I have to admit, this isn't actually too bad. They've taken the Nimblebit approach in terms of "special characters" that instacomplete your production timers or buy out all stock of a building. If I had to generalize it, I would call this DragonVale meets Tiny Tower. Haven't played Clash of Clans so can't compare it to that. My personal approach to games like this is to play them until the timers stop me, at which point I delete the game and move on. So far I've gotten two solid days of playing and there's pretty much always something to do. The timers to produce something are getting a little high because I'm making things in multiples of 10 or 20 (5 minutes-ish), but the biggest real timers are building upgrades (2 hours for level 2 -> level 3 and more for later ones) which close off the building and the associated production (or sales) entirely. I have to say, this is actually pretty decent in how much you get to play for free. I guess I'll pop in later some time when I hit a barrier or get fed up, but things are fairly well managed, in my opinion.
There are some similarities (running shops, unlocking new ingredients, using existing created items as components for more advanced items and fighting enemies for rare treasures) but it's much more RPG-lite. I couldn't compare it favourably to the Atelier games but that's because I adore them. If you don't mind a little repetitive management of the basic ingredients and a lot of tapping then it's one of the best F2P titles I've tried. There's always something to be doing; in fact there's often too much to be able to keep track of which is lovely for a freemium game; no waiting 3 hours so you can wait another 3 hours. That said, I can see the repetitive nature getting to a few players. It's definitely made up for by the fact that I doubt you would ever need to pay actual money to proceed - I'm constantly unlocking new buildings, items and areas to send my heroes. The gems are almost entirely for speeding construction but as there's so much to do in the meantime, it's never much of a concern.
MY take on the game so far.. hi folks this is my take on the game so far -. If you played Dungeon Village Kairosoft Co, this game plays like that. Unlike DV you do start with a small village and you shown the ropes. Items are harvest off screen and then brought to your workshops. Take sawmill, you order twigs which are then made after a short pause, once you made this you can then head over to the weapons shop where the twigs can be then turned into trainer swords, once again after a short build time they sent off to market where heroes (which you dont see) by the items giving you more money to then go and collect more twigs etc to start the process all over again. If you looking for Flashy graphics then keep on walking, yet i feel they would be out of place in this game. This game is more about managing your resources then about looking pretty. The second part of game is the questing, which you need to go on to get some of the items you not able to harvest yourself, questing is a simple sit back and watch but remembering to hit the power ups when the timers have cooled down. After time you finish a quest your treasure chest bar will fill up, once this is full the you are awarded a "rare item" which goes towards legendly items that you can craft which are in turn you give to your questing party so allowing them to go on more harder quests. There is IAP option of course but its never pushed in your face at all, infact i had to go and find it myself, something else there are no in your face adverts that take up your whole screen, yes there is one small "bar advert" that appears only at the bottom once you finished a quest, well played there. The timers in this game i seen so far are very short to say the lest, it seems they want you to keep making and selling stuff as much as possible this is highlight more when doing quests you of course loose energy, yet as long as you sell stuff that energy is instantly replaced from each item sold, and you dont have to wait long either when it comes to selling your weapons, from what i seen so far (i only been making basic stuff) you could play for hour and still not have to put the game down due to timers...that i do like. For a free game its not bad at all, and glad i downloaded it this is a gem of game thats been over looked by most people i say due the screen shots that make it seem a bit too good to be true.
Addicted. The best of its Genre. Amazingly fair. I have been playing and haven't had to spend a cent. I will just to support. This is really a great game.
Just accepted your invite, Pete. My in-game name is Esarath. Still going strong with the game, though the questing is getting tough. Up to area 3 with basically level 1 gear. Might need to invest in that...
Pretty cool game http://taeles.blogspot.com/2014/06/master-of-craft.html I'm going to have to do a part 2 to my article though, a whole lot of the town unlocks at level 7 heh. -buys iap pack to support developers- Keep it up guys
Suggestions : . Give purpose to those adventurers walking around. How bout a outhouse they jump around in front of, or walking out of the inn drunk hehee. . Give personality to those adventurers wakling around town. Let us on them with a popup showing some random name and some random thought. Could actually build on this, build a demand system in to the game where what they want sells better and you find out what's in demand by tapping on the random adventureres. Name : Sir Slaughter Thought : Sure wish this place sold Unerring Sword Maces of ultimate destruction heehee.
Quick Tip - Always have a look at the hero offers that come in, just had one that allowed me to pick a building and have all the items that are being made etc finish without having to wait for them...
My apologies for starting an invite chain in this thread, I only meant to identify myself to Pete since my in-game name is different to the forum. Please post all invitation usernames in this thread, kindly started by Taeles: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=234193 On a side note, I'm working on a spreadsheet and a mini-guide for this game. The spreadsheet calculates the most efficient gear to produce based on a number of different variables. Here's a preview if you're interested: (cells in red are ones that need manual input of data I don't have yet and are not related to a formula. I wouldn't trust more than the first 4 or 5 lines of each gear listing since the data is incomplete, but it's a good start, right?) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hived5cu2kDRQcRlJraI2rjm2W9GbtJKsXEWtHaI3-Y/pubhtml (Is there anything else you'd like to see on it?)
I like spreadsheets. There aren't too many items in the game and I was sick of being short on money. So I figured I'd work out what the profit of each item was, and then I had to keep track of 12 different profits at the same time and the spreadsheet was born. Good times!
-facepalmslap- Didn't realize until level 10 that if I equip a second weapon it lets me place it in an empty slot thus creating additional party members. ATM I've got 1 warrior, 2 archers and 1 healer. Medium difficulty for the first section of huge map is my farming ground ATM.
This game.... I have found that between production and battles your down time should always be 0. For a free game with timers I have yet to hit a wall where I have to wait. It's literally always got something to do. Wanna wait for some items to be done? Check with the local hero shops you will do everything from over charge, under charge, refill your action points for battle (which fill real easily, it's production based not timer based) to buying out a shops entire inventory meaning you don't have to wait for a single item in that shop to sell. I'm honestly amazed at this game, I really am. I've managed to do okay so far but just the ability to finally play a timer game where the timers don't actually restrict playing time is beyond belief for IOS gaming. If you like lite town builders, merchant, and lite RPGs this game should be right up your alley.
Seen this a hundred times already it's the same game with a slightly different paint job. If you like it knock yourself out! Not for me!
I'm one of those stubborn idiots that never got around to learning it, am damn afraid to screw with the app store, did i mention stubborn?, but... Nah too stubborn lol.