Game is as described; ads are ridiculous
Sat Jan 22 2022 DaCCWataUPDATE: remove ads option available. Now this is a 5-star game
TL:DR VERSION: If this game offers an ad-free purchase upgrade, surely this can be a 5-star app easily. But, until then, the ads knock 2 stars off my rating for annoyance and hinderance of progression. IN DEPTH VERSION: The game itself is simple to understand, easy to play. As you unlock more regions and more routes, the pricing goes up, as is common with these kinds of games. At about level 5 or so, you can unlock 3 different “boosters” to increase your rate of earning to make gameplay quicker. Each can either be bought by your in game coins, or watch a free 30 second ad to gain (pops up every now and then). Where this game gets on my nerves is the mandatory 5-8 second ad watch every 45 seconds of gameplay. At first it’s not so bad, but when you have multiple areas unlocked and are trying to connect a city with all possible other cities, this ad break becomes troublesome, as most times you’ll find yourself in the middle of scavenging, and unable to complete the routes. It’s even more difficult when you return to the game and you have no idea which cities you were trying to connect, so you basically start all over and run into the same problem in 45 seconds.
Needs polish
Sun Jan 23 2022 JaqueDaveedOkay, I love this game! I love it. I wouldnt give it five stars if I didnt okay? But i have put about 15 hours into it and I have a couple of glaring flaws Id like to express that is taking the fun out of it for me. I made as many paths as I thought possible, finished my board and it asked me to go to the next level so thinking there was some kind of perk or addon I hit yes, what I got was a reset board that let me start anywhere which I thought was neat until I picked alaska to start and now Im stuck because I need more keys to progress. The two big takeaways being not only did I get baited into extra content that wasnt there and reset my board but the reset lead me to basically softlock my game. Like I said, I love this game. 9.9/10 needs more. Ps. This game is about 2 weeks old right now I understand these things take time. Pps. I bought the ad blocker, made the game so much more playable. If you’re just reading this review and you like this game but dont like the ads, get the blocker. Its like night and day
Disaster
Mon Feb 07 2022 proudlez71This “seemed” like a cute little time killer app, at first. There are major issues that need addressed ! First , I understand this is a small studio development, however the incessant ads are pervasive to say the least. So much so that the developers wrote a couple paragraphs that explain how they keep the development going on the app and even go so far as to say how annoying ads are, in the icon to remove ads. The low end quality of the app is in no way worth $9.99 to remove ads. My reason for this is the fact that there is no implementation of away earnings . Unless you have the app open and are actively playing , all earnings stop. What makes it even more pervasive with the ads, to the point I feel it’s engineered to encourage paying for ad removal, is that earnings while game is open stop every 15-20 seconds of while 30 second ads interrupt play. It’s aggressive marketing and aggressive pervasive ad placement , bordering on apple developer TOS for the platform. To be honest , ad revenue is not the only revenue available to even small studios . Try introducing a lower cost of ad removal, add in some in game content to purchase at a reasonable cost . Perhaps a coin purchase or a way to buy some keys to open additional territories . But at the current way the game runs , or fails to run from flooding of ads , I see this game , or any future apps failing to pick up momentum enough to be a success in this industry!
Good Potential, HORRIBLE Ads
Sat Oct 15 2022 Pamelaf263When I first started playing this game i thought it was a silly little game that i can kill time with. But that changed pretty quick when it turned into an ad watching simulator. Every 10-15 seconds, or every 2-3 roads you make, an ad pops up! it’s about five seconds until a skip pops up, then five more seconds, then an app store pop up, then you can finally go back. the game “experience” is 70% ads 30% actual gameplay. This is sometimes even worse when ads struggle to load, to the point of having to completely close out and reopen the game! Normally I would just buy the no-ads, but 10 WHOLE DOLLARS! just to see no ads is an insanely high price! the way i see “no ads” is how much i would pay for the game if it weren’t free. at MOSTTTTTTT, this is a 1.99 game. if it were two dollars for zero ads i would gladly buy that! not to mention all the micro transactions in the game, there’s even more opportunities to make money. I get it’s a small development team and everything, but there are so many ways to make money other than that. The game is also pretty popular so the amount of money made from ads is astronomically higher than from buying no ads.
TL;DR- The game is simple in design but the sheer quantity and quality of ads makes the game nearly impossible to play
Ad and content issues
Tue Mar 22 2022 danny ! :)Firstly, the amount of ads in this game makes it unbearable. Every 1-2 minutes a new ad pops up and takes 30 seconds to go away. Not to mention, an ad banner blocks the upgrade buttons at the bottom. This game also is unplayable without internet, which I know is just a sham to get more ad revenue because there should be nothing in this game that needs ad revenue. Secondly, the gameplay is very glitchy and bugged. You cant place tons of roads because the game will find some alternate route to take, leading to weird spots of no roads. Its also possible to make roads across water by just dragging the selection a few more cities out. And, you should be able to make bridges anyways. The monetary scaling is wonky and uneven. I may be wrong but I believe some of the assets are stolen from other games, at the very least they look suspiciously similar. After you complete the map, the game asks you to "start a new country" and I assumed it would take me to a map of Europe, but no, it just starts the game all over again. There is no content in this. I understand this is a game made by a small studio, but the lack of effort is not a result of that, and the amount of ads and cost to remove them is far higher than it should be. I will change my rating if these problems are addressed by the developer.
Surprisingly Addictive
Sun Feb 13 2022 Sparty CycloneThis is a simple game, but I can’t put it down. And yet, I can’t bring myself to rate it any higher than three stars. For a geography-based game, they make some curious choices. I understand not being able to have a separate area for small states like Delaware or Rhode Island for space reasons, but why give Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Wisconsin and not be able to connect it directly to the lower peninsula? And the currency system is way out of whack. You go from 150 coins to upgrade your first city to 69.9 octillion coins for your last. Yes, that’s a real number — basically a 7 followed by 27 zeros!? And as many other reviews have mentioned, the ads are ridiculous! (Sorry developers, I turned on Airplane mode to keep my sanity.) Plus, I’m not sure what replay value it will have if you just start over in North America once you finish connecting all your cities. The App Store previews show Europe, which would be nice. Hopefully future versions will eventually expand the playing field!
Update — with the latest update, the game now requires internet access, so no more Airplane mode. This renders the game virtually unplayable. There is no way I would pay what they are asking to get rid of ads; I would rather get rid of the game. It’s a shame, such a promising start ruined by greed.
Too many adds
Thu Feb 03 2022 RekinuI get it, developers need money but two adds every minute seems a bit excessive. And it’s not worth 10 bucks for a simplistic game like this to unlock it. The price point should be more like 2.99 or 3.99 for as simplistic a game like this, IMO. That being said it’s fun to unlock the territories and figure out all the connections that are possible. I still haven’t quite figured out what causes you to be able to buy a new area, but it seems tied to how many connections and upgrades you have made.
Updating like a week later. 1) once you complete your map, there are no other maps. I was looking forward to going to Europe, Asia, or Africa. Not an option. Just North America. 2) adds are still too frequent. 3) if an add pops up, all resource generation stops till the ad is dismissed. This is highly frustrating as it hits when you are most likely looking away, waiting for cash to do the next road or upgrade the next town. Then you go back in, and you STILL have to wait for the cash because it paused the game while you were looking at the mandatory ad.
Tldr if you are bored, this is an interesting concept for 2-3 days. If you aren’t bored and looking for a fun game, go elsewhere. And it’s not worth the 10 bucks to make it ad free.
Very good but…
Tue Jul 19 2022 HoyaMikeOverall it’s a very good game. Simple but entertaining. There are a couple of flaws however. Once you connect everything in the United States, Canada, and Mexico A message pops up and says you’ve connected all of the states, would you like to go to the next level. Going to the next level simply deletes all of your connections in the United States, Canada, and Mexico and starts you over. I would have thought It would open another continent as the image shows in the Apple store, however it does not… Also, if you make the mistake of selecting Alaska as you’re starting point you will never get enough keys to unlock any other area and the only option you have is to delete the app and start from scratch (an obvious oversight by the developer but easily fixed). So where are the other continents as advertised? Also you need to add in an option for clearing your map as well as and a screen for instructions. Other than that it’s great, but with a $9.99 price tag, I would NOT suggest purchasing the app until these issues are addressed. Once you have access to other continents and a little bug fixing it would easily be a five star rating
Cool game but…
Wed Jun 22 2022 KinkyFrysI love idle games for whatever reason. This is a very cool one except for the fact that you have to have the game open and running to get any kind of progress. There is no offline generating, so if you’re not actively playing, you’re not getting anything. The absolute worst thing about the game is the ads. I’m completely for games being free with ads and then if you want to remove the ads, pay for it to be removed for like 3 or 4 dollars. It beats the heck out of paying 6 or 7 dollars to even be able to play a game before testing it and you end up hating it. In this case, you can pay to remove the ads but it’s 10 dollars. Who set the price for this??? I understand the studio making the game isn’t supercell, but 10 dollars for a mobile game that doesn’t do anything with online play or generate any income while you’re not playing. The ads here are ridiculous. I had an ad, upgraded one base, and before I made the 150 I game currency to upgrade a second base, I was hit with another ad. It’s literally an ad every 45 seconds.
TLDR;
The game is unplayable unless you spend 10 dollars to get rid of the ad every 45 seconds, but the game just isn’t going to be worth 10 dollars to many people in its current state.
Incessant ads
Mon Feb 21 2022 XxIHateYouThe game is fun enough but the ads for every 30 seconds of gameplay is really killing it. Ever since the latest update I can’t even play anymore. Connected two different roads to cities? Here’s an ad. Trying to find an odd road connection that requires taking a moment to move around the map? Ad. Looked up for five seconds to check on your kid? Look back down, we got you a present, it’s an ad. I get games having ads and the need for them to be slightly increased with small teams, that doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but this is ridiculous. The one redeeming quality that could have helped out would have been the ability to turn off my wifi and play offline but nope. Not an option. Game tells you you aren’t connected to the internet and you need to be connected to be able play. That’s only acceptable if there’s online features; even a leaderboard would be a good enough reason for me to not be enraged by that “oops looks like you need to connect to the internet” message that popped up. Not worth it to spend time “playing” between ads to even destress as its actively stressing me out more at this point 🙃
