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.

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.

I want to like this game, but the interface makes it frustrating. I don’t have any form of colorblindness, but it’s really hard to tell if some screws and their boxes are the same color. This could be easily fixed with unique screw head shapes, something that match 3 games figured out a couple decades ago.

The rewards for completing levels come in the form of coins… and a different kind of coin with a wrench on the face. The first coins go in a piggy bank that the game hints will break open when full, but it doesn’t.

The wrench coins go into a box that you can use to try a level without breaking a streak, but without the piggy bank coins, you don’t have enough.

The thing that finally made me quit was when they added a minigame between levels where if you press a button, you can multiply the coins received if you watch an ad, or another button that should take you to the next level. They both show the ad.

Worst part? Pressing the button in a particular spot doesn’t have anything to do with the reward multiplier.

And the coins? Probably went in the already full piggy bank. I quit caring because yet another between level bonus screen was added.

Devs,
Keep simple games simple. Don’t add stuff that makes the game draining. Make any bonus challenges work. Make it so you have another way to tell, other than extremely similar shades of color, what screw goes with what box.