Kryss - The Battle of Words 4+

The strangest thing about this game is the fact that it’s actually difficult to get a bunch of games going. You know, in Words with Friends, you can play all day. You just keep inviting random people and there’s never a limit. This game limits how many games you can play. Well, it’s actually the game boards you have to earn. I couldn’t believe the first time I played — I was just getting started and it said I was out of game boards. I had to watch a video to get ONE game board. It’s crazy. Then, in case you have some extra time and want to watch a bunch of videos so you can get more game boards, you can only watch three. It’s exactly the opposite of what a game developer should be doing. Seems the goal would be to get the player to stick with the game, keep playing, get lots of boards. But to have to watch an entire video to get one game board — and then having to watch videos between moves — it’s insane. I would never have hung in there if a friend hadn’t kept at me. I would have deleted the app and that would have been the end of it.

If you can manage to not delete the app out of frustration, it’s actually kind of fun. A little strange because some of clues are downright absurd. There are weird drawings and clues to acronyms that don’t really exist. But if these folks can stop with the dumb policy to make us watch all those videos, I’m sure they’ll be more successful.

This game plays great and has a really cool unique setup that makes it very enjoyable for the casual player. But… Do you really need to have ads play after every turn? You have micro ads playing on each screen and then you have ads playing after each and every turn. I get the desire to make money off a game like this but the only option to remove the adds is a $10/month subscription? Seems to me like your cost to reward ratio is heavily skewed. Please offer tiered one time purchases for the ads! The ads are to intrusive and it really takes away from the enjoyment of the game. Again, I’m all for making money but there has to be some thought into when and where you stick intrusive ads. Maybe at the end of the game instead at the end of each turn? Maybe when you first load the game? Also, the game board situation is just as tragic and needs to be retooled. Maybe offer 5 games boards a day instead of three? Maybe lower the cost to purchase? You want people in your game and you want them to contribute to your ad revenue. Please don’t penalize people for not wanting to add on another monthly subscription. Be part of the change in the mobile industry and be creative with your revenue streams, which we all know you can do, I mean look at your game, it’s obvious a gem of a game!!

I really like the concept of this game, but it has so many issues. First off, it’s buggy. It constantly has issues, it gets my phone VERY hot very quickly, it crashes a lot, it just generally does not run well. Another issue is that there is no way to start a new game unless you either pay or watch an ad. It would be nice if you could do something to earn games. I’m so tired of games that you have to pay a small fortune to play or it just isn’t as fun or super obnoxious because it’s nothing but watching ads. Not only do you have to watch an ad to start a new game, it makes you watch ads after many of your turns. I honestly refuse to pay ANY money on apps that are that greedy. If an app has options to reduce/remove ads by paying a one time fee, I’m much more willing to spend money on the app in other ways, as long as it’s not outrageous pricing like so many other phone games. It’s absolutely ridiculous the amount of money games like this ask you to pay to make the game enjoyable. I could pay $60-$70 on a PlayStation game with incredible graphics and a beautiful storyline and play-through and then some stupid phone app asks me to pay $99 for gems, or boards, or whatever form of currency they’re using in the game that will be gone in a matter of a week. It’s ridiculous. Don’t waste your time or money with this game. Find a better one that runs better and doesn’t ask you to sell your first born child to play it.