TENKYU 12+

Fun game that’s pretty addictive, has some pretty challenging parts (especially the ‘bridges’ that move up and down or sideways). The only down side is that the controls are a mix of both tilt and guiding with your finger. Having the option to choose which way we’d like to control the ball would be nice as having both on at once can be tricky to manage (plus I personally prefer to use my finger to guide). In regard to the ads they aren’t too frequent and if they bother you that much you can pay to remove them!

So this game is very relaxing and quite addictive, but lovely and calm, which is great. Once you’ve ‘got rid’ of the ads the odd one does pop up which is better than the ‘no adds’ you pay £2.99 for but hardly ad-free. Still, immensely better. There are no settings, so you can’t find out what the diamond things you collect are supposed to achieve, and once you get to level 300 or so the same half-dozen stages are endlessly rehashed. The lovely spirally ones disappear, and it becomes a slightly tedious round of clearing the same spinning platforms and negotiating holes and not much else.

I have played to what is evidently the top level, as it got to level 499 and once you’ve cleared that, instead of rebooting or telling you you’ve got the level 500 -or indeed, the end, it just plays... level 499.... endlessly. You can’t seem to reset to level one, or move forward at all. It’s just level 499 FOREVER.

I was enjoying this game so at level 30 thought it right to pay for it, paying £2.99 to go “ad-free”. This is where the first problem occurred.

“Ad-free” is only ad-free in between levels. If you die/fail and want to recover midway through a level, you have to watch an ad. This feels deceitful and blatant false advertising.

After around level 50 I realised there were no more new “obstacles” being added. The same ones were being used in different patterns in different colours. I have reached level 130 now and not met a new obstacle.

The “currency” you seem to earn (diamonds) plays no role in the game. You don’t lose it when you die. You don’t pay with it to respawn. It isn’t even used for the tiniest of details that could massively improve this game’s playability and incentivise people to continue playing such as:
- use the currency to purchase new ball “skins”, background “skins” or “boosts”
- put the currency in a high score system comparing players across FB friends and the world

Even time trials for each stage could be a new way to engage players.

It has to be said that playing this game is calming, which is why I am affording it 2 stars. However, I can’t help but feel that what I’m playing is but a shell of the game the devs intended it to be and to charge £2.99 for a “some ads go away” version is frankly appalling.