Saturday Casual Gaming 310: Merge Magic

In Which Gram Games Has Done It Again

Once Upon a Time, I played a mobile game called Merge Dragons, and it was good. It got overwhelming at a certain point, and some of the challenges seemed literally impossible, but I enjoyed it when I played it.

Then I discovered Gram Games' other merge/match-3 game: Merge Magic.

What a pretty loading screen...

So Merge Magic is basically identical to Merge Dragons, but with an emphasis on other mythical beasts, rather than solely focusing on dragons. So it's literally the same game with a paint job.

Except...

I'm having more fun playing it, it's more challenging yet much more fairly balanced, and a lot of the creatures are cuter than the dragons were.

So I'm having a blast. I've got magic llamas, magic squirrels, fairies, and more - all digging up rocks and throwing money at me and it's great.

And the holiday events! If I devoted an entire weekend to them, like they seem to expect, I might actually be able to beat one, one of these tries, but they're impossible for a casual player to defeat unaided by real money. Then again, half the fun is seeing how many event points you can rack up before the event ends, so that's still really fun!

And it's actually pretty easy to get the home garden cleared in good time, too!

So basically, if you liked Merge Dragons, you'll probably like Merge Magic. Keep an eye out for secret levels on the level select screen, match away to your heart's content, and just... earn all of the stars. Earn them all. Every last one. You never know when one will turn out to contain gems (the premium currency)!

It's available in the app store, if you were wondering.

That'll about do it for me today - I know, short and sweet...

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 302: Merge Flowers vs Zombies

In Which I May Have Been Duped

If, like me, you've been a PC gamer most of your life, you've likely come across a game called Plants Vs Zombies, a strategic tower defense game by PopCap. If you've played it, you'll know it's both ridiculous and addictive, so imagine if you saw something that had a shockingly similar name but a slightly different gameplay style on Google Play for free? You'd probably check it out, right?

Well, I did.

I legit thought it was an offshoot for about... five minutes.

Similar style to Plants vs Zombies, too...

Within a few minutes, I realized that, despite the cosmetic similarities, and the fact that both games have you defending your home from hordes of the undead using only horticulture, they're not actually from the same company.

For one, Crazy Dave never shows up, and he's maybe the best part of Plants Vs Zombies, so I was very disappoint.

Still, Merge Flowers vs Zombies is a pretty decent game, and it's forgiving enough that I can play it distracted.

It's also bananas

You have a lawn with limited space. You know how to instantly crossbreed two plants to make a new kind of plant. You have a ton of ads to watch for bonuses and extra plants.

Yeah, this game is basically just a blatant cash-grab. As fun as it is, it has a new ad for you to watch every five seconds (maximum!) and you can't get too far too quickly without sinking in hours watching the same six ads over and over and over and over and over.... and over again.

You can ignore the ads, of course, and just wait for new plants to auto-spawn, but that takes a lot longer than watching a 15-30 second ad.

It's merge-style gameplay, so you drag and drop a plant on top of its double (if you have one) on your board to upgrade it to the next level of plant. Different plants have different abilities (massive damage, freezing, slowing, poison, etc). The more merges you make the more damage your plants do, and so on and so forth. It's an incredibly basic game with no surprises.

The lack of surprises is this game's strength - you don't have to do some clever combination of things to unlock the next part of the game, it's straightforward and tells you what you need to do to win from the very beginning. When you fail a level, you still get a (small) reward for trying. There are drones carrying extra plants that you can click on and watch an ad to get those plants on your grid (they seem to buffer, so if you're out of room but want the extra plants, go for it). The hordes of zombies are consistent and simple.

Basically, this is an excellent waiting-room or airport game - something to play if you've got time but need your attention elsewhere.

As a standalone "I want to play video games" kind of game, however, it's not quite like Plants vs Zombies, and I'm surprised they haven't been sued.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 239: Merge Farm

Merge Farm from Gram Games

By now, you'll have noticed that I really, really like merge games. There's something about the "condense two or more of the same item into a new one" gameplay that I find soothing. So I like to move things onto themselves and turn them into new, better versions of themselves. You may recall that I've recently covered an otherwise inoffensive merge game with absolutely unacceptable permissions requests on the Android store?

Well, this game has no such issues.

Also, it's heckin' cute.

If you recognize the name "Gram Games", then you may recall that I've played and enjoyed another of their offerings, Merge Dragons, before. It was a nice three-in-a-row merger that I still like to play now and then, so I was not exactly trepidatious when I downloaded Merge Farm.

It's a cute little game where you merge two of the same crop onto each other to improve how much you harvest from each one. Then, when there's a bit of shine (and/or movement) to your crops, you can easily harvest them by swiping the basket over the crop! Once you collect enough of certain crops, you can sell them to customers near the top of the screen for money, which you can use to buy more crops, buy more space, or eventually buy new and interesting buildings, manufacturing spaces, or farm animals!

Don't want to spend money on crops? Don't worry! The game is gentle with you and will periodically drop leaves from the top of the screen. Tap those leaves to collect them, then match two leaves to get a seed! Match two seeds to get a random crop at level 1! You'll get a lot of tomato plants that way early on, but I use the leaf > seed > crop connection to spawn free crops all the time. More crops mean more sales! More sales mean more money! More money means more space! It's agricultural capitalism at its finest!

On the other hand, things are a bit crowded.

If I have one complaint with this cute, fun game, it's that you can't always click what you want. If the leaf is near the banner ad at the top of the screen (which you can pay real money to remove), then you can't click it. If it's near a customer, you can't click it. There's a big cash shop button in the bottom right that I keep accidentally clicking when I want to check my storage (the gray-and-yellow button) or to shop for new buildings/farm animals (the red-and-yellow button). I also bump the cash shop button when I'm trying to scroll through the available crops to buy more of them.

On the other hand, it's 100% free - you don't have to pay real money for anything if you don't want. The game functions perfectly well on its own without any cash buffs. I actually kind of like having the (mostly) unobtrusive banner ad up above, since I know that supports the developers long-term, and if they're being supported, then they can keep making such cute, fun games!

Overall, I'd have to say that Merge Farm is an excellent choice to pick up for free in the Android or Apple stores. I think it may be on Facebook, as well!

That'll do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 238: Mergical

Mergical by Betta Games

I love the concept of Merge games. It's basically Marie-Kondoing a game board and there's something wonderful about that feeling of gratification when you've consolidated dozens of similar items down to a few disparate things spread much further apart. You feel like you're cleaning, but you don't get as overwhelmed as if you were cleaning, say, a hoarder's house...

Anyway, that's all a long-winded way of me letting you know that I've been playing Mergical, a mobile game by Betta Games.

And yes, weird dolls are an important part of this game.

Mergical is a lot like Merge Dragons in a lot of ways. You merge groups of 3 together, you're unlocking parts of an island covered in clouds, you're healing land, you're collecting currencies and magic power, etc, etc. Instead of collecting and merging dragons, however, you collect and merge... people. Not sure how to feel about that. Especially since you merge dolls to get people.

Are they golems?

Am I summoning actual people who are desperate to escape?

Am I a monster?

Whatever's going on, you want to match things in groups of three, and you want to do it a lot.

I mean, this is only a couple of unlocks into the game. If it was zoomed out, it could feel overwhelming.

So far, I've only unlocked two or three sections of island, but it's enough to give me a feel, I think, for how this game plays.

Here's the good:

• The graphics are adorable - everything looks good and cute!
• The clouds are precious little hearts!
• Items progress in a way that seems to make a lot of sense (fruit tree seeds > fruit tree saplings > fruit trees > apple trees > pear trees)
• Your helpers respond when you drag and drop them or when you double tap an item for them to collect
• The challenge levels (which are located in the bottom left corner) are quite reasonable (so far)
• The "quests" (located on the left hand side) are fairly straightforward and not impossible without spending real money
• The game is very generous with its rewards, granting you gifts for time spent in-game, specific in-game tasks, and more.

But there are some problems:

• Items don't like to be told where to go - sometimes I'll tap on something to move it and it won't go where I say, other times I'll brush by something to move the screen and an item will move where I don't want it.
• It's very limited gameplay so far
• It's easy to get overwhelmed with so many items in one place
• It takes a very, very long time for seeds to sprout on their own.
• For some reason, this game wants permission to make calls from my phone. That's a big no-no, Betta Games. Fix that. It's not okay or cool. It shouldn't ever have a reason to ask that.

If they can ditch the incredibly nosy permissions they ask for, I would unreservedly suggest this as a game for your younger kids (even with some cash shop items available - just don't give your phone access to your finances and they can't charge these things to you).

6/10, could be a lot of fun.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 230: Merge City

Sphere Games Studios made this merging game!

So, you might have noticed that I'm really getting into these merging games - you take two of the same item, you drag one on top of the other, bam, new item. Do this until you win. Or get bored. Or both. I like the monotony, believe it or not. Monotony is my jam.

So are neon colors and building things, so this Sphere Game Studios offering on Android is absolutely tailor-made for me.

You start off with a limited amount of space.

In the early game, you have just the nine spaces in the center, but as you level up (by merging more and more buildings together) you don't just gain new styles of building, you also earn more spaces in your city! There looks like there's a lot going on here, but don't worry, it's not as complex as you might think.

The double arrow button is just a cash shop where you can spend real money to gain some in-game bonuses. I'm not a cash-shop person, but if you feel a burning desire to support Sphere Games Studio, that's certainly a fast way to do so!

The medal button leads to your Achievements - these will earn you more coins as you go along, so keep an eye out and tap it when it throws up a little red bubble with a white exclamation point - that means you have a new Achievement to check!

The last button on the left is the x2 button. This is... pretty self-explanatory - it's a way of doubling income from your houses by watching an ad.

On the upper left are your gear button - a way to check out in-game options like volume (though I haven't heard any music?) notifications, language, etc - and your bar-graph button - which is the leaderboard. I'm in more than 4000th place...

On the upper right, there's a game pad button. This enables a mini-game where you try to stack blocks all the way to the top of the screen without them collapsing. I suck at this game, and it was impossible for me to play it and take a screenshot, so... sorry about that.

On the bottom right, there are three buttons (eventually). On the top, you'll have a globe button, which will take you to a new city or "world" when you reach a high enough level. Below that is a standard shop button, which you can access to buy buildings from with your coins!

Below that is a little house with a number - this is a quick-buy for a house. I haven't had much use for it, but it's cool to see the box color be yellow instead of the red, blue, or purple boxes I'm used to.

Speaking of boxes...

As usually happens in games like this, you have boxes which your buildings come in. The red boxes are your normal buildings - the lowest level ones you can get, usually. The blue boxes are higher-level buildings that appear randomly as a bonus as you play. Purple boxes are bonus coins! All of these boxes are free and can either be tapped into existence on the center bottom box button, or they'll time into being on their own, slowly filling your board!

Eventually, you'll get enough levels to gain another city/world.

One of the chief complaints I've seen on this game is that it's just what it says - a merging game. I don't really see how that's a bad thing. Yes, these games can get tedious. Yes, they can be hard to manage over time. No, I don't mind - that's half the fun!

So if the only real complaint I've seen is that the game is honest about its nature, that's not so bad, eh?

One last note: on occasion, you'll see a paper airplane gliding over the city. This is another ad opportunity where you can get bonuses by clicking on it. Otherwise, I haven't been bombarded by ads at all!

Overall, I'd say that Merge City is a really pleasant, simple game with some stunning visuals. I love the eternal sunset background on these floating cities, and the gameplay is fun while not being too taxing. It's a perfect bus-ride game!

That'll do it for me today, guys!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC