New game in the marketplace. Free download, fun fast paced matching game with a Pokémon style catch them all theme. Nice graphics.
Here's my problem with this game, and it's a big one -- it has the most obnoxious blending of in app purchases and ads I have ever seen.
There are two forms of currency in the game, gems and coins:
- Coins are fairly readily earned and allow you to use captured monsters to assist with getting new ones. That's right, even though you won your monsters, you have to pay to employ them in a round. Want to make coin supply a non-issue? For $20 they sell you a bunch.
- Gems are needed to employ the more powerful monsters and to extend time on a board if you didn't make enough matches for the target monster to evolve. They are very stingy to come by in the game. $1.49 in app purchase only bought enough gems to extend 3 boards (there are nearly 200 monsters to capture in this game!) and use a more powerful monster several times. They offer a bunch of gems for $30, not sure if it would even be enough to complete the game.
The difficulty balance of this game makes it such that to get a mythical/legendary type monster, I had to spend coins or gems to employ a monster for assistance, and I typically got very close to evolving the target monster at the end of the timer and had the spend gems to finish the job.
Furthering the in app purchase nonsense, there are all types of monster customizations available and they are very expensive for what they are.
Lastly, the ads ... after playing a level there is a timer set that requires you to wait 10-15 minutes before revisiting it. You can bypass the clock if you submit to watching a 30 second ad.
To me this is the most obnoxious in app purchase and ad system I have ever seen. It's a shame because I think the game is pretty fun. IMO this is not where gaming should be going, it's disgraceful. I understand developers need to make money, but this is just way over the top.
Here's my problem with this game, and it's a big one -- it has the most obnoxious blending of in app purchases and ads I have ever seen.
There are two forms of currency in the game, gems and coins:
- Coins are fairly readily earned and allow you to use captured monsters to assist with getting new ones. That's right, even though you won your monsters, you have to pay to employ them in a round. Want to make coin supply a non-issue? For $20 they sell you a bunch.
- Gems are needed to employ the more powerful monsters and to extend time on a board if you didn't make enough matches for the target monster to evolve. They are very stingy to come by in the game. $1.49 in app purchase only bought enough gems to extend 3 boards (there are nearly 200 monsters to capture in this game!) and use a more powerful monster several times. They offer a bunch of gems for $30, not sure if it would even be enough to complete the game.
The difficulty balance of this game makes it such that to get a mythical/legendary type monster, I had to spend coins or gems to employ a monster for assistance, and I typically got very close to evolving the target monster at the end of the timer and had the spend gems to finish the job.
Furthering the in app purchase nonsense, there are all types of monster customizations available and they are very expensive for what they are.
Lastly, the ads ... after playing a level there is a timer set that requires you to wait 10-15 minutes before revisiting it. You can bypass the clock if you submit to watching a 30 second ad.
To me this is the most obnoxious in app purchase and ad system I have ever seen. It's a shame because I think the game is pretty fun. IMO this is not where gaming should be going, it's disgraceful. I understand developers need to make money, but this is just way over the top.
