Jetpack Joyride: Everything's Better with a Jetpack. And upgrades.

I'm sure the idea of this game isn't new. I'm pretty sure I played the heck out of that Helicopter java/flash game during my Typing 101 class in high school.

But Jetpack Joyride injects new blood into this genre, throwing in lasers, rockets, upgrades, missions, slots, and vehicles.

One of the may vehicles: A bird car/plane thingy

Banking on the slots

The gameplay is quite simple. Press down to fly up, let go to fall down. Dodge the income rockets, the spinning electric beams, the floating lasers, and pick up coins to get as far as you can.

Spend coins on upgrades or clothes to change your avatar, or buy different upgrades to help you during your escape from the lab. 

Missions!

Enough customization to last a while

The missions add to the depth of the game. So rather than just trying to get as far as you can, there are other goals that you can try to accomplish during that process. 

Each vehicle is spawned randomly from the magical rainbowy box, and each vehicle has a different function. They also act as an extra life, as the vehicle gets destroyed, but you still keep on running.

One of the cool gameplay things that sets it apart from other similar games is the fact that you don't die when you hit the ground or if you're head mashes the ceiling. You just continue running (or flying) as normal. I guess the devs realized there was enough to worry about with lasers and missles to be worrying about altitude.

Overall, this is a highly addicting game. Especially if you're into unlocking everything. The fact that you can jump right in from the loadscreen makes this one of the best casual, pick up and just play titles that I've seen on the Droid so far.

Connect the Dots: Flow Free

Another Droid app game review...

How do you play this game? You connect colors to their corresponding other half while trying to fill up the board. No overlapping of different colors.

Literally. Just connect the dots.

Sounds as fun as your elementary school days with a sheet of paper and a crayon, connecting the dots?

Now what if you had other kids around you trying to do it faster than you?

Honestly, flow free isn't my cup of tea. Yeah, the difficulty gets more difficult as you get a larger board and more colors. But as a quick play puzzle game, I enjoy it more in spurts.

The normal puzzle game.

So throw in a little competition, and this game is right up my alley. So my friends and I started to compare time trial scores. On a 5x5 board. In 30 seconds.

And little did we know, the seemingly basic game got somewhat addicting.

So far, my best in 30 seconds is 7 completed boards. The highest amongst my friends is 8.

My high scores on a 5x5 board. 4 minutes is a long time...

Anyone out there hit double digits yet?

Beastie Bay: What I Wish I Knew Before I Started Playing

So I just recently got a smartphone, and like most people who first get a new toy, I looked for games. I've sifted through a ton, only played a few for longer than 15 minutes.

Then I came across Beastie Bay, developed by Kairosoft (apparently it's like, their millionth game they've released).

Beastie Bay is a mix of like..Pokemon/Dragon Quest/Sim City. You start off on a deserted island, explore unknown territories, befriend random animals (and robots?) by throwing bait at them, build a self-sufficient economy of food and wood, then build an attractive town to lure tourists from other islands to generate funds.

Dragon Quest-esque Battling System

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So. Here are a few things that I wish I knew before I started playing. This sure isn't everything, but I hope this can help someone. 

Tourists can't make it past the first part of my island because I blocked off EVERYTHING. Smart city layouts..

 1. Build Close to the dock: You might not start near it, so you don't know what I'm talking about. But when you make your way to the dock, you want to build closer to there. Why? So tourists can visit your shops and buildings for you to get money, and you don't have to invest so much on roads.

2. Efficient with House/Pasture/Building Placement: When someone inhabits a house, they're able to harvest from the 8 squares surrounding them. With that said, you can (and should) space out your homes a bit to maximize efficiency of what your islanders can gather. The bottom picture is a terrible example of what you should do. 

3. Wood is more Important than Food: When I first started the game, I got scared that when my food count went low, I'd die. Or something. Like normal humans. And creatures. But in this game, there's no penalty for hitting 0 food. With that said, go ahead and research Forestry as much as you can once your food kinda stabilizes. You need tons of wood for research. Which brings me to...

Wood. Research. Huzzah

4. RESEARCH. RESEARCH. RESEARCH: You should always be researching something. If anything, you should be researching as much as you can at one time (you can research multiples). This will make the the game much smoother and more fast pace once you get certain upgrades. Researching takes a heckload of wood though, so make sure you have enough trees to chop down.

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Clearly, I'm not super far into the game, but already I have some hindsight regret, wishing I had done certain things differently. I'm sure there's more to expand on this post later!

But for now, if you're a fan of RPGs and building sims, I highly recommend this free game.