Mystery Town Reviews

I recently reviewed this game. Complaining that the new feature, Character Customization, is an obvious money grab, disguised as adding diversity in representation. Yeah, sure, charging for accessories makes sense, as does charging for different pets. But, if this company actually cared about representation for all of the players, skin, hair, and eye color would all be free. Instead, those things cost resources in amounts that would require you to purchase them, if you want to play the game as yourself. Because grinding for those resources would require completing most, if not all, of the existing levels of the game. So, the ONLY update this game has had in a VERY long time is just a way to get more money from newer players, rather than add levels that existing players have been waiting for (and waiting…and waiting…and waiting).

Looks pretty but the game mechanics are wonky. When tapping the location you want to move the game will move the screen more often than moving the character. Puzzle adventure game from the same folks that did Diggy’s but and this is big for me…. They managed to take the fun out of solving puzzles. In this game you are charged energy for everything and I mean everything. Example pulling levers cost energy, turning puzzle pieces costs energy, pushing buttons costs energy, moving puzzle pieces costs more and more energy depending on what level you are in… do you like getting nickel and dimed to death, I don’t. So frustrating for no reason. Getting close to solving a puzzle, oh no I’m out of energy, now I have to try and remember where I left off while I wait for my energy to refill. Sounds like fun right? Nope!!

Update! Changing to one star due to the lack of attention or response of any caliber. A message from the developer about building energy up is weak. Multiple people are complaining about the same thing. Standard response and has nothing to do with the games issues. The games problem has to do with actual game play, continued playability and simply enjoying a product. Also no mention of game mechanics or controls, the first thing I mention in my review. Thanks but no thanks.

I started off really liking this game. I really enjoyed Chapters 1 & 2. Learning the game and solving the puzzling puzzles was fun. So I thought it worthwhile to spend the $9.99 when I got to Chapter 3 to see if it helped to smooth the progress. It didn’t. Chapter 3 wasn’t much fun even with the bonus stuff I paid for. Where were all the fun puzzles? Well maybe that was just was just an unusual chapter. So now I’m pretty far along in Chapter 4. But didn’t pay for the bonus stuff this time. And good thing because this chapter is worse than the previous one. All it does is send you on devouring boxes which are outrageously expensive. Some over 200 energy points for a single block. I’ve started a day with over 20,000 and only been able to play for just over an hour. And earning those points is no small problem. I make potions after potions and am offered measly payments that I have to refuse. So watch ads to get a better offer. Well you have to watch a lot of ads. Not much fun. So then I play every other day and check in every hour or so to check on the fountain and update my potion supply. Not much fun. But the good news is that I’ve discovered other games that I’m enjoying. So goodbye.

When you can’t even win event prizes, even purchasing event passes, $10, which has one lousy piece of equipment, you know they’ve gone off the greed cliff. Gems are worth nothing for equipment, and neither is anything else for that matter, because the only equipment worth anything can only be purchased for $10….each, after you collected the 1-2 pieces you’re offered for anything other than cash. You can get fruit for extra energy, but…the energy to get the fruit is worth more than the number of fruit you are given. Oh, but you can buy extra fruit for $10. (Rounded up from $9.99, just for the record) Btw, they’ll say the energy regens , and it’s a time management thing, but I’m retired, and even having spent a ton on regen equipment, since their recent update, even someone who can stay on top of her energy is screwed now. No getting all the event equipment without being scammed.

UPDATE: As you can see below, I don't mind the ads, because I get to choose whether or not I want to watch them to double my rewards.

Unfortunately, though, the cost (in game energy points) you pay for every move forward increases very often and gets extremely costly - to the point that even with careful strategy, I can only play about 5 minutes an hour. Regretfully, I'll probably need to quit the game soon.
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Original review: I am really enjoying this game! Not only is it fun and challenging (not so challenging that it’s frustrating), but the way advertisements are presented is very smart and unintrusive. They have managed to make viewing ads my choice (ads don't just pop up in your face), and I am well rewarded when I choose to view them. There are also ways to make the energy needed to move forward in the game generate faster, by saving up various kinds of tokens to purchase not only faster energy generation, but also ways to increase the room to store more energy. This all is so much better than the games that say there are no ads, yet the only way to progress in those games without serious frustration is to spend real money. You can use real money in Puzzle Adventure if you wish to, but if you use patience it’s not necessary.

I'm in the middle of starting the Trailer Park level when, the majority of the "bricked in" part or the "land" isn't even showing and it isn't even allowing me to advance to the next section. This game should also allow the player to be able to play a level through twice so that you can go back through and pick up more stars and any chests or items that you might've missed. It really frustrates the crap out of me when you play a game like this and you can't either redo the level or go back through from the beginning and try to find out where you failed to pick things up. You need to be able to scour each level to gain your experience, items, etc. Once you change these few things, the game will be perfect, at least for me.

Ok from the aspect of just the game I actually loved it and in the beginning was very much enjoying my time spent playing it. HOWEVER, that very very swiftly changed. How can you expect a game to hold someone’s attention when you only give them enough energy to play maybe two minutes before you expect them to purchase energy to continue to play? First of all if I needed a money sink I don’t think I would choose a game on my phone to sink it. Secondly, it’s a bit arrogant to think your game is just that darn good that you have a right to nickel and dime your players to death. It’s bad business and you will find that out when you’re trying to figure out why this game failed. Go back to what you did with Diggy’s, at least I can play that one for hours before I’m making a decision as to whether or not to buy anything to help me advance. And with the amount of time I’ve enjoyed myself on Diggy’s I normally do make a purchase once in awhile. Believe it or not players actually do understand the devs need to make a living. I don’t think any of you are standing in line at the soup kitchen though.

When i find a game i enjoy and plan on playing, I always support the devs and make a one-time purchase for what i think would be a fair value to buy the game outright.

When I first started playing this game, I really liked the story, the characters, the graphics and the gameplay, so i jumped in and made a purchase.

I should have waited a bit. What I soon realized is that once you get past the early levels, the game is only playable for a few minutes at a time. Every single action you take to progress [like smashing blocks to clear a path to the next puzzle] uses up “energy” which gets depleted. In one instance, i used up my full meter of energy in 2 minutes. There are free options to create more energy by using items, but those have time constraints, so you can squeeze out maybe another 3 or 4 minutes. You can purchase energy, but $5 would only buy you a few minutes, which is crazy. At that rate, you could blow through a hundred dollars just to keep playing for an hour.

This makes the game completely unplayable and frustrating in my opinion, which is a shame, because I liked it otherwise.

The game is very poorly made. Most of it is just filler and no puzzles. It just makes you use up your energy quota, so that you buy more. I wouldn’t mind it, if the gameplay was actually interesting, but it is not. The developers seem to be very amateur, but I am not sure, it seems like they’ve made other games with good ratings. I’m starting to question The legitimacy of all these ratings now. Remember, that nowadays, anyone can download a game development software, FB/Instagram a few bucks to advertise to kids, and try to squeeze money from you without putting any effort into the game itself. Also, there are multiple companies that you can buy good reviews and installs from for only cents per review, and it’s not that hard to hire some overseas kids to give a generic “developer responses“ to reviews. I will be reporting this developer to Apple just in case they need to investigate, otherwise I’m done here.

Despite all the bad reviews of the game I wanted to try out the game for myself…and unfortunately they’re right. I haven’t made it far into the game at all to know the energy problem. Literally 2 minutes into the game I’m stuck on the loading screen to go into the next room. It’s not my wifi for sure every other game works fine just not this one. It makes me feel like the devs are just about to quit making this game work for everyone.

I get it bad reviews might make you feel unappreciated after all the hard work you devs put into the game, but you should know reviews are just comments coming from people who just want to see you do good. Developing a game isn’t just make it and then bug fixes. It’s constantly making the game better for everyone who plays it. Own up and do better!

On a more positive note I enjoyed the smooth graphics. It’s different than other games.

Just need to do some tweaking you got this! Don’t give up.

P.S: in the intro story you misspelled “artifact”. It says “artefact”.

The review was going to be 1 star since I can no longer play at all, but the extra star is encouragement to do better. I’ll come back if things change. Good luck to ya!

I too have played Diggy’s Advenyutre for some time. Started out really liking this game also. Today decided to time my actual play time. I do not purchase with actual cash any energy. Never. Played this game for 10:42 minutes before running out or energy. 6:53 was actual commercials. If it wasn’t for the commercials I probably would keep playing. On top of that every level increase you get the amount of energy required to use goes up but not you energy level. So you either spend actual cash or try and increase you energy level like in Diggy. Only difference you do have or make the required coins or items. So for me this game is now toast and put to rest. It’s a shame cause it was a fun game.

I have played this game for awhile now, but the blocks r getting ridiculous to using your energy. I have paid a lot of money to increase my power. Why is it that I play like everyone else, but since I paid moneys to increase my energy am I dinged for higher block amounts? It should be a fair playing field. So people that don’t pay at all get lower block amounts, but since I paid money I have blocks that cost 5100? And the events???? I just finished the Christmas one and people beat me 10 fold. How in the world did that happen? I purchased the package and came in 14 th. I play every 2 - 4 hrs. The leader won by 5000 pts. This game is frustrating and now it tells me I can’t move forward because new levels coming soon! I give up.

I like this game, BUT… if you want to play for more than 5-10 minutes at a time, you will have to fork up some cash. You run out of energy so fast because it costs energy for practically everything you do (And, a lot of it!!) on here, and you can’t just watch an extra ad to obtain extra energy. You don’t regenerate it fast enough, so it leaves you hanging and supplies take several hours to regenerate. Shouldn’t cost so much energy to get through stages and especially at your home base…or maybe an extra ad is needed to regenerate a little more energy and supplies when needed. I feel some hints (by watching an ad) could be useful on some of the challenges. Overall, it is a fun little game and challenging. Needs several improvements for it to be enjoyable for me and keep me engaged.

I want to like this game, but there are a few things that could be better. My biggest issue with this game is that you can only select one block at a time to collect. I’ve played Diggy for years and it allows you to select up to 5 blocks to collect in order. I don’t see why they can’t do the same thing here. Another issue I have is the random ads that will pop up during gameplay. I hate it when I’m cruising along collecting blocks and an ad pops up and stops me in my tracks. Probably came from the same person that thought it was a good idea to start doing random ads in Diggy with no reward and then try to blackmail us into making a purchase to make them stop. This person needs to be fired before they alienate most of their players. I do wish I could ever get ahead with some of the ingredients in the repeatable areas. There’s never enough mint to keep producing potions. Other than these issues, I do enjoy the game.

So, I downloaded this game by seeing it on an ad for a different game I was playing. I absolutely fell in LOVE with this game before it starts costing more and more and MORE energy for everything & is literally impossible to play this game without putting some type of money onto it. You get about 5 minutes of play time before you HAVE to spend money to continue. I have put at LEAST $200 in this game (yes, I know. We listen & we don’t judge 😂) I purchased something & NEVER received it, which I am NOT happy about & second. I keep getting an error message stating to check my internet when I have full service & perfectly well working wi-fi so it is not on my end. I have had to delete and reinstall this game 5 times for it to work & I’ll be in the middle of playing & it does the same thing. I do love this game but I am SERIOUSLY considered deleting it for good unless something is done about these issues. The whole energy thing is absolutely RIDICULOUS & INSANE. This game is an honest MONEY GRAB!!!

Well, I love the game, but I caught on to something I’m not a fan of…. For instance: I’ll spend money on “deal offer” to , let say , get more fruit to make potions. After that then the cost of fruit to make potions go up ( a lot) blocks get higher in energy use . Therefore, I either have to stop game and wait for recharge or spend more money…. Check my account on your end and you’ll see I spend way to much. This is my first review ever…. Frustrating to know that buying these special offers really doesn’t matter in the long-run because when you do… everything goes up( energy use). Arg!!!! Still going to play , just not spend any of my cash anymore. Seems to just fill your pockets. Thanks, I think.

First off I was a huge fan of Diggy’s Adventures (by the same developer) and this one seems way better graphically. The tutorial is great too. Sometimes I have a hard time understanding a game because of poor tutorials. This one is great. I quit Diggy for now because there were too many events and not enough time in between to play the main story line. Also the ads for it now are so fake it’s sad. I thought Pixle Federation was better than to have cheesey fake ads.

Anyway..

Couple things. Right at the beginning my first quest is to find a mirror. On the right hand side of the screen you can see a mirror with a 0/1 next to it because I haven’t got it yet. If I tap on it, it refers to me as Mortimer’s lost nephew however I chose a girl player. I thought he referred to me as his niece before. Anyway, also the game went to an ad so I could double my prize for clearing the location and it blacked out. I had to exit and clear my app on my iPad completely, twice before I could get back in the game. I hope that’s the worst I come across.

Over all seems good. 4 stars so far.

Love the artwork and gameplay. Excellent job on the game. The only problem I’ve encountered is the same issue that plagues their other game Diggy’s Adventures. The ads generally crash the game after watching the ad itself. This issue has yet to be addressed in either game. I’ve been playing Diggy for over five (5) years now, so expect constant game restarts since they can not seem to fix the problem with ads constantly crashing their games. Have stated that, I still play both games every day! While I get extremely frustrated with the constant crashing I still love the games themselves.

I’ve played Diggy for several years now. This game has a similar feel to it with the puzzles, but also a little more mature with the ‘mystery’ aspect.
I wasn’t sure about this game, as it seemed kind of cartoony and ‘meh’, but when I realized it was a Pixel product, my loyalty and preference to their style win out.
Aside from brand loyalty, this game is pretty fun and similar to the genre. You get pretty far on the first mission and are exposed to most of the style of these games. The graphics are very well done, the music is great, and I think my daughter approved as well!
Keep up the great work Pixel. Very nostalgic feel to this one! Very glad I tried it out!
Dig On

I was a little unsure of this game at first. It’s a little odd, and the graphics are not my style. But I’ve been enjoying it. Some of the puzzles are genuinely tricky. And unique.

But I think what is most important, is there’s not a lot of pressure to spend money or watch ads. You can, and it’s beneficial if you do, but you don’t feel like it’s mandatory… and then resentful. In fact, in the Christmas event, I just found a message essentially saying “this part is hard, and completing it is optional. But the rewards are good!” How refreshing is that?

I have spent money, and I have watched ads. But I’ve done so to get ahead faster. Or to play a little longer. And because I’m happy to support the people who work on these things. But I didn’t feel forced. It’s just fun.