Games I've Been Playing Recently : Mobile
So this blog is slightly different from what we have posted previously, but as many young adults I am simply at the whims of the mobile gaming advertising and trends. I don’t pay $8 for no ads since I go through mobile games like no tomorrow, but these particular 3 have gotten me thinking about the trend that I am admittedly late to.
All the games I’m going to mention are relatively simple to pick and play, just one main mechanic that gets more difficult as you go. Many of these games have simple ads that are designed to be frustrating to watch; with the intent on players downloading just to complete the level and “prove” that they are smarter than the advert.
I have downloaded these games to feel the satisfaction of completing what couldn’t be done in the ad; however I have come across an interesting trend of the difficulty of these games becoming near impossible very quickly. All of the games do provide solutions if you have the currency or time to spare, but they don’t provide a lot of the in-game currency so more often than not watching an ad or purchasing in-game currency is the only way to properly progress through the levels.
I am going to introduce 3 games that follow this small trend, all of which I have been playing for the past month or so. This blog isn’t intended to paint the developers in a bad light, this is just an observation that I have made playing some of the previously popular mobile games from the past months.
Screwdom 3D
A game playing on the screw puzzle trend of recent, but 3D! You unscrew blocks to reveal more screws but you’re restricted by colour and only have a few select “any colour” reserves. This ensures that it is: a) a puzzle game and not a zen pull apart game and b) that there is some level of thought going into the game.
I really like this game, out of all the 3 mentioned I have played this the most and will repeatedly try to complete this game for hours at a time with varying levels of success.
The artstyle and animation, although simple, is striking enough that I did actually download the game and give it a solid go; with only nit-picky “complaints” about small things.
One feature this game has is that you can hold down a block to see what coloured screws are behind it, this becomes essential towards the end when you are required to start using your reserve spots to get to the coloured screws you’re looking for.
However, I have found that sometimes it just doesn’t feel possible to complete a level without requiring help from watching an ad; sometimes there are just too many screws in your way.
Luck is definitely involved in this game with the colours switching everytime you try or retry a level. With the colours not staying consistent in a way that suggests a tried and tested method of completion.
As you can see the screws don’t change in the same sequence per-se and it comes across as random; with each level having over 150 screws it would be incredibly difficult to test and ensure that each level is completable with any combination of colours.
Furthermore, you don’t get abilities very often either, so you’re more likely to use those to complete the level after you’ve obtained them and then have to watch more ads to complete the rest till you get gifted a bunch of abilities again – which is not often.
I am currently at level 178 with an assumedly endless number of levels ahead.
Landbuilder
This game requires players to place hexagonal land pieces that have different environments or biomes on them; when a biome from a side of the not yet placed hexagon matches the biome from a placed hexagon you get points/stars for each side matching. This is a fun and engaging mechanic for a mobile game and I very much enjoy the game; my problem starts with the fact that there are limited land pieces and requirements that you have to meet to pass each level; the requirements tend to need a certain amount of specific biomes to be placed next to each other, with the starting number of pieces staying the same despite the difficulty increase.
This comes to a point where every piece you place must have 3 sides matching to give you an extra piece – however with as much as 4 biomes existing in each level and pieces having up to 3 biomes it becomes a genuine puzzle that becomes more and more impossible to complete.
Each piece you can place can have up to 3 different biomes on it, requiring a very specific placement to get points. More difficult levels have around 4 biomes that can be found in it which creates a genuine puzzle; however the pieces are random with the ability to affect what appears as you play through. This does mean that there is some luck and you just have to hope you get what you need and that you have a spot to place it for points and extra pieces.
This is easiest to see when you go to complete challenge levels that are just after level 10 – but it is more difficult than level 40; just a difficulty curve like a damn cliff.
The exponential difficulty is something that I like, a super slow progression for a genuine challenge is pretty common and kinda boring for someone who loves puzzles of all kinds. However I think this game is a tad extreme when it comes to increasing the difficulty. It doesn’t push the player to increase their skill or knowledge of the game’s mechanics, but just makes them run into a brick wall, Looney Tunes style.
I am currently at level 41 with what looks to be more than 10 more levels to go; with extra/challenge levels interspersed within.
Bus Jam & Car Jam
Bus and Car Jam are 2 games with the same core mechanic and abilities; sort through gridlocked cars and fill them with the same coloured stick-figures waiting at the top of the screen.. This is challenging due to the limited parking spots immediately available. You can get more spots by watching ads to unlock them, however I believe these should be a last minute choice because of a mistake you made and not the solution.
I genuinely enjoy these styles of games and have played the few simpler games that didn’t require picking up passengers – just sorting the cars. So this game was a no brainer download; and while I do enjoy this game, it is certainly less chill and casual than the original car sorter. This was something that I wasn’t entirely aware of when I downloaded the game, with many mobile ads purposefully instilling a sense of frustration at the dumbness expressed in advertisements.
Both games are not entirely random with just the colour palette swapping in comparison to Screwdom 3D; which is definitely just random. However to complete the levels you have to remember the exact order from your previous tries that got you the furthest and try different strategies; with over 50 cars in each level, a consistently swapping colour palette and many of the cars hidden underground that is just not feasible.
I do think that abilities are something that should be accounted for the solution you are guaranteed to have any when you go to complete a level; which makes it almost certain that you just have to try and get as far as you can in a level and then watch an ad to use whichever ability is going to help you overcome your current obstacle; this doesn’t guarantee that you will be able to complete the level either. All the more frustrating when you lose your only ability from the previous level.
I am currently at level 52 in Bus Jam with an unknown number of levels ahead of me and level 165 in Car Jam; I have hit a wall in both games where I am unable to complete the current level.
Whilst all these games have certainly earned their worth and are genuinely made well, I just couldn’t help but notice a trend with many of the seemingly easy games with frustrating adverts. They aren’t easy and are definitely made with the intent to push players to either buy their in-game currency or watch ads to help complete levels.
This monetisation model is certainly not new by any means, we all remember games from our childhoods becoming pay to win if you didn’t want to wait 48+ hrs to complete one task with nothing else to do in the game while you waited. However, It is still very frustrating to play a game that turned out to be significantly more difficult than you expected.
But such is the nature of mobile games, trends only last a little bit and so there really isn’t a whole lot of time for developers to spend perfecting the difficulty curve of their games if they want to stay on top of the current demands of the platform’s users.
So while I may have some strong thoughts and opinions of these games and their difficulty, I will certainly continue to play them and continue to follow whatever trends the mobile platform decides to take.
(Merge food games, and I’m already on it)
