Saturday Casual Gaming 224: Super Sushi Merger

You guys probably know that I basically live for sushi, right? Well, I do. I love sushi. Now, while I may be shellfish-and-shrimp-challenged (sorry, guys, I'm just not down with the filter-feeders and sea-bugs), I do love me some eel, tuna, yellowtail, and pickle sushi.

So when I saw a game that appeared to be a cross between a merge game and a conveyor-belt-sushi-bar game, I just had to try it out.

From the Isle of Cyprus via a company called Fun Monkey Ltd, this is Super Sushi Merger.

Look how cute that logo is!!!

This game is cute, cute, cute. Free to download and play on Android (can't vouch for Apple, since I'm not an Apple person), Super Sushi Merger is an adorable little merge game. You have two of the same kind of sushi and drag one on top of the other. They become a different, more expensive sushi! Then you drag your newly-crafted sushi onto the conveyor belt and feed it to your patron!

There's a lot to break down here, bear with me!

So you have that little kokeshi doll person at the top, right? The one in yellow? That's your patron. Your sushi goes clockwise around the conveyor belt, and when it passes your patron, you get money (the yellow coin in the upper left). As you level up (and/or if you watch ads) you get Gems, which are a premium currency you can buy to ditch ads altogether (purchases between $0.99-$9.99). I appreciate that neither gems nor ads are necessary to enjoy this game - kind of. There are occasional, nigh-unskippable ads when you're backing out of the store, but I'll get to that in a minute.

The little businessman kokeshi sticking out of the upper right? He's there to help you invite VIPs. So far I've had a guy who looked a lot like the Samyang chicken and a lady in a polka-dot kimono. Again, more on that in a minute.

The body of your sushi bar expands as you level up by finding new sushi. You do this by merging things as often as possible. To get new sushi, you either wait for the sushi chef (bottom left egg-shaped Daruma thingie) to produce a new box (the red boxes!) which produces the basic, all-green sushi, tap the table in the bottom center to get him to work faster, or buy sushi from the shop button. Occasionally, you'll get a special blue box on your center section. This is a sushi that's a higher level and can be anywhere from one to several steps above your basic sushi.

You also sometimes get different lantern balloons that float across the top of your screen. By tapping on these and watching a video, you activate different bonuses! That fire balloon would make my sushi-chef work in overdrive, filling my center section rapidly. Different balloons have different bonuses!

Businessman kokeshi wants me to invite a red panda to my sushi bar!

 When you tap on your businessman kokeshi, he'll tell you who your next VIP guest is going to be and how to get them to visit! To get the Red Panda to visit, I'll need to collect 183 million coins (done), buy 100 sushi in the shop (also done), and open 12 gift boxes, which I haven't done. The orange "+2 Free" button means that I'll get 2 gift boxes for free if I watch the ad they're showing here. I haven't done this, nor will I. It's not that the ads are obnoxious (they're not) or that they're overly long (they're not), it's just that I'm lazy. I'll wait for my free gift boxes to fill up, then I'll open them. It's just an hour wait. It's not like I'm trying to speed through the levels or anything - this game is fun enough to take the long road.

But if I did want to watch the ads but my phone could either not play the ad or the ad was broken, they wouldn't punish me! I've never lost a gift box or bonus by having an unplayable ad. This is one of the most forgiving advertising systems I've ever experienced.

Speaking of ads and gift boxes...

In the store, you can buy different sushi that you've unlocked to speed up your leveling, spur on an invite, or just because you like to look at Sake Ura Maki spinning around your conveyor belt. It's also where you collect gift boxes. If you wait the full hour, you get a free gift box without watching a single ad, but sometimes, when you back out of the shop, you'll trigger an ad. I'm okay with this. This is how the game makes money. I mean, most apps these days have ridiculous hundred-dollar options for you to buy, but this one only goes up to ten (or did last I checked). It's perfectly fair to me to have occasional ads so they can continue making smooth little games like this.

Overall, this is an adorable, enjoyable game, perfect for wasting time. It even functions offline! Obviously, you can't get free gift boxes or bonus balloons, but you can still tap and drag and merge and convey your sushi along!

If you like sushi and casual gaming, definitely give Super Sushi Merger a go. It's worth the download :)

Go Enjoy Something!
FC