You know that feeling when you need something to fiddle around with? Occasionally, when we want to let thoughts flow, it’s a pen for some random doodling. But lately, we’ve been picking up Merge Mayor instead. It’s the perfect game to simultaneously engage your brain while helping you relax.
On a matching board, you’ll see a multitude of items; merge two of the same to create a better one, then keep merging the result with a duplicate. Cherry plus cherry equals strawberry, strawberry plus strawberry equals apple, and so on. It’s a task that doesn’t need much concentration, but repeating it to work toward the best possible items is very rewarding.
There’s really no “game over” moment. Pretty much anything on the board can be merged into something else, so you can expect a continuous, relaxing flow of dragging your finger across the screen to merge, merge, merge.
What’s so lovely about Merge Mayor is that all this action builds up to something. The items you’re creating—such as fruit, beverages, or vehicles—are needed by a farm, a cafe, a factory, and a retail shop, all part of a cute low-poly style city that you’re the mayor of. Keep it flourishing and growing with upgraded buildings; in the future, there’ll be more missions, items, and areas to unlock in the game, such as a beautiful beach, stunning mountains, and lush farmland.
We love the work that the team behind Idle Coffee Corp put into their new game, and we’re sure to keep going back to it for the months to come—if not for some for some merging while we let our minds wander, then to see what was once our village turn into a city full of life.
Developer: Starberry Games
Founders: Antti Hattara, Samir Hadi, and Svend Dutz got to know each other when working together at game developer Wooga in Berlin.
Game launched: April 2021
Team size: 18
Mission: Creating unique game experiences by combining great design with trending play mechanics.
Did you know: In the middle of development, the team turned the game’s concept upside down. What was planned as an idle game with a merge element, became a merge game with only a few idle elements.