Seaside Escape®: Merge & Story 4+

This is a update to my first review that you can see below. After playing for a while, the game is getting too tedious and aggravating for me. I don’t follow story lines because they don’t interest me, so I’m just here to play the game. A large part of these types of merge games is the building. In other games, I have the option to pick colors or schemes for decorating. This one has nothing to pick from. It just quickly builds a building without any input from the player at all. Very boring. Also, there are so many different items to merge that it’s hard to keep up, or know when it’s best to delete unwanted items. Most items also take several stages to merge and the board fills up quickly. I haven’t spent any real money on the game, and after playing for a while, I’m more likely to just delete it. And the storage for the tools is lame. Just give storage for high level items that you don’t want to delete. I’m done.

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Really like this matching game so far. It’s straightforward and you can play for a while before you need to get more energy. So far I haven’t spent any real money, but there is potential for that if the game continues to impress me. I expect to have to spend real money at some point because I’m sure they aren’t going to continually hand out free energy. No annoying ads every few minutes either. Kudos to the developer.

This game isn’t meant to captivate your every waking moment. This game is to make you smile or chuckle or remember a sweet nostalgic event from your past. If you follow the story line you are taken to the characters’ own little slice of the world and are immersed in its culture and warmth (and if you’re missing Turkish/Greek relatives like I am, it really plays to the nostalgia). At the same time, the way that the game is structured (being a merge-based game), there’s a semblance of feeling like you are working toward something, piece by piece, just like the characters are doing to restore their island. It’s not “The Game of the Year” or “The Best of All Time”, but it’s something small that can occupy a small space in my brain when everything else feels like too much, and I appreciate that this game was made on purpose- that is to say it wasn’t just made for the sake of slapping something together and calling it a game. The story is thought out, things are revealed similarly to they way they would be in a book, it’s not hyper realistic but I don’t think anybody expects it to be. I’m at a place right now where a lot is going on in my life and most of it feels like too much but this little game has it’s purpose, and it lets me have a little purpose too, outside of everything else. Thank you.

I keep thinking that I should write them a review & am finally getting around to it. Microfun knows how to make a game. The graphics are very well done & there are zero ads. Zero. Not even an option. In-game purchases are more expensive than other games, likely due to the lack of ads, but are completely unnecessary. I’ve bought a couple to have a bit more play time, really just to give the developers money because they deserve it.

I even rather like the storyline. I usually skip that kind of stuff, but this one is interesting to me. Another one that they made called Gossip Harbor isn’t nearly as engaging of a story for me, but other people might like it & the graphics and play style are every bit as quality as this one.

They have at least two 3D versions that have more of the building aspect that some people like. I play Merge Fables. Quality graphics again on these; those ones have infrequent optional ads, but they are also completely unnecessary.