=== Mobile Game Review -- Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon - Idle Progression - 8/10 ===

What Are We Reviewing?

Today I have another Idle Progression-type game for you called Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon. Now it's hard to get around the mass of Idle Progression games that exist on mobile devices, sure they're mostly all free so you could try them on your own... or you can take a a look at my experience to see whether or not your interest is great enough to skip the time cost altogether.

Gameplay:
As with all idle games there is an active and an idle portion of the game. The active part involves swiping across the screen to catch fish. Catching fish means you make money which can be used to buy upgrades which make fish worth more which means more money and so on and so forth.

Every so often you'll receive chests which may have money or.... emeralds in them (which is the second type of currency in the game), or there are of course quests which give rewards for performing tasks such as the above which is to acquire 40 upgrades which then gives 3 emeralds.

What are emeralds used for you ask? Emeralds are used for hiring employees which increase productivity both online and offline. How great is that? These employees can even be upgraded to be better by spending emeralds on them.

There is a fun little spinner in this game which gives you a free spin to get bonuses including increased income for a period of time which can be spun additionally by watching advertisements for even more bonuses.

What is the point of all of this? Well to earn experience of course which can be claimed by taking the action of going back to the start of the game from step one only earning 1% more income per point of experience and 100% more income per star... which is again gained by completing quests and things.

So at this point we've hit all the usual points of an idle game where you have regular income, alternate income, and a prestige-type thing which resets your progress so that you can get further into the game faster. Pretty straightforward.

There's a fun little difference in this game compared to others where there are boxes which float down every once in a while that have items within them. These items have different abilities including increasing fish value and even the ability to catch birds!


Graphics:
The artwork is nice on the eyes, very thematic showing wood, wind, water, and fish. It all makes sense when it comes to fish and fishing with nothing sorely out of place. My only "complaint" would be that there isn't much incentive to watch the screen because most of the time you're carelessly swiping back and forth or putting the phone down because it's another advertisement.

I will however take a quick moment to note that I LOVE that this game gives REAL incentive to watching advertisements. Normally an advertisement would be something you start and put the phone down for a minute just to get an x2 multiplier on your earnings which is... sort of a whatever kind of thing to do when it comes to money, but in Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon you get 10 Crowns every time you watch an ad which eventually levels up to get more upgrades. Finally a game that REALLY rewards you for watching advertisements!

Sound:
I've always enjoyed the sound of the ocean and birds (in this case seagulls), which is one of the reasons I really want to go back to Hawaii one day. On the other hand, the music got really old really fast. REALLY fast.


Replayability:
This is always the biggest point of a game is how long can you continue playing a game for? I did find Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon very fun, but as with all idle games, it tends to fall off after a while once you get over the honeymoon phase. Idle games will unfortunately never been in the hall of fame on my list of games because the gameplay never changes; it's a very short look of getting the game upgrades and performing the same actions, restarting for a higher multiplier, then doing it all again.


SUMMARY:
There are a few points which set this game apart from other idle-games I've played before:

1) If you enjoy fish, you'll enjoy this game.

2) It's not all about passive income, there's a lot of progress to be made when actively playing and the mechanic to doing so is all about swiping (which is much easier on the hands than tapping).

3) Advertisements that play into the future of the game.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, idle-games are not my favourite; they get old very fast. HOWEVER, in terms of what an idle-game is looking to do... Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon is a really good one with differences that make it interesting.

I have to knock off a couple points when an idle game stops progressing so quickly or runs out of things to do, so I will be giving Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon 8/10. It really is one of the better idle-games out there, but I still have a problem with a game that relies on watching advertisements to progress further into the game.

~ DaemonVirus

=== PC Game Review -- Rogue's Tale - Turn-Based Dungeon Crawler - 2/10 ===

What Are We Reviewing?
Now I do like RPG and rogue-like games, and I also like when games are difficult and don't hold your hand, so today we're going to review Rogue's Tale. This is another game that I really tried to like because I do enjoy these types of games, though you'll soon see just how frustrating a game like this could really be.

Released March 28, 2014 and currently available in on Steam for $5.69 CAD, Rogue's Tale is a turn-based dungeon crawler which is meant to give you the experience of playing one of those good old RPG games which used to use the ASCII graphics and more often than not killed you before you got anywhere interesting; that's the same experience when playing this game.

As seen above you get to create your character each time you play and can even start with bonuses IF YOU'VE UNLOCKED THEM though grueling play after dying and dying and dying again.

Of course there is an easy mode where things hurt less and you can sell items without identifying them first, but you aren't able to unlock some things... and why would I want to play easy mode anyways?

Gameplay:
So the idea behind the game is that you're thrown into a randomized dungeon to explore for items and experience until you reach the bottom at which point you can leave and "reset" the dungeon which creates a new one to explore. There are various creatures throughout the dungeon, some of which are happy to live their own lives and some of which will attack on sight. There are also other adventurers and traps which you'll come across and more often than not you'll see one of the following screens:

There really isn't much to say about the gameplay of Rogue's Tale because you just can't get very far into it unless you get lucky and find all the right things for a successful run to get further than the first dungeon. In the time I've put into Rogue's Tale so far, I've only had one run which has been able to make it past the first dungeon... at which point I almost immediately died in the next dungeon.

I actually can't believe it, but I have less to say about Rogue's Tale than I had to say about Mall Empire. Even though it was a buggy game, there was at least some gameplay to get through.

Graphics:
I find the artwork and aesthetics of Rogue's Tale to be very nice. I do like the design and detail that has been put into the things that are seen, though I do find the information presented to be somewhat clunky. There's a lot of stats on the screen and not much to tell you what exactly does what... or why?

Replayability:
As much as I love being destroyed again and again in a game, I at least like to see some progress. Let me give you an idea of just how much progress I achieved throughout playing this game: 0 / 148 achievements. The top achievement is for reaching level 7; only 37.4% of players have ever reached level 7.

So while I would absolutely say the replayability of this game is HUGE, seeing at you enter a different dungeon every time you play and everything is different every time... I think it's the type of replayability that's actually... bad. Of course you want your game to be replayable to keep players wanting to come back and play it more, but we again come to the problem where if there's not progress into the game, then playing it again and again isn't fun anymore, it's just tiresome.

SUMMARY:
While Rogue's Tale isn't an expensive game, I still expect it to be a game worth playing in exchange for my money. I can't talk enough about how the gameplay is lacking for me. I'm sure there are others out there who love this sort of thing (hence why there are quite a few games of this type), but there are certainly better options than Rogue's Tale.

While I didn't enjoy the gameplay of Rogue's Tale, it is a working game that doesn't seem to be filled with bugs making an unplayable game. I'm giving Rogue's Tale 2/10 because I just can't stand bashing my brains against the same thing over and over hoping something different will happen; but it works and there IS a deeper game to be found in here... somewhere.

~ DaemonVirus

=== Mobile Game Review -- Connection - Puzzle - 10/10 ===

Welcome to Connection, a minimalist-style puzzle game all about connecting the dots.

With each level the player is presented with a series of spaces which must all be connected from a starting position through all the other spaces on the level. Each level presents varying numbers of colours and each space can be connected with any available colour as long as the chain remains unbroken and all spaces are covered.

Some spaces will have a dot within a circle which means it must be connected twice. This can be completed either by running the same colour through the space twice, or running two different colours through the space; this is the only way to have two different coloured lined cross each other.

Another mechanic in Connection are what I would call portals. These spaces come in pairs which allow the player to connect a line into one side of the portal and continue out from the other side; this would be the only way to have an unconnected line of the same colour in two different places.

The last mechanic of Connection (that I have come across so far) are empty coloured spaces. These spaces MUST be filled with only that specific colour and no other colour. With all of these available mechanics, there are many different forms of available levels... I have yet to break the surface of the game as the advertisements seem to indicate that there are more than 200 available levels to play.

Many level have more than one way to complete them...

And not all levels have the same type of layout, which may end up throwing your for a loop every once in a while.

Summary

Gameplay: I'm not usually the biggest puzzle-type person because they aren't as action-packed or strategic as I prefer, but this one is very fun and even though the same few mechanics are being used throughout each level, it's still a fun activity when killing time to exercise your brain.

Possibly my favourite part about this over other games, is that there's no energy-limit to stop the player from continuing to play more. There's nothing saying it costs 1 energy to play a level and you can only save up 1 energy per hour up to a maximum of 10. NOTHING LIKE THAT AT ALL. Which means as long as you're up to the task of arranging colourful lines, you can continue as long as you like.

Sound: There are some nice and satisfying clicks and some very chill music to listen to while completing each level. Though it's nothing special to talk about, it's very enjoyable and definitely doesn't take away from the game at all.

Replayability: As already mentioned, I keep wanting to play more and more levels even though they're the same mechanics over and over and over. I definitely wouldn't want to replay the same levels that I've already passed over again, but as long as I'm continuing to progress into newer levels, I would happily keep going forward through this game.

Sidenote: I wouldn't call this game difficult, though there are certainly times where you must give a little thought about how to arrange things... Reading the advertisement on the Connection page claims that if you can pass 200 levels in less than 30 minutes, you're a genius. I just did the math and figure that would be about 9 seconds per level. I'm sure if you practiced a lot at the mechanics and patterns that you'd be able to pass level quite quickly, but 200 levels at 9 seconds each seems like a pretty far stretch to actually be able to do without any prior knowledge of the game.

SCORE: I really enjoy Connection not as a measure of how smart I am, but rather as a simple and relaxing puzzle game. My score for Connection will be 10/10 because as far as puzzle games go, this one is the first which has really caught my eye and had me continue to play further and further even without any new mechanics being involved.

=== Mobile Game Review - Pocket Trains - Business Simulation - 6.5/10 ===

I've always had a strange like for trains; I don't mean something weird where I have pictures of trains up on my walls everywhere and I can't think about anything else other than trains... but I would gladly live in the time when trains were the big new thing. So here's Pocket Trains, a game where you start as a train company in Europe trying to get big enough to expand all over the world.

You start with three basic trains in the middle of Europe. The gameplay is simple enough: pick a train, load it up with materials or products at one station which gives you destinations for the items, and send the train on its way to the other cities on its route. Only one train can own each section of track between each city, so you have to plan your routes to allow other trains to connect up and transfer train carts if necessary. If we're just talking about money, it's not so big of a deal, but things get a little more complicated when there's secondary resources in question.

Everybody loves having money to work with, but that only goes so far when you need Bux to open crates and get better trains. Bux can be earned in a couple different ways: Sometimes there are ads available which can be watched for a couple Bux, but that tends to be a little hit or miss. If you select a train in motion, you'll get a nice view of it going along the track and sometimes coins and Bux and even crates fly past; if you click on the flying item you'll get it. The most reliable method to getting Bux and crates would be to transport them to a destination via train which can mean you're sending it through multiple different trains just to get the cart a few cities over.

There's an energy mechanic to this game where each train has its own supply of fuel which regenerates while sitting idle at a train station which usually means the train has arrived at its destination and you're probably not currently playing because you have a live to live. This is great for getting people to stop playing... I would know... if not for this mechanic, I'd absolutely keep playing all the time. The tough part about this is that some trains have a larger supply of fuel than others and some sections of track are quite long. So long that you may only be able to send a basic train across this track once. As you progress further into the game, you acquire more train pieces from the crates which are opened by spending Bux. The train pieces are completely rancon (though you may have a better chance of getting better train parts as you level up). Better trains travel faster, have more fuel, and are able to carry more carts at one time.

So the gameplay of Pocket Trains is fun and easy, but it does get repetitive after a while and once you start reaching points where you have to spend a lot of money to continue, the game really starts to slow down quite a bit. I haven't yet decided for sure whether I like this slowdown or not because I haven't managed to expand into all the different continents yet... but at this point, it's not my favourite part of the game.

Sound design isn't the largest factor in mobile games; here we're pretty much asking whether or not there's sound, if that sound fits the game, and whether we like listening to it. Yes, there are train sounds, and yes, there are sounds when you press buttons and do things that sound nice and pleasing. What I don't like is the music; it gets really repetitive and can be a bit overpowering. It also sounds a little bit western to me, which FITS... but isn't great to listen to on repeat in my opinion.

I'm going to start breaking down my scores a little more from this review onwards to give more clairity to my thoughts and to better explain why I'm giving the scores that I'm giving. Now on to the scores!

Gameplay = 7/10
+ Easy to learn
+ Great for putting a little bit of time into every hour
- Progression can be really slow if you don't have time to check on your game every hour

Sound = 5/10
Music is a highly important component of a great game. Without good music, a great game can fall flat.
+ Train and station sounds are nice to listen to
- Music is repetitive and can be overpowering if not turned off

Replayability = 7/10This isn't the kind of game you'd be finishing and then starting over again, so this is really a score of whether or not you'd pick the game back up after playing it for a day.
+ Addictive if you have time to put into the game
+ Easy to lose track of time with more to do as you get more trains
- Progression is too slow if you don't have time to put into the game

Overall Score = 6.5/10Pocket Trains is a solid game which I would happily play given enough time to progress through it. The unfortunate thing is that the same track of music over and over and over gets really annoying really quickly. As slow as the game can be at some points, it is rewarding once you finally break past that money barrier and move into new lands. I would recommend this game and say that if you don't mind the lack of music, it'll feel much better than the score makes it look.

~ Kyle Welykholowa


Back to Game Reviews

Age of Wonders -- Keepers Scenario 4.3 - Part 2

Have we finally completed this scenario? Are we able to leave this behind and never see it again? It's been so long, but I think we can kiss this scenario goodbye once and for all. Go ahead, watch the action and then we can continue with this story and move on to the next. Where will we go from here?

- More videos can be found on the Age of Wonders page.
- All videos and more can be found on my YouTube channel.

~ Kyle Welykholowa / DaemonVirus

Age of Wonders -- Keepers Scenario 4.3 - Part 1

Alright, so this is the first time I'm doing this and I expect this to be a continuing thing in the future. New special posts for each video upload!

If you've been following with the rest of my uploads for Age of Wonders so far, you'll notice that this is THE THIRD time I've restarted this scenario. Obviously things haven't been going so well with this one if we've been stuck on it for so long. As it turns out... dragons are difficult to keep up with and kill when they're being produced in large numbers.

Hopefully this time is the last time we have to restart this level. I'll be skipping some of the gameplay so that you don't have to watch the same early and boring things going on AGAIN. Enjoy!

- You can find a directory of this video and more on the Age of Wonders page.

- Check out more of my videos directly on YouTube.

~ Kyle Welykholowa / DaemonVirus

=== Crazy Taxi Tycoon - Mobile Game Review, Idle Action - 5/10 ===

     Welcome to Crazy Taxi Tycoon. If you're interested in finding a good idle game where you actually have to do a little bit of something to progress through the game... this one isn't an awful option. While not the most amazing game I've played, it's also not a terrible game.

     The gameplay of Crazy Taxi involves looking at a space which cannot be moved and clicking on icons as they come up. Every time you click an icon, one of your cars is sent to the customer who is then driven to their destination. The more crazy the taxi is during the drive, the more bonus money you get at the end of each trip. As this is an idle game, there is also a little bit of income which is made while the game is turned off based on how upgraded your taxis are.

     Once you have upgraded your taxis enough to unlock all the drivers for the area you are moved on to the next area where you are able to make more money than the previous area. There are many different drivers to unlock throughout the game, all of which have different personalities and things... though that doesn't really come into play at all as you mostly only see each person once and assign them to a car, then continue on with your day.

     As with most other idle games, there is some form of bonus currency sort of thing which you get for special events or watching videos or just for time passing. In this case, you get scratch cards.

     From these scratch cards and from upgrading vehicles, you can get driver's licenses which can be used to upgrade each driver once you have enough of them for a certain character. This makes the then upgraded character make more money.

     This game isn't awful; it's actually very well programmed and it looks quite nice. The thing that bothers me about this game is that I'm not captivated by the gameplay. There doesn't really seem to be any reason to make money offline except that every once in a while you have to put the game down and go do things in real life. Playing the game isn't really much different either; tap icon, car drives itself to the locations, you make money and move on. There really isn't much else for me to say about this game. I'm not trying to be hard on Crazy Taxi, but there just isn't much here. I suppose if you like following stories then you might be interested in seeing this game to the end.

     For this reason, I'm giving Crazy Taxi Tycoon a 5/10. It's not an interesting game, but it is well designed and I can see other people liking it even though I don't. For people who have similar interests as myself, I wouldn't recommend this game. For other people who are interested in mindless games and not quite as strict on whether a game is engaging or not, I would say to try this game before you take my word for it.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Idle Kingdoms - Mobile Game Review, Idle / Active City Builder - 4/10 ===

     I'm always on the lookout for new games to play especially when I'm looking to kill some time on the go. Unfortunately, this one isn't one of the best games I've played. As with all idle-type games, this one has an aspect of it where you still make progress even when you're not actively playing the game.

     Strangely with this game, there's an option whenever you turn the game back on to watch a video to get double rewards. This means you get more out of NOT playing the game for a long period, then turn the game on, upgrade a bunch of things, and do it again. I'm not sure I agree with this approach; while I do think it's good for there to be a level of progress in some way while not having the game turned on... I wouldn't want to encourage people to not play at all.

     Now we must keep in mind that this game is a game in progress. There are no sounds or music to listen to, so at this time this game doesn't get any bonus points on that front. The gameplay also seems to not be set in stone. I started playing Idle Kingdom when everything was immediately gathered by clicking the gather button. Recently there has been an update where you have manually sent out carts from your castle and gather points to bring back resources. A little bit of it is automatically gathered and there is no limit to the stockpile of resources which can sit at each location. This update seems to have made the game slower which does not feel as fun to me.

     As with most other idle games, there is a system of restarting the game to gain prestige which makes you produce and carry more with each point. Unfortunately this doesn't really solve the problem of the game still being quite slow and then rewarding you for forgetting about it for a while.

     Progressing through the game involves saving up enough food to buy the next tile which you can then build on. Every once in a while you come across a shrine which unlocks new structures or bonuses such as more prestige or faster production. There does come a point where things get so expensive that once again the game becomes so slow that it doesn't hold much interest.

     Idle Kingdom at this time gets 4/10 from me. At this time it's unfinished and I'm not a fan of the current gameplay and rewards.

~ Kyle Welykholowa