Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle 12+

Got intrigued by the playable ad and of course they start out too easy. Fine. Got a hard level that was super exciting and was happy to keep playing the easy levels until they got progressively harder. Then after level 4 is this ridiculous hard level that I don’t get on the first try. Fine. But I have to watch an ad to retry. Fine. After retrying this bonus hard level a few times, I get desperate and watched more ads to get some power ups. Cycled through that a few times and after retrying this level with power ups several times and watching tons of ads, I finally pass bonus hard level #2. Regular level 5 and. 6? A breeze. Then bonus hard level 3. And the darn thing looks just as annoying as the previous hard level. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love a good hard puzzle you can sit and stew on for 20 minutes. I’m just kinda bummed that to do that, you either have to watch 5 collective minutes of ads or fork out cash just to be able to undo a mistake or have a chance to try again or get more time. Thanks but no thanks. Deleting after posting this review. Adding bonus harder levels with the super easy ones is a great idea, but the scaffolding is horrible.

I would love this game so much more without the time factor. I don’t really care they have an easy level and then a hard one and then just rinse and repeat. I love sitting forever to figure it out. But forcing me to watch a single ad that’s 80 seconds long with no exiting it just to undo a single move… yeah, that’s annoying. Another undo, 30 second ad. That’s fine. And then another 80 seconds. Need another undo? 30 seconds. I think I’m on the fourth or fifth hard level and even now, they basically want you to spend money and they don’t hide it. And all of this is for a single hard level that’s maybe 3:30 minutes long. Why am I spending more time watching ads than I am playing the game? If this is all at level 5, why would I even bother continuing to play? If this was like level 60, I could hear you out on that. This is level 5. If you took away the timed part of levels, I’d be a lot less annoyed. That or installing a “zen mode” where you just play over and over and over while not trying to beat a clock or get a better score. I’m not keeping this because it’s incredibly depressing that even ads on streaming platforms are shorter than the ones in a single game where you undo a move three or four times. When you undo a single move, you don’t get that time back. Wanna restart the level? 50/50 chance you get an 80 second ad.

The game itself is fun…even the super challenging levels that take you multiple tries. The problem is with the ads. Several are 90 second ads and there are more that are multipart ads where the first part is 30-60 seconds, then you close it out Nd a second part opens up and plays for another 15-30 seconds, and then another time you have to x out. It’s just way too many clicks and too much time. Ads should max out at 30 seconds. Any longer than that is a waste and an annoyance that ensured I will never buy or download what is being advertised. Additionally there are a few ads that glitch out and freeze, so you’ve agreed to watch an ad to earn extra time or a game assist and after watching the ad you can’t close the ad without closing the app, which, you guessed it, means starting the level over. No bueno. Anyway, today I got on to play and the puzzle level comes up with a blank background and the timer running. No bolts, no boards…nothing to do. Timer runs out and I try again…same thing. This might be it for me. Fun concept but too many long ads and glitches, and I refuse to do in app purchases. Oh well.