I had to force close and reopen. No tutorials that I could find. There was also a daily login reward box that wouldn’t go away and blocked everything in a portion of the screen. Couldn’t start the fishing minigame because of that and I couldn’t find anything else to do. The game also asked for an uncomfortable amount of permissions that a game like this shouldn’t need. The game also got stuck in the transition screen a lot and I had to force close and reopen (like click on settings then click back to the game and the screen went to black and wouldn’t load up the game again). Buggy, no gameplay that I could find, no tutorials. Also it’s very much a Stardew Valley knock off or trying to be. Why don’t the appstore trailers show any actual footage of the gameplay. When I couldn’t figure out how to play (also being blocked from interaction buttons by the daily login) I watched the trailer vid on the app’s page. It was just a shitty Stardew Valley knock off intro animation with no actual gameplay. Ugh.
Turret Fusion Idle Clicker
Rating: Meh
Time/Dates: 3 ½ hours over 7 weeks; July 2024
Publisher: Shark Jump
Version: 1.7.8
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Compared to Castle Fusion, by the same publisher, it sucks. It’s incredibly grindy. The auto merge is sort of broken and doesn’t work at all in the third screen/space level. No pop up ads and optional ads for rewards. You won’t get far fast without watching ads. I didn’t watch ads and it took me logging in for one or two minutes maybe once a day to get the daily reward and never opening it again. Super grindy and nothing to do really. It was all right for an idle merger (it’s not a clicker game why is it marketed as a clicker game) but when you have a much better game by the same publisher it’s kind of glaringly worse for it.
Unwanted Experiment
Rating: Good
Time/Dates: one hour Feb. 2024
Publisher: Dark Dome
Version: 1.0.85
Notes: Horizontal play. Pop up ads during cut scenes, but I didn’t notice any during actual gameplay which was nice. The ads didn’t disrupt the puzzling and movement. Ad-free game can be purchased for $2. Time to finish depends on how good you are at puzzles. I am sometimes kind of dumb with them. I really struggled a few times, but when I figured it out it seemed obvious. Didn’t feel as fluid as Haunted Laia though, but it was still good.
Wish Stone – Nonogram
Rating: Okay (pop up ads and banner ads)
Time/Dates: a few minutes May 2024
Publisher: PINKHOONI
Version: 5.3
Notes: Vertical gameplay. Really annoying constant banner ad and pop ups every few levels. Once the game passes 15x15 levels though it becomes unplayable on a phone screen. There is an option to buy an ad-free version for like $3 but some of the other reviewers made it sound like it doesn’t always work.
Wolf And Moon: Sudoku
Rating: Meh (pop ups)
Time/Dates: a few minutes July 2024
Publisher: PINKHOONI
Version: 5.0
Notes: Vertical gameplay. All right for what it is. Constant banner ad and pop up ads between some levels. Ad-free version only costs $2 so I can’t be too hard on it.