Chapterhouse doomed: the agony of story-based microtransaction games. · 11:41pm Oct 24th, 2019
Dear Patreon sponsors,
There was a time when you were funding my casual game habit.
...and while I count the number of people who just stormed out on me forever, let me explain what that actually means.
I gain minor benefits to having a decent casual game in my life, because I spend a lot of time in waiting rooms. Doctor's appointments is most of that. Hospitals here and there. It's a minor blessing when the rehab center of the month has wifi. (Quick medical update: she's being discharged to home on the 4th -- if everything stays on track.) So in the days when I was still playing Marvel Puzzle Quest? I spent on the game. Want to know just how much money I threw away on something so stupid as a character-based Match-3?
$1.99 per month.
I didn't typo in a decimal point. One dollar and ninety-nine cents every thirty days.
Why? Because if you made a purchase of any size on MPQ, it activated Random Rewards. At certain times after finishing a match (up to twenty per day), the game would give you something extra: either a bit of the in-house currency or a recruit token -- and this state would last through the day of the purchase, plus the next twenty-nine. Based on what they would have charged for the total random extras I'd receive over that period, spending $1.99 got me about $40 worth of their completely arbitrary value. So... $1.99 monthly for dev support and still not keeping up with the Mega-Joneses. That's fair.
But the day I switched to the iPad was the day I lost MPQ, because the only way to backup your account is through Facebook. And for some strange reason, a corporation which sees no need to fact-check any claim placed on their site decided that a phone number I've had for the last five years doesn't really exist, so there went my dummy page. I couldn't bear to start over. Thanks for the good times, but taking a year and a half to rebuild my roster to the point where I'm only incredibly behind... pass.
But I still need a decent casual game in my life, and there was a certain desire to continue letting costumed characters hit things. So I went through the Apple Store, and then I found Marvel Battle Lines.
We could talk about MBL for a while: I've certainly considered doing a blog post on it. Think of it as tic-tac-toe. Played on a four-by-three grid, with Magic: The Gathering cards portraying Marvel characters, using twelve-card decks. The cards attack each other. Play defense for their allies. They can get knocked out and because this is a comic-based game, they return to your deck until you draw them again -- with a few exceptions. (At least, characters do: you also get Action cards, and they can only be played once per match.) Characters become more powerful as you level up your cards, and deck leaders modify what your set can do. It's complex, working through the special abilities of all the cards is surprisingly strategic and over the months I played it, I spent $2.98.
(Still no accidental decimal. Two dollars and ninety-eight cents. And not per month. Total. There were a pair of deep-discount special bundles I was interested in.)
I've been tempted to blog about MBL, invite others to try the game because the strategy really does become interesting... but I'm going to end the section on it now, because I got a little announcement from the devs in my morning mail. Turns out the game is so frustratingly fascinating that it's going to do the only thing it can: shut down on January 9th. Permanently. But don't worry, because the designers have plenty of content for us until then! And they started by repeating several old events and calling it a day!
(The other joke was today's daily login bonus. One thousand free units of the game's premium currency. An artificially-determined $50 former value. Because what are we going to spend it on?)
And that brings us to Hogwarts Mystery.
The two Marvel games have storylines of sorts (which mostly play out based around whichever movie came out recently), but they're strategy casuals at heart. Try to assemble the best possible team/deck and hope it's enough to make your opponent rethink their own grouping.
As a game, Hogwarts Mystery lacks one major fundamental: gameplay.
Tap the screen. Tap it again. Tap it five times to complete this task. Oh, and now we have a dialogue choice: pick what you hope is the best of the three, then brace yourself! Time to cast a spell, which means you need to -- trace a shape on the screen. How well do you remember your Potions trivia? Oh, and try to catch this expanding-and-shrinking circle in the bullseye zone. HM gameplay can be conduced by a chicken with good timing and a conductive beak. You do not go through this thing for the gameplay: in fact, other than the mandatory bits and the sections where grinding is required, you are probably trying to skip the gameplay as much as possible. (Spoiler: that's part of the idea.)
You are here for the story.
It's 1984, and you are a first-year student at Hogwarts. (What's your House? What did you want it to be?) You're not the first in your family to attend. Your brother Jacob got here before you, and seeing him off at the train was the last time you ever saw him.
There are legends of vaults, somewhere in the castle. Cursed ones. What do they contain? The legends aren't entirely sure. But your brother became curious about them. Then obsessed. He began looking, he found something, and he --
-- got expelled.
Well, it had to happen to a student eventually, right? Who do you think he was, Harry Potter? (You will probably never see Harry, because it's 1984. If you live long enough to graduate, he'll enter after you leave.) But after he was expelled, he just vanished. And no one knows what happened. No one can tell you. No one at all.
So you'll figure it out yourself.
You're going to be a good student, because there are spells you'll need. You are going to learn the secrets of this castle. You will find out what became of your brother and if you aren't quick enough... well, maybe one day, someone might go looking for you...
Curious?
The story stretches across seven game-years. (Those who began playing on Day One are currently in Year Six.) You're following the clues. Sure, you're also grinding classes because it's the only way to learn spells, and there's a dueling club and creatures to adopt and for some reason, you can just never figure out how to play Gobstones without cheating -- but in the end, you're reading a story, and it's a second-person work. This is about you. Customize your avatar, get it as close as possible, then choose your house. And yes, of course you're going to get a Slytherin on your case even if you are one, but there's also a chance to make friends across all of the houses -- which very much includes the green and silver. (You actually have to grind your friendships. Twilight would be annoyed.) You're forming your own crew. You are breaking so many rules that you-as-player will be screaming at you-as-character to just go to a teacher already. But in the end, this is a story, and that's why you're here. To see how it all comes out. And it's free to play!
...right: we all heard you laughing, especially since the blog title is right up there. It's free to play -- but it's also a microtransaction game. So how does this game put more cash into the franchise? They can't charge you for reading. The download came at no cost. So how does this work?
They can't charge you for reading.
They just want money for letting you turn the page.
Every microtransaction game has a premium currency. Most of them have a way to slowly earn it without cost, and it always makes sure you won't have enough. In the case of Hogwarts Mystery...
Players have Energy. This measures how much you can do before having to stop and in this case, that's you-the-player: if you run out of Energy in the middle of an activity, your avatar just has to wait until there's more available. When you create your character, you get an initial limit of 24 Energy. (By my point in Year Two, I'm up to 28.) Your character can travel around the school without worrying about burning Energy, and most spells won't use it --
-- right. The vast majority of spells don't use Energy. Do you know what does?
Taking notes.
You're a student. So you go to class. Classes take from one to eight hours of real time, and the longer ones offer larger rewards. You look at the blackboard. Looking at the blackboard requires tapping the screen four times, with each tap burning one Energy. Now you have to write down what you saw: that's three more. Pondering its meaning? That could be five. Oh, and your Slytherin pain just insulted you. Want to insult her back? Hope you've got two Energy left!
And once you run out of Energy (because if it's an eight-hour class, you will run out several times)? Well, you have three options.
* Wait. One point of Energy recharges every four minutes. (Your Energy limit increases as you progress through the game, and there are ways to temporarily have more than your normal maximum. Your recharge rate does not improve.)
* If you're lucky, the game will give you the option to watch a thirty-second ad right after you run out. This gives you three Energy back.
* Or... you burn the game's premium currency: gems. Fifty-five gems is 30 Energy, on the spot. No waiting required. (Of course, gems buy other things, but let's not talk about that yet.) And after getting to the midpoint of Year Two on the slow path, I have earned 327 gems: most via gameplay, a few through 'want to watch another ad?'
How much do gems cost, in real money? Five dollars gets you 130 of them. The ratio of gems-to-dollars slightly improves as you spend more (and more, and more, until $100 nets you 3,125 of the things.), but let's use the $5.00 amount as the base.
So. Moving through the game requires taking classes. Also caring for magical creatures, dueling can bring rewards, and you'll need to level up your friendship ratings. Classes and most game events burn through Energy. You start using Energy on your first day and in what has become a legendary example, your play rate matches the recharge time until the moment you find your first deathtrap and get to watch your character run out of strength while they're in the middle of being strangled by Devil's Snare. Well, you're not going to wait ninety-six minutes to free your dying eleven-year-old self, now are you? Fork over the cash!
(Real cash. Galleons not accepted.)
From that point on, you are forever running out of Energy. You don't have enough to take the longest classes, so you have to put the game down for a couple of hours (or spend money) -- and you'd better remember to come back, because such things are timed. You have to take some classes over and over again in order to grind your attributes and get access to better classes. Yes, you can find a little Energy lying around your environment, but that's just a few points and you need tons. Five dollars? That gets you two instant recharges, with a little left over. How often are you going to spend that?
(Hang on. It gets worse.)
Okay: you ground out your classes. The story is now ready to advance. You are going to meet your best friend in the dormitory to discuss the next move. In three hours.
Three very real hours.
Sometimes it's eight.
...well, don't worry about missing it: if you have to do something urgent (like sleep), the story event will be waiting when you get back. But what if you don't want to wait eight hours for unlock? The game understands that completely. Just hand over a hundred gems and you can start the next event right now! By the way, this event may require some Energy...
Incidentally, this gems-for-speed mechanic? Applies to every time-delay event. The dueling club only allows one duel every seven hours, and you need to reach a given win total for rewards -- but ninety-one gems? Next contestant up! You can't play another friend-bonding game of Gobstones until tomorrow? Gems will solve that!
But with the story itself? You've ground through so much. You're about to see what happens next, get that much closer to learning the truth about your brother's fate -- and the timewall slams up. Want to turn the page right now? Pay. Or wait. It's your choice...
I've gotten my character to the midpoint of Year Two. (I went Ravenclaw. I was tempted to choose Slytherin just to find out what it's like to have Snape like me.) I've found what may be the first of the vaults, but I can't get in alone and I don't have the skills for the required spell.
The second aspect? I need to earn nine learning 'stars' in Transfiguration before I can study Spongify. I've got five right now. The other four will require some classes. Say, a pair of one-hour efforts, which would earn two stars each and fully drain my Energy twice: better wait out those recharges. But the first? I need an ally. My best friend Rowan suggested -- Bill Weasley. (It's 1985 and he's still in school. Next year, I meet Tonks.) And he's willing to help me -- after I duel him on the training grounds.
Seven hours and seventeen minutes from now.
Or, for ninety-five gems, we could do it immediately.
The gameplay? Who cares about the gameplay? It's tapping things and tracing shapes. I want to know about the story. But the story will only let me follow at a pace which was designed to frustrate the reader. And you can spend gems on clothing for your avatar, or pets to place in your dorm room -- but for the most part, you might just want to turn the page. It's a decent story, and so the most important thing is find out what happens next. That's the gotta: you've gotta know.
But each page is locked, and the keys turn so slowly...
So far, it's been a decent story. And as I wrote this blog, the game offered me an ad-viewing session.
One commercial, three gems.
I'm now up to 330.
Or as I think of it, twelve paragraphs.
*sigh*
So if anyone happens to know of one, I'm sort of in the market for a good casual game...
Oh, and one last thing.
Yes, I am aware that my Patreon is, at least in part for the continuing stories, update-based. (Regardless of the minimum word count for such updates.)
I did not miss the irony.
Any day when you can blog about something as innocuous as a mobile game is a good day. I'm afraid I can't offer any recommendations—most of my phone-based entertainment comes from Fimfiction itself—but I'm certainly happy with the return on my investment when it comes to paying for your stories.
Portal: Flash is kinda fun?
I don't care how good the story is, that sounds like hell. D:
I’ve enjoyed Fate/Grand Order. A gacha game, but free characters are good enough to get through most content. The story is also pretty great (except for Chapter 2).
That's the sort of game you just Google the storyline of to bypass the bull****. Also, it seems to operate on the same basis as the US medical system, judging from the other stuff that, as 5145100 pointed out, is at least currently not going badly enough to blog about.
5145100
With MBL, I would have loved to see your input on the Red Skull/Web-Sling deck with Thor as leader. Namely, how to stop it.
Thor, as deck leader, has a special ability: whenever an allied character moves on the field, a random enemy takes a lightning strike for 70-100 points of damage. The Skull, as a card, has a very special ability: whenever he moves, he summons a one-cost Hydra agent into the space he just left. And Web-Sling, as an action card, picks up a targeted character and randomly moves them through every remaining empty board space until they stop in the last.
So guess what happens with this combo.
Right. Hydra agents everywhere, plus your side is sending up smoke plumes and there may be multiple enemy lines in instant formation. If you’re not dead, you’re close to it. And how do you stop it?
January 10th ought to do it.
I kinda want to get this game now cause I want to know what happens to your brother...
But on the same note I feel like this would be a great story involving Rainbow Dash..
But it’s nice to hear from you again!
You got me into MPQ and that is one of two casual match 3 games I play regularly. The other is Empires and Puzzles. That one is fairly casual as well. I haven’t felt the need to spend any large amounts of cash on it, and the level progression is a lot better than MPQ, where the developers are introducing even more bonus ways to get covers, because getting **** is just crazy at the moment.
It's not a game per se, but I will offer Duolingo. Thirty-odd languages (for english-speakers) ; available on web browser, android, and iOS; lessons take five minutes or so each; a sound 'coaching' mechanism and some community elements to encourage regular practice; and free forever with nothing essential extorted or locked behind a paywall. The non-premium account ads are not obtrusive, but a few dollars per month banish them and bring some other perks.
5145118
I glance at the D3 forums enough to know that the four-star tier has become overloaded. (Also that y’all just got Miguel.) The game needs more low-level characters, not an endless pileup near the top.
But at least the game survives, and even seems to be adding events. Its counterpart can’t say the same,
...oh, and sorry for having gotten you started.
(Are they still doing random bonuses for purchases?)
5145130
I don’t mind, the game is very good, even if I just skip PvP entirely. The random rewards are still present, and now that I found a better alliance, I can at least earn 1 cover of whatever **** comes out. I just need two ***** and I will finally have one cover for each character in the current roster.
5145114
Without knowing what other options are available, my first thought is how to tweak the problem cards. In other words, nerfs. Adjust Web-Sling to have a maximum number of moves, limit Thor and/or Red Skull to a maximum number of triggers per turn, have Thor yield diminishing results with each bolt, something along those lines.
That or introduce an ability that reflects some percentage of the damage back at the other team. Maybe bounce it off the Silver Surfer?
But yes, shutting down the game does do wonders against degenerate strategies.
I’ve been playing Gameloft games because you don't HAVE TO spend money to get ahead. You can spend $ to advance faster but you can get ahead without $, especially if you watch short ads. You do need a Facebook account to save your game
Disney has a MLP game. Don’t know much about it because you need eye/hand coordination to earn points to advance & I ain’t got none, so I don’t play. The ads make it look interesting
I used to play Royal Revolt 2, because it lets you build your own castle features BUT I had to reload Windows 10 2 times over the years & I couldn’t get my game back either time and had to start over. After the second time, I said “To HELL with this *” & stopped playing
Sims 3 isn’t bad either (Never played Sims 4 but I’ve heard bad things about it) However, you do have to buy the game. If you do, buy the Middle Ages & get a dragon -the benefits of your character not having to sleep are worth it
There’s a story in there somewhere. Someone in Hogworts needs to escape the stress and tedium of their life in a magical boarding school. They’re following the life of a mundane writer of horsewords (screaming at you-as-character to just put her in the home already), but it’s so slow! They support you on Patreon because the exchange rate of gold / fiat dollars is so ridiculous they can do it for free. The real cost is in gems that change the flow of time between their world and yours. Such an exotic and powerful manipulation is not cheap, but they just want to find out what happens...
And as 5145113 said spoiler from Google are your escape hatch when the monetization stops being cute.
5145144 Ditto on Gameloft's My Little Pony game (code 76e067e) but it's not really a occupy-your-attention-while-bored game, more of a poke-it-once-or-twice-a-day to enjoy the ponies and keep up on the special events (where you have to poke it hourly to get yet another pony. I'm up to 363 of them, but all my friend list got wiped when I moved to the iPad.) Star Trek - Fleet Command is kinda nifty, if you don't mind having your base ravaged every day or two by people who have spent $20 on the game and who pounce when you let your peace shield (which you can buy extras of for $1) expire. The initial Kill Everybody Die Die phase has more or less died out, and more civil etiquette has begun to form. (It would be an interesting sociological paper to write: Spontaneous development of society structures in F2P online games.)
The wife is addicted to one of those find the words in these six letters puzzle games. Me, I like Two Dots, which is F2P until you've gone a certain number of levels in a certain time, at which point you have to wait on your timer to tick down (or pay).
And no, I haven't spent a dime on any of the three. Or to download music. Or videos. I'm terribly stingy.
5145154
Back in the 80s, I used to play Starfleet Battles, but it was a play-on-paper wargame
Starfleet had the best ships, I usually played the Romulans. The cloaking device meant that they were over rated
The Orions had the most interesting Special Skill. You could double the engine power BUT it burned out your engines
Each turn that you did that, you had less power. So, you had to win fast
This is why I avoid anything other than emulators like the plague when looking for entertainment on my phone.
Have you tried those? The ability to use save states at any time eliminates the hassle of being unable to pause in the middle of something to go take care of real life somethings.
For many games, you don't even need a controller, though obviously something like an 8BitDo SNES pad is great for nearly any retro game. On-screen touch controls work fairly well for most games, at least those that don't require precise input combinations (Looking at you, Golden Sun!).
Speaking of Golden Sun, if you haven't played it, I highly recommend it. A rom of it is available at EmuParadise. Search for Golden Sun Mode 7.
It was released on the Gameboy Advance in 2004 and published by Camelot Games, and is one of the best JRPGs on that system. One thing that may immediately stand out to you is that, at the beginning of the game, when asked whether you want to embark on your quest to save the world, you can say no.
The game ends there if you do. Roll credits. How many games have losing as a non-failure state?
Marvel have a way to make you love a game...and, then, shut it down for no reason at all.
A couple of years ago, Marvel's Avengers Alliance was HUGE in facebook. And I mean huge, like, over a million players huge. The game was amazing, the events were frequent and linked to each new movie. There were great interactiins between players, a great pvp instance, a lot of microtransactions (but dedicated free to play players were competitive too).
And Disney ordered the game to shut down. That simple. Cause Mickey wanted full control over his new toys.
PokeMMO is quite fun if you have Android.
Fallen London and Sunless Sea (and Cultist Simulator, for that matter) are flawed but fascinating games with sometimes exquisite stories and worldbuilding, and while I found the gameplay aggravating in all three of them, it was worth it for the story.
That said, there are numerous credible allegations that the lead writer, Alexis Kennedy, has used his position to coerce women into sleeping with him and retaliating against anyone who ratted him out. There are articles if you want to check the details. If you can separate the art from the artist enough to give them money then fair enough (I've got books on my shelves that were written by some serious assholes), but I could see this being a dealbreaker and I think it's the kind of thing people should know before buying.
Personally, when I'm in hospital waiting rooms, I mostly play board game apps. Through the Ages is great if you want heavy strategy that demands your attention, which is to say it makes it bessedly difficult to think about other things. Paperback is a fun little card word game and deck builder, like Dominion meets Scrabble. Galaxy Trucker is good.
For non-board games, I like Reigns, in which you are a monarch who makes bizarre yes/no decisions for your kingdom until your all but inevitable untimely death. Polytopia is a cool and simple civ game, and it's free unless you want to buy one of the addition civilizations--I bought two even though the differences between civs are 95% cosmetic, and they were $1 each. I'm also a big fan of The Room series, which kept me sane for a few otherwise truly hellish days per game.
And this one deserves its own line break: NIght of the Full Moon is excellent, straight up. I'm shocked I hadn't heard of it before I got it.
If you want to kill two hours, present perfect and I agree that this is one of the most amazing and creative multimedia stories ever created: https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football
5145168
Aye, I played both GBA games/halves of the GBA game, plus Dark Dawn, and recall them being good (though Dark Dawn may be the weaker/est of the two/three).
Though Wikipedia appears to have the release of Golden Sun(: The Broken Seal in some places) in 2001 (2002 in Europe) and Golden Sun: The Lost Age in 2003 (2002 in Japan).
(Dark Dawn was on the DS and released, says Wikipedia, in 2010.)
The games, particularly the first one/two, have some good music as well!
(I keep referring to it/them like that because although Golden Sun and The Lost Age could be played alone (the second more than the first), they're two parts of the same story. The end of The Lost Age has some potential sequel hooks, but it could serve as a satisfying end to the series; the end of The Broken Seal is much more a "we only have so much space on this cartridge, and here's a convenient break point/arc end" sort of thing, with a lot still unresolved.)
Another Eden is a very solid mobile game if you're looking for a moderate timesink with a great story payoff and fantastic production value. It's by the main scenario writer from Chrono Trigger, and even some of the music was composed by the original CT composer.
It's f2p, and does have premium currency and gacha elements, but it never really leans on you to spend money, and I was able to progress in the story at a fairly comfortable rate.
There’s a webcomic called Homestuck.
Free, extremely lengthy, and by some arguments of high quality.
YMMV, though.
5145182
2001?
>.>
<.<
*checks wikipedia*
D'oh!
Whoopsie-doopsie.
I only ever played the first game; I have partially completed The Lost Age, but never finished it. I'll have to one of these days.
5145187
Heh, no problem. :)
Oh, aye, I recommend it. I actually owned and I think played through it first, before getting the first game (I played some of a friend's copy of the first game first and liked it enough I asked for it as a gift, but I received the second one I assume by accident.). I mean, I haven't played it in a while, so maybe it hasn't help up, but I remember having a lot of fun with it at the time, at least. It also inspired one of my first attempts to write fanfiction, which also ended up one of the very few stories I've actually tried to write and completed.
(In the same vein, I've since thought that a version of Equestria could exist in at least that fanfiction's version of that universe.)
((Heh. Some people start off with clumsily shipping main characters of clumsily putting in self-inserts. I put on more worldbuilding than plot and never dared get closer than telescope range (and I mean that pretty literally; the story never gets closer than the worldplate's equivalent of orbit) to anywhere the games visited.
On the plus side, at least I can look back fondly at it rather than cringing. :D
Made a few CGI animations of things from it, too; that was a thing I was doing a bit at the time.))
edit:
Oh! Another nice touch in the games: as in a number of RPGs, you can examine things in people's houses. Sometimes you'll steal their valuables or the like, but often you'll just get little background details. In particular, examining a stove will often give some detail on what the local culture's food is like.
On android. Moon+ Reader (ebook reading app) plus FimFic's “download story as .epub” option equals entire library’s worth of ponies on the go, regardless of connection.
Not a game, but entertainment nonetheless.
You might want to think about emulation. Just about any smartphone should have the horse power to run Gameboy, Gameboy Advanced, DS, NES, SNES, MegaDrive games. If it's a decent phone, you'd also be able to run PS1 and N64 games. There'd be a lot of good casual style games in that lineup, especially for the handhelds.
You'd need to use a bluetooth controller for anything more action orientated than a turn based game. 8BitDo make small, compact bluetooth controllers, looks to be running about $30US for the keychain sized one, or use a Xbox/PS controller if you have one.
If you don't mind the total lack of story, Star Realms is a deck-building game that's mostly free. Both players have a shared deck of agreed cards (you purchase specific sets to add to your shared deck) and you take turns using resources to buy from a shared trade row. Stuff you buy goes in your deck, then you use the things in your deck to either buy more stuff, blow up your opponents stuff, or blow them up.
Game was rated #1 White Wolf game sometime back. You can play either real time, or 48 hour take-a-break-between turns, and the game is fairly regularly updated and supported. There's also tournaments taking place constantly on Facebook; you'll never be bored.
If you do sign up, send a challenge to Malachiel :)
If you like Final Fantasy stuff, Final Fantasy Record Keeper is pretty generous and fair to folks who want to play without paying anything. It's very grindy though, and not in the "Spend money to go faster" way. There's hundreds of characters to level up, hundreds of realm dungeons to clear for useful resources, orbs and crystals to collect over time to make abilities, magicite to grind... The game is five years old, so there's an immense amount of power-crept content to do on the way to the latest cool endgame stuff.
The spending comes in when you have to decide whether to be good and disciplined and pull for relics with just the free mythril you've accumulated and free festival gifts and draws, carefully picking and choosing which relic draws to do... or whether you want to pay for gems and get more chances to pull the latest shiny toys right now.
I've recently come across Vampire's Fall: Origin which might be a good choice for waiting-room grinding. It's a role-playing game - there's always something to do in the game (so far, there are some quests and there's some exploration and looking about to find new quests). There's a degree of grinding for new XP or for the money to buy better weapons, but not an excessive degree; and there is a premium currency, but it doesn't seem like failing to get it will seriously slow your progress through the story. (I haven't actually spent any yet - and it's obtainable in small amounts without actually paying money).
Also, your character will die in the prologue. (And then awaken with a certain thirst for blood). In-game death is mostly just annoying (and half of that is because you respawn in a nearby town and might have been trying to go elsewhere).
I recommend Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp!
Now, this isn't a game with a lot of story and deep game mechanics, so if you require that it's probably not for you. But if you're willing to go for something slice-of-life, it's very well made and the microtransaction part of it is really, really lenient. It's overall a very calm and relaxing game, definitely something I appreciate when I want to unwind a little throughout the day.
Most of the gameplay is decorating your avatar and campsite/cabin/campervan. You can go fishing, insect catching, and gathering fruit, which you use to fulfill requests from your campers, who are all adorable little animals wanting to befriend you. They rotate throughout the grounds, and you can invite up to ten to your campsite to stay with you permanently. Fulfilling requests grants you material you can use to craft furniture and clothes. You can use those to decorate and also to participate in the Happy Home Designer competition where you can win money and medals for decorating a room according to specifications. There's regular events where you have fishing tourneys, flower growing, or bug catching contests where you can win items. Sometimes the prizes contain premium currency items. There's also daily quests and event quests, where you can again win items and premium currency stuff. Or just premium currency in general.
The premium currency in this game is called Leaf Tickets and is used to speed up crafting times, gain access to more happy home competitions, and buy clothes/furniture from certain events, as well as new terrains for your campsite and Fortune Cookies which are basically gatcha.
However.
Leaf Tickets are so fucking easy to come by just by logging in daily and participating in events. I must have spent at least 2000 - 3000 leaf tickets by now since I started playing about a year ago. That's about 80 to 100$ worth of premium currency, and I didn't buy a single one. And I'm not even a hardcore player. I sometimes forget this game exists for a couple of days.
It's really nice to play something where you don't feel completely ripped off or penalized for not playing often enough.
And those little animals are so freaking cute!!!!
So... Are we to expect a story from your 'verse on this subject?
I reccomend Fire Emblem Heroes. It's a little more fun if you're already vaguely familiar with the "heroes," but the story is based off of some original characters, so you don't need to memorize, say, all the characters from Nohr and Hoshido and how they feel about each other. You play as the tactician and legendary summoner who commands the heroes in battle. I personally think it's a lot of fun.
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I believe it was one of the Far Cry games that allowed you to complete the game by actually obeying the creepy obviously-the-main-villain guy who tells you to wait right there while he gets something for you, thus bypassing basically the entire game.
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Actually, I found the solution today. And I did it through pure random draw.
I've been burning off my non-paid currency on card booster packs. (Why not? The currency part of the store is closed. Daily earning only, and -- as said, what else am I going to spend it on?) And in doing so, I drew a card on the Epic tier: my first copy of Wiccan. His power?
Or in MtG terms, he has the conditional ability to go directly after your life points. No blocks.
...yipe. But you have to *know* your opponent is running a mobility-heavy deck before you start, otherwise he's just sitting there. And regardless -- January 10th.
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Probably not.
1. Microtransactions rely on the mode of payment being unobtrusive enough that the small sticker prices can sneak up on you. Ponies don't have anything like electronic transactions yet (although "credit" probably exists if early Apple Bloom is accepted as not spouting nonsense), so ponies may be too aware of how much they're spending for this to work.
2. Most of the relevant material is covered in Lootspheres. I might argue this as a "yes" answer, except it's not 'verse-connected. I instead weight it as "probably no" because Estee
a) has decided (a first time) to address it outside the 'verse (for some reasons that may result in the same decision), and
b) might feel once was enough.
Now, I don't speak for Estee. I'm just not holding my breath for such a story.
I feel like you *must* have already seen and/or tried it, as it's pretty well known at this point, but: Hearthstone? It's relatively similar to the Marvel games, from the sounds of it, although I haven't played them myself. Completely free to play, altho u can spend money to buy lil card booster packs, or to unlock some of the single player story content - but you unlock plenty of cards just by playing, and theres a whole ton of free modes, both single and multiplayer. Tbh, most of the singleplayer stuff bores me, with a handful of exceptions.
It's both PC and Mobile, and probably a handful of other platforms - or atleast, was when I last checked. Does require a half-decent device tho. My cheap korean HTC brick won't run it, but I frequently play on pc.
Cookie Clicker released the Android version not too long ago, though it seems you're on an iPhone.
And though I haven't played, I've heard good things about Puzzle Pirates. I hope there isn't anything bad to hear, but reality being what it is, maybe there is.
Oh, not sure if anyone's recommended this yet, but they have stardew valley for mobile now. It's not a bad port, it does cost like eight bucks.
..And then you never have to pay for it again and it'll definitely kill time!