Well, in gameplay design, I agree, it does have that freemium build. But in execution, it's absolutely worth a set price. The only other freemium game I played I felt I would have paid for was Triple Town (Facebook version, anyway), but even that game limited you in your play. This one doesn't do much of that, really. In any case, the game just keeps on giving. Just when you think you've seen everything the game has to offer, you get another small treat. That's the type of carrot that keeps a player like me coming back constantly for more. Ultimately, this is a formula (price, content, the whole shebang) that works for me. They got the recipe right.
I didn't read the thread in it's entirety. It's 29 pages after all. But I can't help but ask people who think in this similar vein of the author above. How is this game generous? Having just bought this game, I feel severely ripped off and for the first time ever, have actually felt cheated enough to want a refund. It's not the 99c, it's just the principle. The advertising seems fraudulent at best. Having a paid application tell you when you can or cannot play seems like a slap in the face. Imagine buying a car and having the manufacturer tell you that you can only drive it every other day.
The game is generous because over the rather long game play (10 hours plus?), it continues to add more interesting little features both to the resource management and how you approach the matching games. I am at level 23 and the game continues to have me hooked. It never told me when I could or could not play (referring to the timers here). I think the balance is next to perfect and using IAPs would detract from the game for me. This game would be a bargain at $5 for me.
I guess I have to answer your question with a question: how has the game ripped you off? The game hasn't once told me when I can or cannot play. I have been going strong for probably about 10 hours now (just lost another hour of my life here recently), and I have yet to run out of gold once. In any case, "severely ripped off" is some severe hyperbole for feeling cheated from a $0.99 app. I can understand if it's not your thing or you don't agree and feel the game isn't good. But even were it a completely broken mess, you only lost a buck. Of course, I spelled out for you in my previous post specifically what I liked about it. Not sure what else I can add, really. The relaxing Dungeon Raid-style gameplay? The beautiful visuals and insanely catchy music? The joy of unlocking a building that now lets pigs appear on the field after scrounging to make pigs from chickens? Being able to disable gas, rather than watch it blow up into rubble? I don't know, dude, these things just do it for me.
I had that initial reaction, though not the extent of feeling "severly ripped off". Just intense dislike of a system like that. I don't like things like that the same reason as you. And I did hit the limit when I went and played the field over and over at a stretch. But once I progress a few levels and I have my village more developed, it's not easy to lose all the gold unless one uses it all the time to buy stuff. Some resources also become easier to gather, I always have an excess of wood -- I sell that for some gold if I entirely run out and want to play another round. I'm now level 16, and that has only happened twice. Only use the gold for initiating the harvest. Grind materials to build buildings and hire workers. You'll almost never run out of gold. The game continually introduces more elements onto the match boards to keep things interesting and challenging. This game is alright, give it a chance.
I dont know when or why u hit a can or cannot play period but I never had that happen. You just need to balance a few things.
Some people are better at games than others. Having a system where less skilled players are forced to pay or wait is still freemium/paidmium even if it doesn't affect us personally. I've never hit a wall myself, but if I had kids, they would not be allowed to touch this game
As others have said, don't buy or sell at the market, don't pay to extend your farming or mining. If you do a decent job at the actual game part (farming and mining) you shouldn't run out of money. In fact, your gold reserves will slowly start to climb.
True, but that doesn't really determine whether or not a game is freemium. There are countless moments in a game like FFT where you can, if you don't take the time to save your game on another slot, kinda screw yourself for the rest of the game. But anyone (generally speaking) over the age of 10 should be able to learn from experience here: spend all my time farming and nothing else, I lose all my gold. It's a strategy game as much as it is a puzzle game. I buy and sell at the market, and still I haven't run out of gold. Now, I don't do a lot of that, but for things like silver and coal that are hard to mine early on, I sell some extra wood and hay to buy what I need here and there. It evens itself out, really.
Quite a number of replies, alright, I'll give it another chance. I'm currently level 10, just upgraded to the village and have run out of gold four times during the run-up to level 10. I haven't bought anything from the market, and haven't sold anything either. I've just been farming the farm, mostly for bread or chickens or even carrots so that I can spend a longer time in the mines. And to the quote above, what are you implying? That I am not skilled? Or that you are not skilled? If it's the former, I don't see how skill ties in to anything when the run-up to level 10 just requires that you farm, mine and build more stuff or as much stuff as you can afford to. Granted level 10 isn't level 100, but having had not enough gold on four occasions to farm and as a consequence not enough(or too little left) to go mine after building stuff seems like a poor mechanic to me. If anything, it would be more accurate to say that less-skilled players are the ones that don't need to wait around because they accomplish things slower, but that's not the point. Also I was harping on how the description in the app store says; "Incredibly deep gameplay, there's always something to do!". For at least two, two hour stretches, I had nothing to do but lock the screen on my iPad and do something else. And like I said, it's not the 99c. It's not the money, it's just the principle of paying for something and not being able to do what you want with it when you want it. If a car is too much money for a good analogy, what about a parking ticket? It's only a couple of dollars, what if the attendant told you could park, but would have to move your car after an hour? You would be allowed back after the hour was up only to have to move it after an hour again. And what if you only found out about this requirement after you parked your car and started strolling around in the mall/wherever.
I'm mystified as to how you keep running out of money, since you get more when you level. Are you using fertilizer when you farm? You can get a stupid amount of bread in one go. I strongly suggest you save your carrots (and as much as possible, your chickens). You'll wish you had, shortly.
Meh, not paying for an obvious freemium game. I'll wait...it will go free in the next couple weeks or so.
Well, I just had my first crash. I could almost sense the game was going to crash, too. I ran out of moves for the first time in the mine and got a pop-up asking me if I wanted to unblock or use tools to unblock. Without thinking, I just pressed the first option, and the board was kind of unblocked and then the game went kaput. Guess the game was as fried as I am now from playing all damn day.
How are people running out of gold!?!? I have over 1000 gold , I occasionally spend it on something like a tool or staying in the mine. I haven't paid for anything, just playing the game. I simply don't understand how people are running out of gold. Reset and try again? It's a game, and if you lose then try again. I use the tools to maximize yield, alternate between farm and mine , make sure to assign people jobs for the boost , an keep upgrading and building stuff. Seems basic to me, and it's my first play throug - - i have over 1000 gold and have never ONCE come close to running out. Im truly mystified as to how this is happening to people, I'm no expert gamer so you all must be really bad
When you manage to get a bonus from matching a string (for example, matching a string of chicken to get a pig), is there any way you can "force" the bonus to appear in a particular slot? Is this entirely random?
K, it just happened again, also in the mine. Seems if you run out of moves, the game doesn't know how to process that and it just shuts down. Edit: Just happened a third time.
Did you never have surplus resources to sell? It only takes 6 lumber or 6 bread to fund another farming expedition, either of which should be obtainable (plus surplus) on a typical run. Just keep an eye out for saving enough resources as you puzzle and gold should never be a problem. As far as the concern about depth of game play, I'd personally describe a game that someone could mindlessly click through without fear of consequence as "shallow", and a game that requires a bit of thought and planning as one with "depth". The mechanics in the game aren't terribly complicated, but they do penalize players that don't keep resource creation and consumption in mind. Regardless, the whole IAP dislike would be a separate tangent from that, though, since that is really simply about the way that negative consequences are implemented. Should the game designers consider giving players the option of softer difficulty levels? It seems like players that want an even more casual experience (a casual casual game?) could play at a level where gold payout and costs were much friendlier. I'm not sure if you could penalize Easy mode players by withholding content that only Hard mode players could get access to without reigniting the IAP bonfire again, though.
i do agree, that this game takes some thinking and skill to master.. if some are having tremendous difficulties then i would suggest a different game... kairosoft just came out with a new game.. go try that instead...
