=== Mobile Game Review -- Business Inc - Business Management - 1/10 ===

Here's an interesting game idea I came across a little while ago called Business Inc. The goal of this game is to start as a small company with just one employee making games and to grow into a larger company making profits.

So in the beginning, the player needs to hire an employee with little skills and start designing games which grows their skills into making a better quality product and being able to make these products faster. I started this game over and over and over trying to be profitable and continue to be profitable as the game went on, but I could never really make it very far into the game.

I don't know if I was playing the game wrong... I like to think I'm quite good at coming up with strategies and figuring out how to win at games, but it just seemed like everything I tried to do was... useless. As you can see, the game sort of lulls you into a false sense of security where you believe you're making money but as soon as you start hiring more people who are untrained or trying to take longer projects the money starts to fall off really quickly.

See, Business Inc isn't just about making a game and being happy with it; You have to be able to make the game faster than your competitors and at a good enough quality that you still make some profits once your competitor comes out with their version of it. At first I figured out it's not so bad to just focus on the simple projects and having those come out as quickly as possible... but then once the bigger and longer projects started coming out requiring more employees with higher skill levels, all the profits began to fall apart until I went bankrupt EVERY time.

So unfortunately this game didn't last very long as there wasn't very far I could get to keep my interest very long. If this game has progressed since I played it or if someone has found a winning strategy to this game, I would be more than happy to hear your explanation. Until then, for me, this game isn't a very good game.

Summary

Gameplay: Very interesting concept. I love business-type games and I'm still on the hunt for a truly awesome business sort of game. This game just doesn't have very far to go as the gameplay falls off very quickly without any progression or ability to make choices which really impact the end-result of the game. Business Inc is really more like a game-loss simulator rather than any sort of game-play.

Sound: The music is nice, though repetitive. As the game isn't very long and there isn't much to the gameplay, there really isn't much to be said about the sound.

Replayability: As I've already mentioned, the gameplay is severely lacking. As a result, there's ZERO want to play this game again unless there are some huge changes to the game.

SCORE: I really wanted to like this game and really tried to make it work, but with what I've seen from this has been rather disappointing. Business Inc gets my first ever 1/10 rating because it is seriously so bad I wouldn't even recommend bothering to try it; It just doesn't go anywhere and give absolutely no hope of ever being successful. Even if the player did manage to find a way to keep from going bankrupt, the gameplay wouldn't be any fun because because it would consist of doing the exact same thing over and over with no change or progression.

~ DaemonVirus

=== Mobile Game Review -- Crossy Road - Arcade Clicker - 4/10 ===

Today we take a look at the mobile game, Crossy Road. I've been a little busy recently with starting my new full-time job and still working on school at the same time... along with being a little bit sick. It can be quite difficult to have enough energy to keep going when there's so much going on, so sometimes I pick simpler and easier games to play in my spare time.

If you're looking for an simple game to pick up and play where you can learn to be better every time you play while being reminded of the good old days of playing Frogger back in 1981, this game is for you! The controls are really easy to learn, just tap on the screen and you hop forwards; moving to each side and backwards can be done by swiping in the proper direction; if you are faced with a solid object or any situation where hopping forward would block the character... you'd better figure out which way to swipe to fix that before hopping forward, otherwise you're not going to move anywhere at all.

Something I'm not really a fan of when trying to be awesome at a game is RANDOMNESS. Now of course randomness is important in the replayability of a game, but there's a level of randomness in some games which is just silly; I'm talking about the type where due to uncontrollable factors, you've run into an impossible to beat situation. Does that come up in this game? Yes... sometimes you end up stuck with no holes in traffic to pass through while the ever-moving camera swallows you up or forces you to jump to your death into oncoming traffic. HOWEVER, for the most part, this isn't too much of an issue. Because it's so easy to get into a new game and because many situations are avoidable if the player is able to think and react fast enough, I don't mind the amount of randomness in this Crossy Road.

Reasons to come back to this game and keep playing after having played for... a while? Challenges I suppose. I believe a new one starts every day or every few days where a preset character and level is put forth into the world for many players to attempt to see if they can be the best at getting the furthest into the level. Based on the player's rank at the end of the challenge, they are given some sort of reward such as a special character.

I really enjoy the fact that different characters in the game don't really have an effect on how the game is played. Different characters change the setting of the game and the aesthetics, but nothing changes other than that.

I suppose the real downside to this game... is that nothing really changes. Once you've figured out how to play it reasonably well... there isn't really much left to do. I mean hey, if you can consistently get to 200 hops, then you get to keep seeing pretty much the same 200 hop idea every single game you play. What happens when you get further than 200 hops? You see more... of the same... thing.

While I believe Crossy Road is probably a one-week game at best, there is one bonus thing that really truly made me want to play in the first place; they have a version of Crossy Road at Ruckers which is basically the same game without the ability to move side-to-side or backwards. Surely this results in more randomness than I am comfortable with seeing as the game makes its decisions to move to either side on its own, but there's still a chance to play really well and get really far into a level which results in quite a few tickets.

Verdict

Gameplay: Fun and easy to pick up, but the gameplay gets quite repetitive incredibly quickly.

Sound: The sounds a basically what you'd expect; sounds of traffic driving past and honking their horns, water rushing as you jump across logs, trains running across tracks right before your very eyes.... but no music.

Replayability: No game is EXACTLY the same twice... but after a few plays, there isn't much change to the game with each new play.

Bonus: There's a version of this game made for earning tickets at Ruckers. If it wasn't for the cost of buying all those tokens just to play the game this way, I would be playing it ALL THE TIME.

SCORE: After some consideration, I have decided to give Crossy road 2/5 because I was super excited about playing it after experiencing the arcade game at Ruckers... but then I quickly lost interest after only about a week of having it on my phone.


~ Kyle Welykholowa


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=== Future Plans ===

     I've been thinking about what's coming up for me for my future plans. There are some things I would like to be doing coming up and I think they're reasonable things to plan for. In the past I've never really made any plans to stick to or real goals to follow, but now I find myself wanting to have some goals with which I can give myself a measure of success.

     First on my list is that I have a lot of games started, but few that I've actually ever finished. I would like to make it a goal to finish some of my games so that I can retire them. Of course there are some games which are really fun and I'll probably play them for a really long time even after I've beaten them tons of times. Other games I've only started playing and haven't found the time to finish or I've gotten distracted by other games and activities. This leads me into my next goal.

     My next goal is to use these games that I want to play through, whether that's finishing them or replaying them or whatever else I decide to do with them to create more content. I've been slacking lately on the content production and that's absolutely something I really enjoy doing which I would like to continue having as something strong and important in my life. I've managed to hit a large number of views with one of my game reviews I posted on my blog and that makes me feel awesome and want to continue doing more game-related content and other content production in general. So this will have me continuing to make blog posts and making more of an effort to spread that content creation into my YouTube channel for recorded episodes and Twitch for live streaming depending on the type of game being played.

     Outside of playing games I have a couple goals a well. The first is getting my garden ready for planting for next year. I didn't manage to do so this year, but with the heat wave going on I guess that means we're saving money as a result right now. I'm really wanting to have everything ready so I can grow a successful garden next year.

     The next offline goal I have is practicing my drawing. I really enjoy drawing things but I'm usually too busy to do so because it usually takes me a long time to make anything due to being such a perfectionist when it comes to making artwork. I have a set of pencils to draw with and ink wells and dip pens to use but I just haven't had a chance to use them since I got them. I'm going to make it a plan to take some time out of some of my days to use these things to grow my skills at things I enjoy doing.

     Another goal I have is to practice music. I have a violin which has been sitting recently and desperately needs to be used. I have also gotten a recorder from the dollar store which I can use for simple flute sort of music. If you haven't noticed... I also enjoy singing and using that for some of my content. I'm going to make a plan to at least practice some of this so I'm more comfortable with it in the future and then perhaps I'll have an easier time creating more in the future.

     The last goal I have at this time is to start reading more again. This has been something I've been planning to do for quite some time where I pick a book and read it for a YouTube video. If there are other people in the world like me, then they have lots of time to listen to things, but not so much to actually do things. Hence, I figure some people would like to listen to the reading of books and things. This gives me two reasons to read books; so that I can read something I'm interested in reading, and so I can share it with the rest of the world.

     I hope you've enjoyed reading my ideas and that perhaps you're looking forward to something in this list coming from me in the future. Feel free to let me know! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa