Android

Idle Fortress Tower Defense (Updated)

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The Game

Idle Fortress Tower Defense is a mobile game by DD Games. As suggested by the fairly generic name it’s a simple game with a simple premise – upgrade your fortress and defeat an onslaught of enemy waves. The concept of an idle tower defence game was something that intrigued me, however I was a little disappointed that this game isn’t really what I would call an “idle”.

The game has quite a typical mobile cartoony art style that works quite nicely. The core gameplay loop is doing runs in which you see how many waves you can last. You can upgrade your tower heavily throughout the battle with silver coins that you earn. During your run you will also earn gold which can be used to permanently upgrade your tower at the factory or research lab. Every 10 waves a buffed up boss will also appear, providing a significant challenge. There are plenty of upgrades to unlock including a variety of shot types, satellites, health and defence upgrades.

Screenshot of Idle Fortress Tower Défense showing the card roll gatcha
In-game screenshot of the upgrade options in the main menu showing the upgrades available like attack, slow chance.
In-game screenshot of Idle Fortress Tower Defense, showing the player's progress and stats, as well as the upgrade options available for the tower.
Image of Idle Fortress Tower Defense gameplay, featuring a top-down view of the player's base and defenses, with waves of enemies approaching from the side.
In game screenshot showing overall progress and number of waves passed.

Worth it?

The game is free to play and still in development. A lot has changed in the game since it first came out. Ad watching is there to increase the amount earned from a run, revive you if you die and generally something you can choose to do. I wouldn’t really call this an “idle” game due to the fact that you actually have to be quite active when doing a run and being selective of what gets upgraded. The only idle element is the gem mine which awards you gems every so often. You can also perform research tasks while offline.

The game is quite good for active play sessions, which can last anywhere between 5 and 15-20 minutes depending on how many waves you manage to get, as you progress there are other ways to speed up fights. The game has become quite monetised with various subscription or purchase options. Overall it’s a fun game and is has built on a solid base. It would be nice to know when the second area is actually unlocked as it feels like it’s quite far away and can be a bit of a struggle to reach. The game is actually quite challenging and ramps up its difficulty quite early on.

There isn’t that much in the way of idle mechanics, perhaps if the tower fought off waves with it’s permanent upgrades and restarted every time it died or some sort of auto-buyer it could be more of an idle (while afk). Another option would be some sort of idle farms or mechanics that tick while you are away from the game. Either way as an active-play game there’s a good amount to get stuck into, it would be nice to see more cards and card slots and possibly even more upgrades, secondary turrets, areas, enemies and maybe even some more truly idle mechanics.

Tips

  • Focus on upgrading gold and coins per level as early as possible – coins per level are no longer available, but gold is still quite useful but you can and should now pour more into dodge chance, multishot and attack. You can still get coin per wave bonus via research so do boost it there
  • Life-steal has been nerfed somewhat but still useful for getting past bosses
  • Regeneration is generally useless as the tougher enemies will just wipe you out
  • Unlock all card slots and cards asap, keep purchasing and upgrading cards with your gems
  • Get the second research tab and run longer research tasks in there (thanks to cory for that one)
  • The maximum game speed multiplier is 3x
  • Try to unlock all attack perks as the last one is an instant kill shot chance, paired with a high attack speed this can be very useful
  • Claim free coins, gems and research shards every 4 hours from the top of the home page
  • Lookout for the little creature with the bag full of gems that occasionally appears – tap it to gain a few gems
  • Shield spawn time is quite quick and easy to max out

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Minecraft (Bedrock Edition) – Coming Back to Minecraft After 10+ years

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The Game

Minecraft a game developed by Mojang needs little to no introduction. The game started in Alpha in 2010 and was officially released in 2011. There are technically two independent versions – Bedrock and Java edition, where Bedrock is the version available on all consoles, mobile and windows 10. Over the years the game has continuously been developed and grown far beyond what it was in those very early days. It still carries on growing even today with the recent 1.18 Caves and Cliffs update and the upcoming 1.19 Wild update.

If you haven’t played for as long as I have you really are in for a treat. The world generation, biomes, creatures, NPCs, crafting and literally every single element of the game has had some sort of addition or expansion over the years. There are new animals like pandas, bees, axolotls, alpacas and more. The Nether has been completely overhauled with new nether biomes and structures like bastions, there is more to the End than just the dragon – end cities allow for late game dungeons and loot to be obtained. Oceans have changed massively, sunken ships, buried treasures, corals, sea turtles, ruins, ocean monuments and elder guardians and many other additions have made the oceans of Minecraft a lot more interesting and worth exploring as much as any overworld biome. There are now various types of mountain, taiga forests, ice biomes. There are new types of caves and the world goes deeper than ever before.

Villagers were only just introduced when I last played Minecraft all those years ago and while initially they didn’t have much purpose, they are now an integral part to surviving. There are a variety of villages depending on the biome they spawn in, various villager professions, each with its own set of trades. Trading with villagers will level them up, unlocking new trade options – sometimes even allowing you trade for incredibly rare items. The villagers now also have enemies in the world, their evil counterparts – the illagers. These can spawn on patrol in the world, in woodland mansions, at pillager outposts or during raids. There are various types of illagers each with their own skills, weapons and abilities. There is also a sequence of events whereby killing an illager captain (gaining the Bad Omen status) and then walking into a village will trigger a raid by consecutives waves of illagers. Defeat the raid and you might get an amazing drop – the Totem of Undying (hold in your hand when you die to instantly respawn).

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Worth it?

Generally speaking whichever version you may choose you will likely be spending anywhere from £10 to £20 for the game. There are various CD Key outlets offering lower prices too. What’s most important is to define that any platform other than desktop will be the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft. On PC you will have a choice between the original Java edition and Bedrock Edition. While the majority of the core game mechanics are the same between games, there are some very key differences in terms of mob spawning and various other niche elements that could potentially make all those tutorials for farms you are watching irrelevant to your version. The other very notable difference between the two is that on Java you will have access to endless free mods, texture packs and other community content. On Bedrock you will need to purchase Minecoins in order to buy the same types of things.

While on the one hand the store in Bedrock is a nice chance for content creators to get recognised and make money from their work it also takes away from so much that Minecraft originally was and feels like a bit of a cold attempt at squeezing more money out of the player. On consoles you cannot play split-screen unless the other player also has a purchased version/account on Minecraft – making local/offline couch co-op not an option, which was actually a major disappointment and feels like a bit of slap in the face. Changes are also being made to bring Java edition more in line with this, under the guise of improving player safety.

Overall it’s very difficult to fault Minecraft as a game – it really has withstood the test of time and coming back to it after being away for so long is like rediscovering something you loved as a kid which has kept growing and changing over all these years. The game has proven itself in terms of depth and potential and the continuous work on it means there’s always something to look forward to. If you want to lose potentially thousands of hours building and surviving in your very own Minecraft world, or last played it more than 5 years ago – then by all means give it a go.

Tips

  • Make a shield and equip it as soon as you have access to iron
  • Donkeys can be equipped with chests to help carry more
  • Animals can be leashed to fence posts
  • Scutes dropped from baby turtles can help make a helmet that will help you spend more time underwater
  • Mobs cannot spawn on bottom half slab blocks (or other non-whole blocks like rails, string, carpets)
  • Traveling 1 block in the Nether is equivalent to travelling 8 in the above world
  • Enable coordinates on Bedrock – make note/screenshots of coordinates you want to come back to
  • Keep a water bucket on you, it can be useful to go up/down into ravines or to put yourself out if you’re on fire
  • Mending is a great enchantment for your high-level gear – it will repair your equipment with exp
  • Automate things using redstone contraptions
  • You can reset villager trades by removing their work station and replacing it – once you have made a trade with a villager that will lock their trades in even if the work station is moved
  • Check a seed map to find out where various things in your world are located

Useful Links

The Way Home – Pixel Roguelike

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The Game

The Way Home by CONCODE is a rogue-like dungeon explorer game with some interesting crafting and progression mechanics. You play as a cat named Cheese fighting your way through procedurally generated dungeons as you attempt to figure out how you and your human ended up on a mysterious island. Each time you take on a dungeon you can choose the skills you get when you level up from a choice of stat improvements, passive abilities or modifiers for your bow shots.

At the end of each floor of the dungeon you will have the option to walk away with all resources you have gathered so far or to carry on (risking the loss of 2/3 of your gathered materials). Once you return to your home island you can invest the materials gathered into work stations, permanent buffs or new spells and passive abilities to chose from on your dungeon runs. As you progress you also find out more about the backstory to how you ended up on this island and why it is so cursed.

Worth it?

The game is really fun and aesthetically pleasing, there’s a good sense of progression and it provides a good challenge too. The story and writing are interesting and engaging, there’s a variety of enemies and their attack patterns and a good variety of upgrades and skills to try out. Where this game is let down a little bit is in it’s pricing for the full game.

After beating the first boss you are prompted to pay £5.99 to access the remaining 3 islands of the game OR watch around 15-20 ads per platform (you need to get to the adjacent island) and then watch an ad after every dungeon run. While this model is quite interesting and does allow you to essentially play the game for free, quite a few players feel a bit tricked by the free trial aspect of the first island (no ads). The full game price is possibly slightly on the expensive side – 15-20% less would make it a much easier decision to purchase.

Tips

  • Research the work stations first (Resource/Etc page)
  • Focus on getting the better pick to get better materials (Anvil)
  • Skills that modify your arrows (like Ricochet) are particularly useful for attacking large groups of mobs
  • For the boss focus on building up your damage and health, ideally have a potion as well

Useful Links

Reigns

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The Game

Reigns is the first game in the Reigns series, first released in 2016 – developed by Nerial and published by Devolver Digital. The concept of the game is brilliantly simple and effective. You are a king (if you would like to be a queen, you can always try Reigns: Her Majesty) at the head of an unruly kingdom faced with many decisions. Each decision is basically a Yes/No decision made by swiping left or right, reminiscent of everybody’s favourite dating apps (Tinder, Bumble, etc). Every decision will affect the 4 key factions that you need to keep in check – the church, the people, the army and the treasury. Deplete any one of those and you will be killed; allow any one of them to max out and you will be killed – dying will end your current reign and you will start as a new ruler. There are some really interesting characters, decisions and surprises that will keep you on your toes at all times.

Worth it?

Reigns is a wonderfully simple and yet surprisingly deep game. Some story lines and characters immerge after several lives or even the devil himself. The game will set you back around £1.99 (or $2.99), which is quite worth it, even more so if it is on sale. My single biggest issue with the game is the rotation on mobile – it doesn’t listen for the phone’s rotation (even if locked) and will auto-rotate, making it quite annoying when you’d like to keep the game in portrait, like if you are lying down. Other than that it’s really hard to fault the game. Occasionally if you close the game mid-reign it may not save your progress.

Overall it’s a nice looking game, with simple yet entertaining mechanics, a surprising amount of depth, loads of achievements and objectives to unlock. It’s cheap and has loads of replay value; perfect for either short time-killing sessions or lengthier runs.

Tips

  • The little dots above each of the factions indicate how big an effect that decision will have, however you don’t know if it will be a positive or negative effect
  • Decisions that continuously affect your standing with a faction will increment it constantly, meaning you can wait for it for a minute or two to fill/deplete before making a decision
  • Build the barn – this will come in handy if the people decide to turn on you, giving you an extra shot
  • Understand what adds to a faction’s standing and what detracts – over time you will get better at keeping them all in check
  • For tips on a long reign, check out the wiki: https://reigns.fandom.com/wiki/Strategy

Useful Links

Punch Club

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The Game

Punch Club developed by Lazy Bear Studios and published by tinyBuild is a pixel graphics fighting simulation game. With elements reminiscent of Sims and loads of references to cult classic films there’s quite a bit to unpack with this game. The game has a fairly simple and straightforward gameplay loop consisting of training to level up your stats, working to earn cash and fighting your way to becoming champion of the world (technically you watch your character fight).

Every day you will have to balance exercise, work and other tasks to progress, at the end of every day you will lose a significant chunk of your stats. There are three main attributes that you can develop – strength (red), agility (blue) and stamina (green). Different gym equipment will level you up at different speeds, exercise too long on one piece of equipment and you’ll start earning less points, so make sure to change up your routine as soon as that happens. Your stats tie in to your fighting abilities and skills. After each fight you will learn skill points which can be spent learning new skills, moves or perks. As if all of that wasn’t enough you also have to ensure you’ve got enough food, energy and happiness each day. In the early game finding the balance between working to earn money and training is particularly difficult, so you’ll probably be stuffing yourself with frozen pizzas for quite some time.

The story focuses on a character who dreams of becoming a great fighter and avenging his father’s death. As you become a better fighter more elements to the story will unfold, as well as some side-stories, which actually get pretty weird after a while. The game world is packed with references to movies like Fight Club, Rocky, The Simpsons, John Wick and even Jay and Silent Bob (if you look outside the store) and some truly beautiful pixel art.

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Worth it?

This isn’t an easy game. Especially the early game can be particularly hard as you balance working, training and fighting. Once you start to unlock better jobs, some home equipment and more skills things begin to get a bit easier and the game starts to click. The mid-game (from Din Kong) onwards begins to get a bit easier, however it is also worth noting that this is an extremely grindy game. While losing some stats every day makes sense and is an established mechanic it also makes the game really hard and you will be spending an extremely long time levelling up your stats (especially for the final fights). While it is quite punishing, it also makes for a good challenge. Some story lines will also present you with choices which will affect them, potentially making completion for those story lines unachievable.

You can get the game for around £1.50 on sale, which is absolutely worth it. The game provides a good challenge, is wonderfully aesthetic, has an interesting story and loads of film references to keep you going. It will take you quite a few hours to complete your first playthrough and you may be tempted to do a second one after (maybe even a speedrun). The sound track can get a bit repetitive after hours of grinding and the game itself can get a bit repetitive and grindy towards the end, but other than that it is quite difficult to fault it. If you see the game on sale, grab it.

Tips

  • In the early game meat is the most effective cost per food item, however pizza is better at recovering your health
  • Making money is only difficult in the early game – focus on getting your own equipment at home so as to avoid the daily cost of the gym
  • The skip attack skills is very useful if you are draining your energy very quickly
  • Adapt your strategy from round to round – try out different moves, counters and defensive moves
  • Fights will teleport you directly to the location so you can save yourself the walking
  • Keep skills just above a level if the day is about to tick over, so you can easily get it back up again at the start of the new day
  • Focus on unlocking the extra skill slots early in the skill tree
  • Look ahead at what gets you where in the skill tree, plan ahead
  • Once you are living with Din Kong focus on upgrading daily allowance asap, money will also become a trivial concern pretty quickly then
  • You can collect the prize from Mickey in the trailer park twice
  • Skill unlock cost caps at 25
  • The flower locations for Adrian are: Roy’s garden, the Warehouse, the Bar, Mick’s office and your house
  • Check out the wiki for more tips/tricks

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Cats & Soup – Relaxing Cat Game

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The Game

Looking for an aesthetically pleasing and chill idle game, love cats? Cats&Soup – Relaxing Cat Game by HIDEA is an amazingly beautiful and cute idle cat game. Purchase various stations – making soups or juices, prepping ingredients or places to relax and then hire some cute cats to perform those actions. As they make soups and juices you can sell them to start making some gold. As you make gold you can upgrade your existing stations or purchase new ones to add new ingredients. The game also offers some other ways to make money, including a grabber game or fishing. Your cats can also be upgraded, clothed and have their “rooms” with furniture, wallpaper or various other decorations.

The attention to detail in the environment, each station, each cat and its animations is really something amazing. The aesthetics are paired with relaxing music and sound effects making it a truly blissful experience. Apart from money there are also a few other types of currency: recipe points, furniture coins and gems (premium currency). There are ways to earn premium currency and furniture coins in game.

Worth it?

Overall a very relaxing and aesthetically pleasing game. However it suffers with some of the symptoms often seen in idle games – little to actually do (apart from checking in every so often). The mini-games are things we’ve seen before and get boring quite quick. Completing daily quests will require you to watch a good deal of ads too. You’re not necessarily forced to watch them but if you’d like to make quicker progress or unlock more you will need to watch your fare share. Progression is reasonably paced, however other than the cat customisation and the idea of unlocking new soups/ingredients there’s little to keep you coming back longer term. The game has some depth in terms of unlockables and new stations to build. The most interesting area of the game is combining various cats and their buffs with specific jobs and clothing – you can experiment by mixing and matching them to find the optimal setup.

Tips

  • Cat “room” customisation items can be bought form the “item” tab in the gift shop
  • You can use tickets that you earn in game in the “item” tab of the gift shop to get instant cash or recipe points.
  • Upgrade your stations using the button in the bottom left in order to improve their yields.
  • Focus on upgrading your stations rather than saving for new ones (you’ll earn gold faster if you upgrade).

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Card Guardians: Deck Building Roguelike Card Game

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The Game

Card Guardians (as it should be called) is a deck building turn based combat game by Tapps Games – PT. The game has likely drawn a good deal of inspiration from the popular Slay the Spire. It is a simple concept based around fighting various mobs using a deck of various cards. Every time you beat an enemy you will advance on your current adventure – you will get to choose a card to add to your deck (for this adventure only) and a choice of what to do next. Sometimes you will get to choose a way to improve your deck or heal up, other times you will have to choose which enemy you would like to take on.

Your adventures will get you gold and armour – armour can be upgraded in quality by merging 4 alike pieces. Each piece of armour can then be upgraded using gold to increase the base stats that it provides (gloves boost attack, helmets boost defence, chest pieces boost health). There are different types of armour and armour sets that provide unique set bonuses which will give you a better chance at the start of the battle.

Worth it?

Overall the game takes some clever and familiar mechanics and delivers an enjoyable and challenging experience. The game is also easy to pick up and drop as it will save your progress on your last run. My biggest issue with the game is that in a way you are “forced” to watch videos after each battle to get the better loot. While you don’t have to, if you want more gold and a better card selection – it will be in your interest to do so. One slightly annoying aspect is that it seems you need 4 piece of the same armour to upgrade the quality as opposed to 3 (which is sort of what the UI suggests). The game currently has two playable characters which are completely different – giving the game quite a bit of variety in terms of play style.

The ad-free version is £6.99 which is a bit on the expensive side for what it actually offers – the key benefit being a free way to upgrade your loot after each battle and a free revive if you die on an adventure. If the overall price was 15-20% cheaper it would make a lot more sense to go for as the perks are pretty useful. Gameplay is fairly repetitive but the randomness of the cards you may get allows you to try different tactics and ensures that each run is completely unique.

Tips

  • You can use defend or magic cards once you’ve filled up your super power without resetting it.
  • Exile cards can only be used once per battle, but will return to your deck in your next fight.
  • When offered the shop choice – you can buy multiple cards using gold.
  • Your armour will be lost on your next turn so don’t overextend your use of “Defend” cards.

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Botworld Adventure

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The Game

Botworld Adventure by Featherweight is an mobile open world RPG games focused around collecting, upgrading and battling various bots in a huge open world. There’s an overarching main quest line and various contracts (as the game calls daily quests). You can unlock new areas and zones by upgrading your boat, which serves as your home base. As you progress you will unlock power ups, gadgets and various other aspects that will enhance your combat abilities. The main story isn’t something unique or new by any means, but the size of the areas and the variety of quests make this quite a solid open-world RPG, especially considering it’s an Android game.

You will be able to choose the appearance and race of your character before you start. Then in a Pokémon-esque fashion will need to pick your started bot from three available. Then your adventure truly begins. You can upgrade your bots, they will also gain XP and level up which will allow you to pick skills that will enhance them even further. There’s different tiers of bots and different classes – each with it’s own stats and abilities. If you get tired of battling wild bots and bandits you can take your bots to the arena and take on other player’s teams.

At the start of each battle you choose your bots starting position – placing 3 of them in the fighting area. They will then proceed to fight on their own, using their abilities against the enemy bots. You will have access to some special abilities that you can use to influence the battle – these specials can buff your own bots or damage/inhibit enemy ones. The game also makes it look like there are other players wondering around – although these are likely just NPCs made to look like other players.

Worth it?

This game is big. It has a lot to offer, especially considering it’s a free Android game. The low poly graphics and aesthetics are quite appealing, Botworld is brilliantly colourful and vibrant. The world is well designed, lots of nice details and well thought out. There’s a slight downside to contracts (daily/mini quests) as they can take quite a few hours to reset, but you can watch and ad to do so faster. However, it must be noted that there are no in-game ads and there’s no obligation to watch ads or pay for premium versions (there’s a premium currency and you can purchase the Mayoral Membership, which gives you access to extra rewards for around £7.49).

Another way that the game limits you is through battery packs – each time you venture out into the world you will use one up (you have about 5 to start with) – these take time to recharge, although they can be rushed by watching ads. I haven’t found myself needing to watch one. Finding materials for your boat and specific ones for your bots is where the game starts to get a little harder. I found the boat materials quite hard to find and was usually going out on missions solely for that purpose.

Overall the game has a lot to offer and given it’s a free game it’s absolutely worth checking out. Sessions on the game can last anywhere from 10-15 mins to a couple hours, depending on how many batteries you have. The ads aren’t intrusive and there’s no need to spend any money to get the most out of the game. The game itself is quite big (~490MB) and after some time it does tend to get a bit repetitive in terms of quests and offering overall. The combat, the upgrades and the variety in bots gives the game a considerable amount of depth worth exploring, there are also plenty of regions and a long main story line. It has enough elements that will keep you coming back to it every day for a good few weeks minimum.

Tips

  • Remember to always collect the free materials from the shop (sometimes it’s worth buying the ones on sale as well)
  • Pick your fights – there are ways to run around wild bots/bandits so you don’t waste your bots on pointless fights if you have a set objective
  • To get the most out of each battery pack (traveling out into the world) keep fighting till you lose as there’s no penalty for that
  • Your recruits will use the bots you haven’t got equipped – so make sure to upgrade them as well
  • Place your weakest bot last so that your enemy can’t put more of their own bots near it
  • Use auto-battle if you are just grinding familiar enemies or wild bots, however be weary of auto-battle as it doesn’t always place your bots very well
  • Run over critters to capture them
  • You can exit the game at any time and it will continue where you left off

Useful Links

Exponential Idle

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The Game

Looking for a new idle game to play? Exponential Idle by Conic Games is a minimalist, maths-inspired idle game in which you upgrade and improve a mathematical formula as a way of grinding cash. While the game may seem quite basic at first, don’t be fooled by this appearance. The game has a bit of a story line too it in which you start out as an undergrad student working on this formula. The more you progress the formula, the more you progress through your phases of education – adding variables or expanding on the function every so often.

There are two primary things to spend money on – upgrades and variables – both of which accelerate the rate at which you acquire cash. Quite shortly after you are introduced to the prestige mechanic, which allows you to collect a new currency (μ), however soon you will find out there’s an even bigger type of prestige where you can even reset your μ currency for even more substantial upgrades. Throughout your gameplay you will earn stars – these are the truly persistent currency and upgrades that you want to invest in, but stars are hard to come by in the early game. Stars can be earned through tapping, automatically over time, through mini games or through the achievements. Looking at the list of achievements will give you a good sense for how deep and far this game can go.

Worth it?

This slick game will keep you coming back for quite a while. Overall the game offers a surprising amount of depth and new things to discover and add to your formula. There’s puzzles for active play or just the main game for passive (check your phone once in a while) type play. The depth on the objectives and new additions will keep you coming back for quite a while. There are no ads, unless you want to watch them to boost your earnings – for £1.39 you can purchase the ad free version, where you will get a permanent boost to your dt that you would normally get from the ads. The loose story and the quantity of achievements will keep you coming back regularly as you try to break through to the next phases of the game. I would recommend it as a great game for short sessions a couple of times a day when you’re trying to kill a few minutes or just to check up on progress.

Tips

  • In the early stages prestige as often/as early as you can
  • Prioritise buying the auto-buyers
  • Have a look at some of the formulas suggested in the Reddit/wiki for the auto-prestige and auto-supremacy
  • The Puzzles can be quite hard (if you don’t know the algorithms by which to solve them) and will require active play in order to farm stars
  • When you have the ability to get theories – focus on getting 20 graduates and then respec to get the first one, investing in theories will make it much easier to get more graduates
  • Try and stay on a theory long enough before graduating students in order to pick up the next theory immediately

Useful Links

The Final Earth 2

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The Game

Looking for a slightly different city builder to play on your phone? The Final Earth 2 is just that. A game developed by one person (Florian van Strien), The Final Earth 2 lets you build a cubical vertical city on series of small floating platforms. The game revolves around various building types and resource management – ensure you’ve got a steady supply of wood, stone and food, adequate housing and keep adding to your never ending tower blocks.

The game starts you off with some simple scenarios which introduce you to the various types of building and resource. There’s a constant loop of creating housing, ensuring there’s enough work and providing happiness boosts to your population. This makes for some pretty addictive gameplay in which you’re constantly adding and expanding your city. The various buildings synergise with each other, have a variety of upgrades and some can even be customised aesthetically. The building synergies will challenge you to think about your layout and you may find yourself going back to redesign and rethink certain areas.

Worth it?

A simple but effective game. A very clever concept with huge potential for additions and growth. There are loads of new buildings to unlock as you build up your city and various upgrades and improvements to purchase. The game is quite light on ads – there’s a boost option (for watching an ad) that will temporarily increase your production. There are also some ads in between scenarios, but other that no annoying constant ads or gatchas. There’s an ad-free version for £2.69 or a premium edition for £4.49 which ads some new buildings, creative mode and removes all ads – this is definitely a great deal and is an awesome way to support the developer. The game is better suited for longer play sessions when you’ve got time to kill, because trust me you will find yourself glued to it. The game only plays in landscape mode – it would be interesting to see if it could also work in portrait (resources on top, controls on the bottom).

Overall a very satisfying game to play for medium to long play sessions, lots of buildings, upgrades and new things to discover. I would definitely recommend giving it a go if you like city builders.

Tips

  • When setting a job priority – if you want everyone focused on that job up the value to “Max” – that will ensure all these jobs are always filled first
  • Build lots of stone mines and rock teleporters
  • Focus on establishing your basic resources before adding new ones – you need a sold supply of stone and wood before starting to thing about machine parts and refined metals
  • Don’t worry about happiness too much at the start of a city, but don’t completely forget about it either
  • Surround labs with 4 farms or tree plantations to get the most out of them
  • The Living Research Center allows you to upgrade all generic houses to a specific type of house

Useful Links