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 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