This is a great puzzler. I really enjoy the actual game itself but —
It’s tacky and obnoxious due to its aggressive monetization.
1. You earn coins for completing a level, which cheapens the whole feel of the game.
2. There’s an undo button, but it costs 10 coins to use each time. Gross and tacky.
3. There’s a giant HINT button and if you have the audacity to take more than one or two attempts to solve a puzzle, a huge flashing yellow arrow will draw your attention to the HINT button, making you feel like a loser for not solving the puzzle on your first attempt.
4. It’s intentionally really easy to waste hundreds of coins accidentally on a level skip. When you press RESTART, sometimes it offers a skip for like 500 coins and I’ve hit it by accident several times already.
5. Sometimes tries to sell me coins in between levels. I don’t want more coins. I want the game without coins!
There’s already a ton of forced ads you can remove for $2.99. And I would have gladly paid it if the game had stopped there and let me have a fully premium experience for my $2.99. But as is I won’t be spending any money on it. What a way to ruin what could have been a really enjoyable experience.
Developer replied on Nov 25, 2018
Hi AppUnwrapper,
Thank you for your detailed review. We're very happy that you like the actual game and appreciate you sharing your opinions regarding monetization. This is by no means the final version of Humbug - we will continue to update the game and try to make it enjoyable to as many people as possible. We have discussed your points and are planning to address some of your concerns with the hint button soon. We will let you know once that update is out. Sorry to hear that you've clicked the skip level button by mistake - that is definitely *not* our intention. We may need to make some adjustments to the UI in order to prevent that from happening. Thanks again for your honest opinions.
Kind regards, Jonathan and Christoffer