The Taphouse (mobile game general thread)

the lily's garden commercials on youtube are so...uncomfortable lol I played it for a little while and love the look of the game, but the actual gameplay got real old after a while. also the story kind of...turned me on and off at different times. matchington manor is ok, the characters are more likeable, but the decorating part is less fun because I don't like most of the choices.

my one true love is hempire. do I spend too much money on it? yes. do they have sales all the time? yes. do I look at how much I've cleaned up this tiny fake town, fixing up and landscaping trailers and houses, and my own nice little house, and feel much contentment? yes. it's dumb logically but it makes me happy. also the gameplay is simple and things don't take TOO long. also no match-3 mechanics. I am learning im not too good at those.

not playing any more phone games other than a simple cross stitch thing because I don't want to be tempted to spend more money...and the google store doesn't have a probably-illegal download of The Farmer

it was very simple and was originally one of those little flash games you'd find online. It made my brain very happy. how many fields of turnips does it take to reach 20,000 gold? if I plant crops but remove all but four plants in each plot, is it still financially viable? how many farmer characters can I roleplay using this one, tiny, no-save-available game? that WAS annoying, that you couldn't properly save your farm, so you'd keep it running in the background and play the same 'save' until it closed itself or just closed itself back to the homescreen

my kingdom for The Farmer, who do I need to throw money at

 

Is that that one where they decided to advertise their garden sim with a fully rendered cutscene of a woman crying after her husband leaves her or something like that? I keep getting ads for it on Seeker's Notes and going "y this."

 

I happily didn’t see any ads for Love Nikki until after I’d played the game. I’ve still never seen one in the wild. At this point they seem like transmissions from a strange alternate dimension rather than actual advertising. They’re fucking weird though. It’s like someone who has never seen a mobile game trying to imagine what Episode is like.

 

I've seen ads for Homescapes (I think?), and Fishdom, and Hustle Kingdom all using the same basic "can you solve this puzzle" bit, which...is very "y this" because I know Homescapes doesn't have game mechanics like that, and I'm pretty sure Fishdom doesn't either.

I don't mind ads (well, okay I do but I regard them as a necessary evil), but if I gotta endure them then can't they at least actually show what they want me to play? Like - if I did download one of those games and it turned out that the gameplay was nothing like what the ad shows, I'd be pissed and I don't care if the ad has "gameplay mechanics may be different" in tiny print in a corner. :/

 

I saw a particularly off-putting Homescapes (?) ad that had the "player" transferring a life ring between two drowning characters. The one that had the ring made hearts at the "player" and the one that didn't sobbed and flailed. Rather upsetting to see, made me absolutely sure I never want to play the game, whatever the gameplay

 

It's usually not even actually a puzzle, it's just presenting a cartoon situation and 2-4 random objects, one of which will turn out to be randomly and arbitrarily labeled as the solution and the other two will instantly get the cartoon protagonist killed. Like. Does anyone actually think that looks enjoyable? Are they just trying to bank on that thing I've noticed puzzle game ads do where the video shows someone playing slightly below average so you go "I could do better"?

 

It can’t all be fus ro dah, but I’d like to be courted with a slightly more epic promise than Lifeguard With A Trolley Problem.