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March 29, 2024, 01:51:31 AM

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Those games where you slide the thing and the lava falls down

Started by Jerzy Bondov, June 29, 2020, 09:56:06 AM

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Jerzy Bondov

I keep seeing adverts on the internet for these games where you have a man in one room and some treasure in another room, and also some lava. You have to move these little barriers around so the man can reach the treasure without getting doused in molten lava. Has anyone else seen a lot of these? They look sort of fun, in a casual sort of way. The player in the ads always fucks up an easy puzzle, so you'll think 'Ha! I can do better than this chump' and download it. But I've never clicked on one, because it's an advert on the internet. You don't click those, you just try to ignore them for the few seconds they last so you can go back to doing something important like turning the cast of Dad's Army into women and saying which one you'd shag.

It turns out that if you do click on them and download them, these games are 100% nothing like the adverts. No lava. No man. No sliding barriers. They're all just Bejeweled clones! Because you can generate an infinite number of random Candy Crush levels, but the sliding lava door puzzles would require actual design.

It's mad that they aren't even vaguely similar. It's like having a trailer for Call of Duty with all shit exploding and it turns out it's just a Dogz virtual pet. Or you watched a trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2 and it was all gun slinging and train heists, and then you download it and it's just going around picking up flowers very slowly.

Presumably these adverts actually work though. There are people downloading what looks like a fun puzzle game, discovering it's just the same old match 3 game they've already been playing for the last 25 years, and just going 'ah fuck it, close enough' and spending £59.99 on the Diamond Pack BEST VALUE 200 Diamonds. Absolutely insane.

Of course now there actually are some games that play like the adverts, and they all make you watch misleading ads and pay for £299.99 MOST POPULAR BEST VALUE UNLOCK ALL. Hopefully someone can make this game but with a lo-fi synth soundtrack and it's about depression, and you can complete it in 30 minutes, and it can go on Apple Arcade, and then I'll finally play it.

Also been intrigued by these, I play a boxing game on my phone and am inundated with adverts for these lava games. They used to be a bit broader and focus on things like being inside a shed with a pool of water on the floor and an electric cable dangling loosely and a number of other hazards that set off a chain reaction, with you choosing the correct order to dispatch all of these threats, but now they must have given up and realised that it's easier to put a shark, some lava, a pot of gold and you (in some water) in a square separated by pully things.

Alberon

There's another one where you have to pick the right tools to fix the broken things in the room. Choose the wrong thing and the situation gets much worse. Not a bad idea for a game.

Download it though and it's the same old match 3.

Ambient Sheep

Yeah, these really annoy me too.

I either get Gardenscapes with the bald Italian-looking guy being drowned or lava'd, or Fishdom with the cute little goldfish, lava, and shark.  Used to get the woman in the malfunctioning kitchen a lot, but not any more.

I was warned off of them by a friend who fell for them, but I got so enthralled at the fish one that I got as far as checking out the comments.  Yeah, loads of howls of outrage (along with some moronic "Yeah it's not what it said it was gonna be, but it's still fun!" type stuff), but also a few that said if you go far enough into the game, the scenes do appear as little mini-games.  But only about twice.  Presumably for legal reasons.

Indeed a few weeks afterwards, I noticed that some of the ads now have "May not represent actual gameplay" on them in tiny print.  No shit!


Blue Jam

All the games advertised in apps look boring as fuck. Are there any recent mobile games that are actually decent? I could have done with a few during lockdown.

Ferris

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 13, 2020, 08:10:28 PM
All the games advertised in apps look boring as fuck. Are there any recent mobile games that are actually decent? I could have done with a few during lockdown.

I got very addicted to Two Dots. It's a terrific time killer.

Mister Six

Someone else actually made the pin-sliding thing. It's called Hero Rescue.

olliebean

Quote from: Mister Six on July 14, 2020, 06:00:45 PM
Someone else actually made the pin-sliding thing. It's called Hero Rescue.

Just looked that up. There's about a dozen of them.

Mister Six

So there are. The one I played was by Super Game Studios, and had a red-haired protagonist.

evilcommiedictator

I actually paid for Sherlock Zen, a logic thing.

Turns out with puzzle games, you actually have to put effort into designing them, crazy!

Maybe something like Fallout Shelter is a good enough time waster?

Pink Gregory

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 13, 2020, 08:10:28 PM
All the games advertised in apps look boring as fuck. Are there any recent mobile games that are actually decent? I could have done with a few during lockdown.

Is Hoplite too old to be recent?

The other one is those slow grind  "build an empire/mob/whatever" games being advertised by making it look like a you have to make moral choices to go from Level 1 grunt to a Level 999 boss, with the stylings of GTA.


olliebean

"Merge Dragons" and the like, where the ads get the basic game mechanic right, but make it look like fast-paced fun rather than mind-numbingly tedious grind.

BritishHobo

Or the 'Rise of Kingdoms' style games, where you see a couple of huts turn rapidly into a vast city with castles and a huge army, neatly bypassing all the 'this well will take thirty hours to build, unless you buy four magic gems to speed up the process' stuff.

Sebastian Cobb

The description in the OP reminds me of a great game called Cataclysm that was on the Archimedes, where you moved stuff around to get water to go to the right place. It had some pretty novel physics, and I've never seen anything similar on other systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Byyz1Vlv8w

earl_sleek

Archero is a pretty decent action game. I got quite far in it, but I'm all about 2020 MLB Tap Sports Baseball at the moment.

Ferris

Quote from: earl_sleek on July 18, 2020, 06:13:43 PM
I'm all about 2020 MLB Tap Sports Baseball at the moment.


...this is insanely addictive. Shit.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on July 13, 2020, 09:52:21 PM
I got very addicted to Two Dots. It's a terrific time killer.

I downloaded that, and while the game itself it nice enough it's absolutely spoiled by being wrapped up in such an obnoxious pay-to-win package with the usual difficulty spikes that try to frustrate you into buying boosters. They even try to trick you into buying things by having pop-up adverts where the 'buy' button is in the exact same place as the 'continue' button usually is. Plus the usual silly pricing where a £99.99 pack is presented as the 'best value'.

A mobile game I like to play as a timekiller is I Love Hue, you have a grid of jumbled colours and you have to arrange them into smooth gradients. There are short ads between levels but it's just a simple, minimalist game where you're up and running in seconds and aren't having booster packs shoved down your throat. Also like a bit of 2048 and Drop 7, both manage to just give you a simple premise and let you get on with it.

idunnosomename

i fucking hate these goddamn adverts. although not as much as gambling ones I know that children are seeing

the point of them is that you go "DUHH! YOU DID IT WRONG! I WILL DOWNLOAD AND DO IT RIGHT WAY" and really the game mechanic, while it looks interesting, isn't challenging enough to really be a decent game

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: idunnosomename on July 20, 2020, 08:40:19 PMi fucking hate these goddamn adverts. although not as much as gambling ones I know that children are seeing

Likewise... I think it's truly immoral and is storing up huge gambling problems in our population for decades to come.


Quote from: idunnosomename on July 20, 2020, 08:40:19 PMthe point of them is that you go "DUHH! YOU DID IT WRONG! I WILL DOWNLOAD AND DO IT RIGHT WAY"

Yup.


The ones that annoy me even more though, are "99% of people can't get to level 3", to which my (pretend) response is "Fair enough then, if it's gonna be THAT difficult then I won't bother to download it, ta, as I only play phone games to relax.  Thanks for the warning, guys!"

See also "Only IQ 180+ can finish this game!".  Oh ok then, way beyond genius level, too clever for me, I won't bother.


(My real response in both cases being "If you have to resort to such lame and intelligence-insulting psychological tactics to sell your shit game, then I'm not interested, fuck off." )

olliebean

Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on July 20, 2020, 08:30:09 AMA mobile game I like to play as a timekiller is I Love Hue, you have a grid of jumbled colours and you have to arrange them into smooth gradients. There are short ads between levels but it's just a simple, minimalist game where you're up and running in seconds and aren't having booster packs shoved down your throat. Also like a bit of 2048 and Drop 7, both manage to just give you a simple premise and let you get on with it.

Really nice as well to have a game that doesn't hammer your battery whenever you play it.

earl_sleek

Started getting some really odd and shit in-game ads recently. There's a few different versions but they all seem to be set in what appears to be a Chinese convenience store and are really badly dubbed.

Shopkeeper: That'll be 2[nb]Not '2 pounds', '2 dollars' or even '2 yuan'. Just '2'[/nb] please.
Woman: (looks in purse) Oh! (Gets out phone and starts playing a game, ignoring the man in the queue behind her)
Woman: Here you go! (Hands phone to shopkeeper) (?!)
Shopkeeper: Thank you
Woman turns to go
Shopkeeper: Hold on miss, I've seen you do this loads of times before. How does it work?

Cuts to another man sitting at a table who explaing you can earn real money playing this game! The ad then ends with a voiceover telling you how awesome it is.

All the accents are fucked apart from the shopkeeper who sounds like he's from London. The man at the table's delivery is incredibly stilted. Like. A parody. Of. William Shatner! and is probably reading the words phonetically off a prompter. The woman sounds Chinese but pitch shifted up a bit for some reason so she sounds artificially squeaky, and the voiceover is a woman trying and failing to do a black American woman's accent.

OK, English isn't everyone's first language but if you're running an ad in an English speaking territory surely you would hire competent English speakers for the dub? It's hilariously shit and I actually get excited every time I see one now. I really want to show it to someone as it's loads funnier when you can actually see it, but it's not a common ad (yet) and there's never anyone around to show it to when it comes up.

earl_sleek


Quote from: Ambient Sheep on July 22, 2020, 05:41:10 PMThe ones that annoy me even more though, are "99% of people can't get to level 3", to which my (pretend) response is "Fair enough then, if it's gonna be THAT difficult then I won't bother to download it, ta, as I only play phone games to relax.  Thanks for the warning, guys!"

See also "Only IQ 180+ can finish this game!".  Oh ok then, way beyond genius level, too clever for me, I won't bother.


(My real response in both cases being "If you have to resort to such lame and intelligence-insulting psychological tactics to sell your shit game, then I'm not interested, fuck off." )

There are a few cases where they've tried to throw in as many proven psychological triggers as possible but haven't understood them, so you end up with an ad captioned "The most relaxing game on mobile" and the video is a pumping techno track over millions of neon blocks pinging about all over the place and a finger desperately trying to keep up with it.

JaDanketies

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 13, 2020, 08:10:28 PM
All the games advertised in apps look boring as fuck. Are there any recent mobile games that are actually decent? I could have done with a few during lockdown.

That Level Again was good. All the levels are the same but the ways to win are not.

I don't play a hell of a lot of mobile games any more though

BritishHobo

Quote from: earl_sleek on July 23, 2020, 09:37:35 AM
Started getting some really odd and shit in-game ads recently. There's a few different versions but they all seem to be set in what appears to be a Chinese convenience store and are really badly dubbed.

Shopkeeper: That'll be 2[nb]Not '2 pounds', '2 dollars' or even '2 yuan'. Just '2'[/nb] please.
Woman: (looks in purse) Oh! (Gets out phone and starts playing a game, ignoring the man in the queue behind her)
Woman: Here you go! (Hands phone to shopkeeper) (?!)
Shopkeeper: Thank you
Woman turns to go
Shopkeeper: Hold on miss, I've seen you do this loads of times before. How does it work?

Cuts to another man sitting at a table who explaing you can earn real money playing this game! The ad then ends with a voiceover telling you how awesome it is.

All the accents are fucked apart from the shopkeeper who sounds like he's from London. The man at the table's delivery is incredibly stilted. Like. A parody. Of. William Shatner! and is probably reading the words phonetically off a prompter. The woman sounds Chinese but pitch shifted up a bit for some reason so she sounds artificially squeaky, and the voiceover is a woman trying and failing to do a black American woman's accent.

OK, English isn't everyone's first language but if you're running an ad in an English speaking territory surely you would hire competent English speakers for the dub? It's hilariously shit and I actually get excited every time I see one now. I really want to show it to someone as it's loads funnier when you can actually see it, but it's not a common ad (yet) and there's never anyone around to show it to when it comes up.

I've been seeing these as well. Did some googling on the game and how it works, basically sounds like it throws loads of money at you every time you pop bubbles or whatecer, filling up your in-game wallet. There's a minimum withdrawal limit of £100 but, inevitably, when you reach around £90/£91 after weeks of playing, the cash stops coming in.

Makes it all the funnier now watching the woman tap away for a couple of seconds and then paying for her food.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Huxleys Babkins on July 23, 2020, 09:47:51 AM
There are a few cases where they've tried to throw in as many proven psychological triggers as possible but haven't understood them, so you end up with an ad captioned "The most relaxing game on mobile" and the video is a pumping techno track over millions of neon blocks pinging about all over the place and a finger desperately trying to keep up with it.

Hah, yes!  Give 'em credit, I actually snorted out loud at the stupidity of that one.

imitationleather

Quote from: earl_sleek on July 23, 2020, 09:37:35 AM
Started getting some really odd and shit in-game ads recently. There's a few different versions but they all seem to be set in what appears to be a Chinese convenience store and are really badly dubbed.

Shopkeeper: That'll be 2[nb]Not '2 pounds', '2 dollars' or even '2 yuan'. Just '2'[/nb] please.
Woman: (looks in purse) Oh! (Gets out phone and starts playing a game, ignoring the man in the queue behind her)
Woman: Here you go! (Hands phone to shopkeeper) (?!)
Shopkeeper: Thank you
Woman turns to go
Shopkeeper: Hold on miss, I've seen you do this loads of times before. How does it work?

Cuts to another man sitting at a table who explaing you can earn real money playing this game! The ad then ends with a voiceover telling you how awesome it is.

All the accents are fucked apart from the shopkeeper who sounds like he's from London. The man at the table's delivery is incredibly stilted. Like. A parody. Of. William Shatner! and is probably reading the words phonetically off a prompter. The woman sounds Chinese but pitch shifted up a bit for some reason so she sounds artificially squeaky, and the voiceover is a woman trying and failing to do a black American woman's accent.

OK, English isn't everyone's first language but if you're running an ad in an English speaking territory surely you would hire competent English speakers for the dub? It's hilariously shit and I actually get excited every time I see one now. I really want to show it to someone as it's loads funnier when you can actually see it, but it's not a common ad (yet) and there's never anyone around to show it to when it comes up.

Is this ad on YouTube? I want to see it!

Goldentony

I really enjoyed those two games where you ran around a city eating buildings and the other was collecting people, but you had a choice of about three levels in one and the one in the other, I say level but its genuinely a game for total fucking dopes like me with no focus  where you push the dot around the same fucking places over and over