=== 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

=== 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

=== Adventure Town - Mobile Game Review, Idle City Builder - 10/10 ===

     Hey everybody, it's time for another game review. Recently I had my phone cut off; as a result, I haven't really been able to keep up with Idle Heroes because you need to have an active internet connection to be able to play. So I had to start searching for a game which would be lots of fun to play without getting bored of it, and which could be played without being connected to the internet at all times. After some searching, I came across Adventure Town.

     Adventure Town puts you in charge of a little town where you must build shops and houses to gain gold and direct your heroes to defeat monsters and complete quests to earn experience and progress further into the game. As you play, you have little heroes and townspeople who will go to each shop and "buy" items. As they visit the shops, they make gold for you until the shops run out of goods at which point you must restock the goods. As with many time-based games like this, an observant person will note that shorter timed tasks such as growing wheat over two minutes will make more goods if you're constantly playing the game, but will be less effective if you're only checking up on your game once every hour.

     Growing these plants makes goods which are given to the shops which then make you gold so you can buy more buildings to make more money faster. You can't go wrong with making more money. There's also the option of building houses which make money without needing goods. The downside of using houses is that they take quite a bit of time to make the same amount of money that could be made by growing plants and stocking shops... but they're quite useful if you're only able to check up on your game once or twice a day.

     Making all of this money doesn't just go towards building more buildings. In your spare time when you don't have room for more buildings and you're waiting for resources to upgrade these shops and houses, you have to do something to keep yourself busy. At these times you find yourself needing to use the heroes at your command to complete quests that you're given or to just plain kill creatures for either money, resources, or magical elixirs which are used to craft and upgrade things. These heroes can be defeated in battle and then must take a recovery period before they can be used again, but they can never die.

     As you gain levels, the monsters you face get stronger, have more health, and do more damage. This is one of the uses for all that money you're making; upgrading equipment to have more health, defense, or damage is incredibly important if you're going to get anywhere in a world like this. Some of the strongest items require crystals which you can earn over time by defeating monsters or completing bounties. The rest of the items cost simple gold which we already know can be earned easily enough. Upgrading items consists of buying new items and fusing weaker items with stronger ones to upgrade them once you've fused enough together. The new strength of these items can be used to fight creatures or to increase your chance to be successful at completing quests.

     I think the reason I like this game so much is because it reminds me of a game I played once upon a time. I can't seem to remember the name of the game, though if I saw it I would definitely recognize it. The whole premise of the game was that all you could do was build shops and buildings to help your heroes and you could influence their decisions, but ultimately it was up to them to decide what they wanted to do; similar to one of my favorite games called Majesty. Seriously, if any of you happen to know what game I'm talking about, feel free to let me know. I would love to find this game again and see if I could get it to work on a current computer.

     All of the monster-killing you do in this game goes toward the great purpose of upgrading your guardian statue. The purpose of which is to give you money once a day which increases each time the guardian levels up. More money means more buildings and better equipment for your heroes which means more monsters destroyed.

     As with most mobile games, this is a pretty simple game to play with not a lot of action and just enough going on to keep you busy if you kept the game open to kill some time. No consistent internet connection required, a good pace of progression to keep you interested, and reasonable tasks which aren't too difficult to complete. This all makes for a great mix of gameplay which would keep you coming back for more as often as you can.

     Adventure Town gets a 10/10 from me for being another great game which is likely to keep me busy for a few months without looking for something new.

~ Kyle Welykholowa ^_^

=== Tiny Sheep - Mobile Game Review 8/10 ===

     So even after saying I would stop playing Egg Inc., I find myself still playing it just because--oh wait... this is Tiny Sheep. I don't often find idle games to be a lot of fun, but recently I have found a few which I believe are worth mentioning.

     Tiny sheep is a game where you clone sheep in an effort to make money by selling different kinds of wool based on what farm you have. You have to make more and more sheep which passively earn you money until your farm value is high enough that you can upgrade your farm to the next wool type. The visuals are fun and if you enjoyed Egg Inc., you'll enjoy this game as well. The biggest different really, is in whether you would prefer chickens or sheep.

     Now, recreating a previous formula in a new way is not a bad thing at all; this game is certainly fun. The problem I see with recreating something in a different image is that it either has to have some improvements, or it won't be terribly more interesting than the previous iteration. Unfortunately for me, this game is so incredibly similar to Egg Inc., that I feel as though I have to give it a lower score than I gave to Egg Inc. Tiny Sheep does make you feel like you are progressing quite quickly due to using large values of money and giving you lots of large bonuses through watching ads, but upon closer inspection, it feels to me either as though the rate of progress is the same as before, or less.

     I'm not sure what to say about this game that hasn't really already been said in my Egg Inc. review (which I keep mentioning a lot, and for that I'm sorry). I do really like the visuals in this game; I think I actually like them more than Egg Inc. You still have birds (drones) to tap on to make extra money, there is golden wool (golden eggs) for more important long-term research, and you're still filling barns (hen houses) and driving your wool (eggs) off to the world for profits.

     Tiny Sheep is a fun game, but it isn't a new game. It's not bad, but it's not something fresh. I'm going to give it an 8/10 for Idle Games for those reasons and put it to rest after having just got it, because I already know this game inside and out.

     Have a great one everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Egg Inc. - Mobile Game Review - 10/10

     I've been playing this game for a few months now because it's just so much fun. Egg Inc. is an idle game where you press a button to hatch chickens which then run across your screen into a hen house where they then lay eggs for you to sell. As I read that, it makes the game sound incredibly interactive, but really the chickens laying eggs and making money from the eggs being sold is just something that is implied behind the scenes.

     So this game looks nice. It has a sort of art-style that I like to see and it's a pretty simple game. The most interactive thing about this game is that you get to shoot down drones which either make you large amounts of money, or golden eggs. Money is used to upgrade your eggs and farm so that you make more money faster and to hatch more chickens faster. Golden eggs are used for epic upgrades which persist even if you prestige.

     Prestige is a common thing to see in idle games. It's a way to make the game last longer by starting over again from the beginning, only with the added bonus of, say... + 1% to the money you make for each object you have related to the prestige system. In this game, it's another type of egg called a soul egg.

     (If you couldn't tell, a lot of this game revolves around eggs.)

     I found Egg Inc. on the Google Play store by accident just because I was browsing and instantly fell in love with it. I think it's a great adaptation of the idle genre. A game where you make progress, then continue to make some progress even while you're not playing the game. It starts off quite quickly even without any prestige. You soon find yourself unlocking new eggs, selling your farm to start a new farm where you make more expensive eggs over and over again. Everything goes great! Until you hit that roadblock...

     Like every idle game, it ropes you in with the promise of fast and rewarding progress. Completing missions left and right for those oh so valuable golden eggs. Upgrading your egg to the next level again and again. Until finally, you find yourself with a quest that takes a looooooooooooong time. And when I say long, I mean some of these quests would take a week straight of holding down that "hatch chicken" button until you finally get the number of chickens required to complete the quest. Or longer if you leave the game to hatch chickens for you while you're not there. And during this time, you either can't upgrade your egg because that would cause you to have to start over with no chickens... or you just don't have enough farm value to upgrade even if you wanted to.

     Now, when I say this, I don't mean this is a bad game by any means. That's just part of the idle genre. The game wouldn't last very long if it didn't come to a point where you have much much MUCH higher goals to reach. But at this point... if you're like me, then you want so badly to continue playing because you want to 100% the game. But at the same time, if you have better things to do and more fun things to move on to, it's just not worth it to continue playing.

     Even after saying that, I absolutely recommend this game. I got my girlfriend hooked on it too just by asking her to hatch a few chickens for me while I was busy. If you want something to keep you busy during those times when you're bored out of your mind, this game does deliver. Even if you don't finish the game up to the very end, I absolutely think you should give this one a go. At this point, I firmly believe this is the best idle game I've played.

     Egg Inc. gets a 10 / 10 from me for the idle genre. Have a great day everybody!

~ Kyle Welykholowa