Screw Out: Jam Puzzle 4+

Suggestions

The commercials are for too long. 45 to 55 seconds, two hundred times a day. Why the 5 more seconds countdown after the rejection. After we see the results for 5 seconds we know if we want to check it out. After two hundred times a day we know them all by heart anyway. The same commercials ten times in a row, Just think about it. I understand commercials, I don’t understand bombardment.

And then your arm gets tired from having to punch the same button multiple times go to the next step.

I really liked this game in the beginning. I downloaded it yesterday and played for a good chunk of my day off. But a couple things slowly started grating on my nerves until I decided to just delete it altogether. First was how they handle the extra overflow screw slots. Each level has five screw slots that you can use as an extra spot to move pins around. You’d THINK that you’d be able to use all five and if you tried to use a sixth spot (that doesn’t exist) you’d get a warning. But it cuts you off the moment you use the fifth and asks if you want to keep going for more coins (which you can, of course, conveniently pay for if you don’t have enough). So essentially you only have four extra screw slots and it’s MADDENING seeing the fifth there that you just can’t use. What is the point?

That I could live with. But the final straw for me was when I started hitting levels that I literally could not beat without power-ups. Sometimes multiple power-ups. Listen, I understand that y’all need to get paid just like the rest of us, but I’m here to turn my brain off after work. I have no money and if I did, freaking Screw Jam isn’t the thing I would be spending it on. Throw more ads at us. I don’t mind if I need to watch ads to get more coins or something. But don’t make the game literally unplayable without spending money.

While I suspect this game has some levels that are un-winnable without boosters, the fact that I've been able to amass a stock of them says everything for me. I promise you other games employ this tactic of sprinkling in impossible levels (without a booster) to burn your supplies til you need to pay them in ads or dollars to move on.

Here I don't mind playing ads sometimes, and I don't regret paying for ad-free. I've tried no less than 12 similar apps. This is the one I keep coming back to.

I couldn't find a button from inside the app to rate it, so I couldn't verify whether or not they employ the common strategy of having you pass through a mock rating screen before prompting to actually submit your rating to the app store, but only if you promise to rate it 5 stars. I had to route my way here manually, but the latter is better than the former.

I left off a star though, because I think the mechanics could be improved. My favorite incarnations of this game allow you to fill a hole with one screw, and then sneak the last one into the present box before the fail screen, allowing you to stay in the game if you're crafty enough. If this were possible in this game, I'd give it 5 stars, because that is so much more fun and satisfying.