Automatoys +4

This is quite fun! I learned about this type of marble-track-race toy from a couple of Ashens videos last year, and the concept really stuck with me. I loved setting up big vertical marble racetracks as a kid, and these things would've been an obsession for me.

It seemed strange that no one had tried to recreate them digitally. They've been around since the late 70s in physical form, but no one ever ported Screwball Speedway or developed something in the same vein. Automatoys finally does, and it's fantastic. It's short, but the replay value is all in figuring out how to lower your clear time on each toy, and that can eat up hours of your life.

tl;dr: Automatoys is a great little game. If you like doing time trials or watching speedruns, you'll get hooked. The current selection is, without a doubt, worth twice its current price. If the devs make more levels, I will gladly pay for them (hint hint).

First of all the game design is perfect! It’s really cool to see all the different types of automatoys (sorry I don’t know if I’m spelling it right) it’s very creative and fun to see how all the contraptions work and experiment what failed and what you could do better on next time. Also the bright colors make the setting feel light and happy! The little smiling face on the ball makes it 10x cuter as well. The sfx is also very good it’s satisfying to hear the clunks etc as the ball continues throughout the puzzles. My only problem is that I find myself at a point where I won’t move on to the next level until I’ve gotten 3 stars on my last one which causes a lot of frustration and this game is supposed to be calming. But I guess it’s my problem that I just have the pet peeve of not feeling satisfaction until I’ve done it perfectly but I just feel like it gets frustrating to know that you didn’t get to the expectations the game expected which makes you feel bad and you want to keep repeating it until you’ve finally exceeded the expectations. This makes you end up sitting there for hours playing that one level and then you finally realize how much time you’ve wasted just to continuously fail. Other than that the game is very calming, cute and great for passing time and getting your brain to exercise.

The combination of cute graphics, amazing level design, good sound design, and super satisfying haptics make this game very unique, even if the concept seems strangely familiar at first. Absolutely worth the $2 the developers ask for to unlock all the levels. It can be frustrating in the later levels, but that's part of the fun once you eventually figure it out (you definitely have to replay some levels multiple times, especially if you want to get more stars).

Great design, only one in-app purchase to unlock all the levels, no obnoxious ads, no ridiculous monetization (I can think of a few ways the developers could let you cheat or pay to win) — I know the bar for mobile games is on the ground, but still, this game absolutely deserves the praise and what little of your money it asks for. 5 stars.