I think most games need a balance between progress and experience. If you literally were to just "enjoy the experience", there would be no point in having additional levels, skills, character development, any of that. You could just do the same thing over and over again. That gets old for most people, which is why the game introduces progress, so that you aren't literally doing the same thing, you're getting more powerful in game terms and taking on different challenges. The task, then, for the designer, is to balance the rate of progress and development so that it's neither too fast or too slow. This is hard because different players have different skills and progress at different rates. But we can still say that some games do better at it than others. It can also be hard because the "optimal" progression from the point of view of game enjoyment may not be optimal from the point of view of revenue generation, which is important also (otherwise new games wouldn't get made).
You know I thought I'd hate this, yet another could-be-great game ruined by IAPs, but actually I really like it. I do feel the pinch now and then, particularly tokens, but I enjoyed their take on Snake so much I didn't mind the one-time Red Gem purchase. The fact it's an actual Game, compared to the feedback-loop experience of Pocket Planes (which I did get sucked into for a few weeks) goes very much in it's favour. But you know I'd totally have paid a fiver for this (£5) outright without the expendable IAPs, which I dislike in principle.
Yeah I got the red gem upgrade too. It's the only IAP I will make. But it was $4.99 for me, it's £5 in the UK? Um, that doesn't really make sense Usually, if I really like a game, I will get the upgrades that you can't get by playing, thus enhancing my experience with the game and supporting the developers. But I do this very rarely to begin with, so I spend maybe $10 every year like that...
Once you get over the hurdle of Depths I and can get that far reliably, getting (1500-2000 gems) isn't that unreasonable. Plus, you are downing over 500 enemies in a run at that point, so you are looking at 3-4 decent games to get one character to level 2.
If it released as is for $.99 then it would be terribly unbalanced and far too slow progression. They would at least have to double triple the rate at which you earn gems. Also I think they did a great job fooling the reviewers of this game. It starts out looking like you earn money at a generous clip and then quickly ramps up at a ridiculous rate. Obviously a lot of reviewers did not get to that point or they would not say that gems came easily. Also, it sucks that skill is not a factor because once you reach a certain point it is literally impossible to beat the level until you grind some more. It's like they made this cool game and then completely broke it so that you have to pay money. Instead what they should've done is just offered the coin doubler and that was it. If they wanted more they could've added cosmetic things.
But how long does a game take? If you aren't getting gems any faster by playing 3-4 decent games than if you play worse and play 15-20 short games in the same period of time, then it's really just a clock grind and nothing to do with how well you play.
In some point you miss games like Bejelwed, Tetris, angry birds, puzzle games in genera,l and my favorite shumps. They are repetetive especially puzzle and shumps are identical so "progress" is not a requirement it could be high score or as I said the simple combination of having fun while playing opposed constantly focusing on not having something. Anybody remember playing Donkey Kong? On another topic found Kishi to be so far the most enjoyable to play, Hydra a close second.
But you definitely earn kills and gems faster in the late levels. For example, in the first 4-5 level I earn about 150 kills combined, but in the 6th I earn almost 75 more alone. And it just ramps up more and more from there. So you really are better off time wise to try to last as long as possible due to the rate of kills and gems increasing. (Numbers are not specific, just taken off the top of my head rounding and generalizing)
The further you get the more enemies spawn and the faster you gain gems. Each enemy has a chance of dropping treasure chests, magnets, etc. The how well you play portion is how quickly you can analyze enemy positions and plot a course to kill them appropriately with minimal loss in life. It does seem that enemies spawn at a set rate through the stage, so half of the challenge is to find and kill the spawns as fast as possible so you do not get overrun.
Finally got my first character (Arcane) to 3 stars. Took quite a few hours (I have the red gem upgrade). Had gotten about 10 of the characters to 2 stars before I just did the grind up to 92000 gems or so. When you're getting 5-6k gems per run it isn't too bad. Token every time for faster speed makes the game a lot more exciting, and its pretty easy with any 2 star character until about Sewers 2 now. Although it may take a while, 3 star Arcane is awesome. With the attack speed boosts, he's basically a tommy gun of spells. Makes arcade mode a lot more fun as well. Shame there aren't any more achievements for number of kills with a certain character or skins or something to unlock, but hopefully they'll get there. 2 more characters to get to level 2 then not quite sure what I'll do. Probably just casually work towards a few more 3 star characters.
That's cool. I'm be a lot less quick to judge if they didn't have a $20 in app purchase. Anytime I see that in a game that should cost no more than five dollars it makes me stop and shake my head. Just the sheer audacity to put a $20 purchase in such a small little game blows my mind. Whether it's necessary or not, what it says is that they think their game is worth at least $20. And what about people who do spend $20 only to find out that the game has the content of the three dollar app?
Yea this is free and no you don't have to pay for IAPs if you don't want. But I can't help but feel sad that nimblebit just stumbled accross what could have been one of the greatest iOS games to date, but they ruined it by focusing all their efforts on creating ways to stop the player having fun unless they drop serious money. I wish they spent more time creating a way to sustain the brilliant gameplay, missions, quests or a story mode. Anything! Instead they just focused on a coin machine to suck money. SAD
Congrats! I haven't decided which I want to try and 3-star first.Arcane certainly seems like a good idea, but so do Uther and a hydra, among others. Well, if you bought the 1.5 million gems for 20 bucks, the game would be low on content, because you'd crank through it much faster being able to max everyone at level 3 the moment you unlocked them. Personally, I don't think that would be any fun, but fun is subjective. As someone that has only spent a dollar, it has kept me entertained for more ours than I'm comfortable admitting. It's very much an old-school game in that regard. You sit back and look at, and think "this shouldn't be this much fun" yet it is, at least for me. If you want t interpret that as saying the content is the grind to level guys up, I won't stop you.
Just had the most amazing run yet. I used Gizmo as leader and made it up to Castle 1 which I usually fail without upgrades. Beat it without upgrades and bought all upgrades for Dungeon 1. I managed to beat Depths 1 first try AND Forest 2 first try. I ended with 581 kills and almost 2k gems. It's not much for a brag topic but I feel pretty good. All my characters were only lvl 1. =D This game is so addicting I can't even make time for Black Dawn...
I just give a dollar (50k gems) and the game is a lot of fun, I got 5 level 2 all level 1 (unlucked 12 so far) all perks upgraded to level 5, and 72 coins. I just spent 1 dollar and the game worth it, no need to spent 20 dollars.
Arena comp finishes in 1 hr 20!! Then we should have some rivalry between teams touch arcade and touch arcade1
