=== 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

=== Mobile Game Review -- Car Merger - Idle Clicker - 2 / 10 ===

Games where you progress while you are offline are some of the easiest games to play on a phone. Car merger is one such game where you perform activities online to then make more money while you are offline.

The gameplay of car merger is quite simple really: starting from the beginning you would purchase one car of level 1 and set it to work racing around a track which earns money over time both while you are playing the game and while you have the game closed. Once enough money has been earned, you will then be able to purchase a second car of level 1. At this point you have two choices: the first would be to put both cars to work racing around the track earning money over time. The second would be to move one of these cars on top of the other of these cars which would create one car of level 2.

As the levels of the cars racing around the track increase, they earn more money. A big component of a game with an idle progression element is making more money... Which means anytime you can make more money that's usually the correct choice. Really, the only time you would want to not level up your car might be if you want to have the maximum number of cars on the track at one time. In most cases you straight up make more money by merging cars together to make a higher level car... But occasionally if you don't have enough money to purchase the car you need and are about to go offline, having the maximum number of cars on the track earns you an additional 10% income.

Someone may at first think this is a great bit of strategy to the game! Unfortunately, the payoff is just wasn't big enough to really care whether or not I bothered filling out my race track. Despite this, I still tried to have a good time... which was a little difficult... because half of the game was spent watching advertisements. At some point in the game an option unlocks which allows you to purchase cars of a higher starting level than level 1; but the bad part about this option is that nearly every time you open up the tab... You also open up an advertisement. Oh, and of course there's an option to WILLINGLY watch ANOTHER advertisement to get a car (which already doesn't cost very much compared to what you're making) FOR FREE! Most of these advertisements are pretty easy to skip, but I really don't want to be spending most of my game time closing advertisements. I may as well just be browsing the internet or watching television.

My final gripe about this game is quite simply... this:

I mean... hey, I get it, you have to show advertisements to make money otherwise you'll only lose money by providing a free game without anything worth purchasing inside the game. The problem with this I have is WHY give me the option to download the game and NOT consent to the terms... if you're then not going to let me close the window after changing the option? I'd much rather receive a notification that says "Look, this is how it works and you using the app means you consent to the terms." Don't give me the OPTION then tell me it's the wrong choice.

Verdict

Gameplay: Simple concept, easy to figure out. Controls are sometimes a little unresponsive while merging cars. Nice to make progress while not playing the game, but not really much to do once you've merged a bunch of cars. You just keep... merging more cars and waiting for longer and longer periods of time as the costs get higher.

Sound: Lots of cute fun sounds. Doesn't get annoying. Nothing special to talk about.

Replayability: Easy concept to jump in and out of. Nothing to work towards other than more money. Constantly getting interrupted by advertisements is no fun. Once you've merged one car, you've merged them all. Nothing changes other than how fast you make money as you merge more and more cars to race around the track.

SCORE: Unfortunately I just don't have all that much to say about this game. It works, that's about it. There isn't very far to go into this game before you run out of new content, there are way too many ads, and it feels like the game is teasing you when it gives the option of not consenting to the use of data and advertisements.

+ It's a working game
+ Easy to get into
+ Sounds are nice and don't get annoying

- Seriously NOT a deep game
- Once you've merged one car, there's nothing new besides changing advertisements
- There's way too many forced advertisements followed by options to watch MORE advertisements for "rewards"
- There is an option to not have to watch advertisements... but it's just a huge tease which doesn't let you play the game if you turn it off

Car Merger gets a score of 2 / 10 from me; after a short time into the game, it becomes very dry and repetitive with no new content to look forward to. AND STOP WITH THE ADVERTISEMENTS ALREADY!!!


~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== 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

=== Mobile Game Review - Tiny Tower - Idle Management - 7/10 =20=

Tiny Tower was one of the first idle management games I ever played on my phone. It seems like most of the mobile games tend to be somewhat idle games which makes sense as I imagine most people would play a game only temporarily while waiting for something on the go or between activities.

Tiny Tower is a game about building a tower of residences for people to live in and constructing shops for them to work in which earn money by selling merchandise which you can then use to construct more rooms.

There is a nice little tutorial sort of thing to start the game which directs you to construct certain rooms and stock shops and really gives you the idea of how to play the game. Completing his instructions gives you Bux which are used to buy upgrades and to stock shops faster.

As your tower builds up you'll see more and more different shops and people as you construct residences and your choice of room types. People move into the tower in one of a few different ways: They can appear in the elevator and want to be dropped off on a floor with a residence, you can pay for a new person to move in using Bux, or a special VIP can appear in the elevator who would cause a residence to completely fill up when dropped off on a floor with one.

The idle part of the game comes from stocking the shops and turning the game off for some time. While you are away, the game keeps selling the merchandise and gives you the profits once the game is turned back on. There is another idle income mechanic which is that once per day you'll earn rent from your residences.

In most games, earning the second type of resource income can be rather difficult or slow, but in Tiny Tower, you're able to earn it pretty easily just by logging in each day which causes fireworks to go off dropping Bux. The more days you log in, the more fireworks you get which means you get more Bux all the time. 

The Bitizens of the tower are the lifeblood of your operation; without them, you wouldn't have any rent, or anybody to work the constructed shops. They have different skills which affects the amount of discount you get for ordering merchandise to the shop they're working in. They also have a dream job which doubles the amount of stock for the shop while they're working there.

As a fun little side-thing to help keep people entertained, there's a Bitbook which is absolutely making fun of Facebook by having the Bitizens post updates and statuses and things which can be entertaining to read, but have no effect on the game at all.

Finally, as with all idle games, this game has a way to reset the game; this allows you to restart for the fun of having a new tower from square one, but keeping some of your progress and giving some sort of bonus for doing so which in this case is to give a golden ticket allowing you to super-charge one of your floors.

Is this a game worth playing? It's definitely well thought-out and if you put in the time to play the game, you can get quite into it. There are some times when the game can get a little slow which is something which does tend to happen when getting further into some of these idle games, but I do think this game is very worth it to play. The gameplay is engaging while it is running and gives you a reason to come back for rewards with each session. There are many mechanics and things going on which keep you having different things to do whether that's stocking shops or moving characters to their requested floors via the elevator.

I'm giving this game 7/10 for idle games because it is better than average, but the gameplay can get somewhat stale after a while, especially if you don't have enough time to actually spend a little bit checking up on the tower once in a while. Other than that, I do recommend this game to play.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== 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

=== Campaign Clicker - Mobile Game Review, Idle Clicker - 5/10 ===

     Continuing my rampage of playing through games and reviewing them brings us today to Campaign Clicker. I'm always on the hunt for a good idle game I can open up every once in a while, make some progress and leave it until the next time I'm free for a while. This game brings a new option to the table one where the game resets itself every 24 hours. You get bonuses based on how well you did during the last "campaign" whenever a new campaign begins. On one hand, I love this idea, but on the other... if you don't have time to check up on your game pretty often, it sort of defeats the purpose of being an "idle" game in my opinion.

     Throughout each campaign you can either run as a republican or democrat and you can pick your candidate from a list of people whom you've unlocked. This is really just a cosmetic difference and if you're actually interested in politics and platforms and things, each candidate will have different speeches they run through during the campaign which you can read... or skip... or just not pay attention to whatsoever because it makes absolutely no difference.

     I don't mind this game, but as I'm not interested in politics (especially in the United States) I found my attention and interest in this game dwindled VERY quickly. I don't have a lot to say about this game because I wasn't interested in it long enough to get very far into it. In fact, I didn't make it through one 24-hour campaign. It has all the building blocks of an idle clicker game where click and bunch, then upgrade your abilities so you can click better and even to get more during the times when you're not directly playing.

     Personally, I don't think politics and games make a good match. I'm sure there are some instances where there are some really good games, but on the list of idle clicker games, this one ends up as a 5/10 for me. It's not engaging enough or of an interesting enough topic to keep my attention (I actually find the subject matter to be rather off-putting). I'm also not really a fan of the idea that I HAVE to start over again from the beginning every 24-hour period. If you want to give this a try, it seems like it works well with no bugs or issues, but if you're looking for something more interesting I'd recommend to give this one a pass.

~ Kyle Welykholowa