Merge Dragons!

So when I first downloaded this, it was out of sheer curiosity. I had seen it advertised over and over while playing other games, so I caved and downloaded it. My first day playing was horrendous. I started playing the levels, but then quickly ran through all of my chalices. Playing other games that require a sort of “energy” to play, I had assumed that my chalices would be refilled in less than an hour. Boy was I wrong. It takes AN HOUR to refill ONE chalice. How absolutely ridiculous. I ended up spending my entire day babysitting the game, trying to catch the seeds that fly across the screen so that I could make sprouts to make flowers. The game doesn’t pick up quickly if you don’t pay to play essentially. I have several plots of land in my camp dedicated to chests that cost gems to open, and I will not suffer the defeat of selling them. It’s totally possible to play for free, you just have to work that much harder in order to get anywhere. Despite the glaring flaws that this game has, it has a hold on me that will last a very long time. There’s so much satisfaction in building up a beautiful camp and earning higher level items and dragons. I wish this game wasn’t such a blatant money-grab, because it’d be so much more fun. If you’re not patient and not willing to pay, don’t play. If you are patient, you could go the free route or the paid route, it’s up to you. Anyway, I’d recommend the game solely because the dragons are so cute.

I love playing this game and it’s really rewarding, but when ever I go on, there are times that I find I have lost dragons in my camp, they are mostly the event dragons or the owl griffons, this is the second time I have gotten on and found that an entire species of dragon is just gone. I worked hard for those. There are also times when I will be playing and my hand will brush against the sell or delete button and then it’s gone. I am asked about the big things, if I am sure but the smaller things that are still hard to get, I am not asked about and they are just gone. Like with the event challenges, if you are not really careful you can delete your only way of obtaining the objects you need. There are also times when I think I need to get rid of chests because I cannot open them without paying money to get a small amount of gems first. I don’t know about everyone else but I don’t feel like paying an obscene amount of money for only a few gems. The the purple crystal nest chests, I am fine getting rid of the others but those chests don’t come around a lot and I am running out of room. If there was just a little more room at your camp or an easier way of obtaining the room so you could keep those chests till you could open them, I would love that. Or a way of consolidating them for a different prize or something would also be welcome.

There was another game similar to this that would constantly appear on ads whilst I was playing another game; I caved and searched for it but found this instead (while the advertised game was no where to be found) and I thought I’d give it a shot. I immediately grew addicted to the merge concept and would play for HOURS! I was really surprised to know how much time this game takes up. Creating Wonders is a process but with all the dragons there it becomes easy, time consuming, but easy. While the concept and the dragons reel me in every time, I don’t like the very limited number of chalices we get...and watching ads for a single one is quite frustrating - I never care the chalice levels anymore. And the events...Ooooh...how I almost dislike playing the events. If it weren’t for the prizes I would forget about it, but alas...I do enjoy having special stuff on my land. The dragons used for the events take forever to harvest the point treats - two tiny dragons! One takes at least 1 minute while the other 15 seconds. I am unaware of how everyone else plays the events but it’s laughable to me how two dragons almost never get me halfway to the reward I want. And the land healing bit...if the orb harvesting didn’t take too long and high level orbs didn’t cost almost 300 gems in the shop (it’s like $15-$20 for one high leveled orb) it’d be swell. I’d heal all the land if could.

Ok I’ve been playing for a couple of months and have a few opinions. I had been playing war strategy games for years and wanted to find a “free” to play game that didn’t involve spending a fortune on. All of these games are developed to make money...nothing else. With that said and understood I was determined to spend as little as possible but still have a good time. I’ve spent around $200 so far and sitting at 13 million points. Dragon power is approx 4500. I’m not spending anymore. Lol they are serious in tempting you to spend! They spit out chests and vaults non-stop and the only way to open them is to buy jewels/chalices. I’m telling you it’s ridiculous how many they give you. There’s no way to turn the chests function off. If you opened all of them you’d spend a fortune. $200 is actually more then i wanted to spend. Trust me I did spend thousands on those war games. So I sell every chest/vault that pops up for coins. Every one of them. It is hysterical. It’s almost like they’ve got an algorithm that will keep popping out chests out until you open them. The game is fun and I enjoy it. You don’t have to spend much money at all if any. All of the different dragons look and function nicely. They have events often which I like. I do recommend the game but remember you don’t have to open the chests/vaults to have fun and progress. Take your time.

I love this game. I really do. It’s quite lovely to look at, and the premise is simple and endearing. The levels are fun and gradually become more challenging, and the camp can keep one occupied for hours. The story-despite being presented in a cutesy manner-is subtly dark enough for an older player to appreciate. However, I have two problems. Starting with the more trivial one: trophies. Needing them to play levels is fine, and even the time it takes for them to refill them is no real issue. But the fact that the max number you can have at one time is seven? I don’t know, I think it would be better at ten. Seven just seems like such a random number, and lets you play maybe one or two levels-ten is a more sensible number, and would allow you to get through three or so before running out. But that isn’t enough to ruin this game. What really bothers me is the gems. I really hate the fact that there is no reliable way to get gems. You will never have enough to take advantage of all the cool gem-based features like the royal hatchery or the zen temple. I love those features-but I can’t use them because the only way to get gems is through purchase with real money. I understand that money needs to be made somehow-so rather than charging for a crucial part of gameplay, it would improve the game infinitely if a price of two, three, even four bucks was charged for the app, and a way to collect gems within the game was added.