Universal Puzzle Craft - (by Chillingo Ltd)

So far, my only issue is that you can't re-assign villagers. Once you've hired them, they seem to be stuck in that job. So, be careful with that!

Otherwise, totally fantastic game.

 

@Tastyfish: The purpose of the game is to build the castle. It takes around 10-15h to complete it depending on the skill. The only benefit from restarting is that you can play again, or give the game to another person to play from the beginning.

@LordGek Yes, we are familiar with this bug. It happens only if you have 7 tools no matter mine or farm. Will be fixed in the nearest update which is nearly finished.

If you have any other question just ask. Best

 

@ArsThanea Is there not supposed to be any way to re-assign villagers? Or move buildings, for that matter, just for the aesthetics?

 

Hm... sounds interesting first - no offense intended - but you might disturb the balance of the game. You would need only 3 houses and re-assign the workers for the job you need.
If a re-assignment should be possible, then only at a much higher cost to balance out the advantage.

But replacing your buildings, if only for the aesthetics, should be possible.

@ devs: do you have plans for additional game modes?
I'd gladly pay for another game mode via IAP.
1$ for a polished game that last around 15 hours is already a steal.

 

@Inksplat:We developed this game for a long time and we have to stop on some point adding new features. We had in mind possibillity to move buildings but it was hard to implemented and finally we had to jleave these idea behind. We want to put additional effort into the game. There is almost ready first one with bugfixes and some nice polishing stuff. Best

 

I want to piggyback on what Vovin and some of the others have said and try to explain why some people are posting contradictory information. I ran out of battery last night at level 7 with 330 gold. I had over 400, but spent some in the market to help finish a building.

Here's the thing: there are LOTS of ways to spend gold in the game. You can rapidly spend gobs of coins and bankrupt yourself and the game is happy to let you do that. But none of that is necessary. Unless you have cash reserves, don't buy materials from the marketplace. You also don't need to save what is in your field for the following year (200 coins!) or pay to extend your mining operation by three turns (100 coins). Pay your 30 coins and do it again, instead.

Incidentally, you also get money from the marketplace on a one hour timer, and taxes go up as you upgrade your settlement.

The real challenge in the early game economy is acquiring stone (at least it has been for me). Every trip into the mine needs food, so you keep going back to the fields. Build a larder so you can stay in the mine and collect more stone--but then you need more food too, there's the balance.

One thing that is neat is that long chains start giving you other resources. For instance, chain 8 grain and a carrot tile will drop, or chaining chickens will cause a pig tile to show up. You have to get enough of those tiles on screen so you can make a match with them to collect them (or use a tool). This actually changes the gameplay a bit. You don't necessarily want to collect all of a resource on screen. You might be better off to collect enough to get the bonus and leave some to try and get another when more fall (if 8 grain gave you one carrot tile and 16 would give two, collecting 15 would be a wasted opportunity).

Complaints: landscape mode...where is it. I hate playing in portrait mode on iPad unless absolutely necessary. I also wish there were more of a bonus for long chains (other than described above).

 

I've been playing this game in bursts all day (at work ) on my iPod and had no problems with pay walls or waiting for coins. As far as the gameplay goes, I'm really enjoying it and keep finding myself wanting to harvest just that little bit more.

However... once I arrived home I downloaded it on my iPad and had to start a new game. Not a huge issue for me as I'm enjoying it enough to play it twice. This time though, I ran out of money and stock. I'm not entirely sure how, I've been playing more or less the same way as before, only without taking any breaks. So while it's fine for short plays it doesn't lend itself quite as well to longer sessions, unless there's some tactical method of play I'm not smart enough to figure out. I'm not too anoyed with it, but I think it could be improved.

What I'd really like to see in an update is further support for iPad retina displays. Some elements are hi-res and some aren't, and any optimizations would be greeted with open arms

 

@LordGek

Gas explosion doesn't stop your mining expedition. It just blows up the nearby tiles and transforms them into rubble plus dirt.
It's only irritating when you have coal/silver.

 

Yeah, thanks for pointing that out, Misguided, I should have been more specific about chaining in the later game. In the beginning, the longest chains are neccessary to get a good start, later you should either choose long chains for gathering basic supplies fast OR chains which give you exactly the advanced ressources you need.

 

Indeed. The game does take your coins VERY quickly if you aren't careful. But for a mere $25 you can have 100,000 coins to call your own.

 

I agree with you. All you ever really need is 30 gold to farm. Once you unlock the marketplace, you can just sell 6 bread, which is almost nothing-- every time you farm you'll make many times more than that. It's even easier to keep going once you get the "free harvest" upgrades for wheat and chickens. I played a good 3-4 hours yesterday without having to stop.

 

Yeah. I'm not sure how its possible to run out of gold once you're level 7-8. It takes me 5 wheat to get a bread. Fertilizer + Rake or Scythe, and I've made money for my single trip, not even counting everything else I gather.

 

I'm enjoying it so far, but I have to admit, it does feels suspiciously like a freemium game in disguise I haven't run into any pay walls yet, but it does have that 'feel'.

Kind of like Dungeon Raid in the matching, but so far, lacking the same depth and decisions for me. With the way resources work in the matching (match enough of one resource and it spawns the 'next level' of that resource in the field), it also reminds me a bit of Triple Town.

 

I dunno, once you start utilizing tools, I think there's a decent bit of depth. For instance, finally spawning an apple because I cleared a few whole screens of wheat using fertilizer + the plough or whatever.

Its definitely not super deep, but I hope it does really well so that we'll see someone take it a step up. Give me a Harvest Moon + Puzzle Game, with the same IAP philosophy as this? I will die happy.

 

After playing for a couple of hours, I have something to bring up:

Even though the potential to hit a temporary pay wall exists, this does not detract from the gameplay experience in a significant manner. In fact, as far as I could see, it actually helps tighten the gameplay and gets you to think about what you do within the game and how you plan out your resources. How does the game do this? I will attempt to explain below.

You see, many games of the farming type do force a player to wait while building/growing/etc... is being carried out. Thus, there is barely any actual gameplay within such games. The worst examples constantly try to put the player in a situation where they have to choose between waiting to progress, or paying more real-world money to move forward.

Unfortunately, this situation feels (keyword: FEELS) like the norm on the App Store, and as a result whenever a game even has the TEENSIEST, TINIEST BIT of this problem, EVEN IF THE BIT IN QUESTION HAS ALMOST NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PROBLEM, LIKE A SPECIFIC ART STYLE (cutesy, for example), we gamers IMMEDIATELY get suspicious. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

This mentality has been known for completely turning gamers away from potentially fun experiences. Sure, if nothing related to a specific game type ends up in front of your eyes, then you won't have to deal with those old problems in any way, shape or form again, BUT your choices become limited to "everything else". And that is often very, very sad to see because there are fun games of those types out there, and by being so "anal" and "paranoid" (I used quotes because I couldn't come up with gentler words to use) gamers miss out on sone good entertainment.

This game, however, turns the above problem and its effects on the player on its head and delivers a VERY different experience. Does it fix the above problem? Not entirely. Then how does this game differ from other farming games in such a critical manner?

Gameplay.

There is actual gameplay to be had here, both from a management-style perspective ala Kairosoft AND a puzzle-style perspective ala Dungeon Raid. Instead of the game setting arbitrary timers on game progress like many other farming games (with extremely rare exceptions), the game lets you, the player, determine your play time. Want to burn through levels and construct all the buildings within a day? If a gamer plays all day, they can come VERY close to that goal. Want to take your time and only indulge once a week or so? Totally doable. While the game has a couple timers on free power-ups and settlement taxes, which only become noticeable when you're broke/desiring a certain power-up, everything else is left up to the gamer.

This greatly improves the experience of playing the game, because the player is forced to become pro-active about their gameplay experience without feeling like they HAVE to bring out their wallet, unless they use up all their money/resources and have to wait for taxes to come in, which will happen rarely with a player who plays smartly, but I digress. Thus, the gamer feels a stronger sense of ownership about the kingdom they are building, because they decided what gets built when, where the stuff gets built, how the villagers work, how many/what type(s) of resources to get when harvesting, etc....

In many ways, this sense of being responsible for the progress of a virtual community of people is extremely refreshing in this farming game type because of how much the gameplay amounts contrast between this game and the observed norm I mentioned above. As a result, the game is a LOT more fun to play, AND actually stretches the brain muscles when a player needs to decide to gather more materials for a powerful building, or build a lesser building for more experience that could trigger a level-up, which could open up more options etc..., just as an example of what I'm talking about.

In short, this is a farming game done right. It ain't 100% perfect, but it comes close to 95% of that ideal. As a result, I would recommend ditching Zombie Farm, Dragonvale and, dare I say it, even Tiny Tower and all of their ilk, for this game. Why? Because it is a lot more fun than those games and is worth more of your time, whether that time is just once a month, or several hours every day.

Don't let this slip through your fingers, and don't let old wounds dictate your enjoyment. This NEEDS support, because we NEED games that do things similar to this. Hopefully, something even closer to perfection will come along. But until then, this is the best I've played of this game type.

And yes. I'm that passionate about the game, AND I hold it in that high of a regard. Why? I believe I explained why in the rest of my post XD Take my enthusiasm and my perspective however you wish to. I'm gonna get some more chickens so I can dig for more stone and metal (which reminds me, I should get some dynamite to deal with the after effects of the gas....) and I'll have a fun time doing it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Album

 

I was a little reserved picking this title up because of the discussion about IAP, but I ended up getting it this morning and I am glad I did. It's very well polished and the gameplay is great. The IAP isn't too intrusive and you can easily play the game without having to invest any extra money. I highly recommend getting it if you were hesitating.