There's a couple of weird things, one is that it put 10 players in unbalanced teams, which is kind of a "duh" thing.

Yeah, the grinding of "loot caves" is a total losing proposition. I realized this last week and have been much happier playing the game since.

Yeah, it's an apt comparison. I paid more than people will later for a less finished product that the company has promised to patch until it's complete.

I might be wrong about the "losers get IB rep" part. I thought I saw IB rep and not Crucible rep pop when I lost last night, but I'll admit I didn't look super closely.

When the event launched, there was a +25 Iron Banner rep reward for winning, and none whatsoever for losing. This caused a lot of quits mid-game if it looked like your team was losing. People were essentially re-rolling for a better team over and over again rather than playing games to the end.

I would not have noticed your nails if you hadn't said anything. NOW I CANNOT UNSEE THEM!

I just want to say - if you had this power, wouldn't you totally abuse it constantly? I mean, really. I get that it's limited, but shit. If I dropped my ice cream, I'd totally send someone 5 minutes into the past to save it. AVERT THIS TERRIBLE FUTURE WHERE MY ICE CREAM IS ON THE FLOOR OMG :(

Mkay, one thing that didn't make sense to me.

I started my own gaming blog a few years back. I wrote some reviews, I posted some tips for my favorite games, and so on. The audience was really me, my cohorts, and maybe a few friends. It never really went anywhere.

I was tempted to grab this at $15, but from what I've heard it's still a hot mess. The city sizes are too small, there are still tons of bugs, and the simulation engine itself is woefully inadequate.

Pet Rescue Saga is better, IMHO. It's a bit more strategic and a bit less luck-based, although sometimes I still see the Candy Crush-ness in it.

This is totally true. It's designed specifically so that it's just hard enough that your "normal" run of random luck is not enough to win on its own.

I wouldn't feel bad about level 70 - that means you made it past level 65, and HOLY @*#& is that a nasty piece of work of a level. There's one in the 90's that I about threw my phone trying to clear. Can't recall offhand if it's 95 or 97, but good lord.

33 is really where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. It was one of the first levels I ever wrote a guide for - http://www.withoutthesarcasm.com/how-do-i-clear…

Schafer: Well, it essentially looked like a documentary. With an example game, you know, a small… it would've looked like… have you ever seen the Flash games on our website?

If you like the "Match X" type games (a la Puzzle and Dragons), check out Puzzle Craft, it's really quite good. It's F2P Android/iOS, but the microtransactions are completely optional. I think it won a few design awards as well.

I'm not surprised either - my hardcore gaming friend, who is a total Halo and CoD fanboy, owns multiple consoles, etc, regularly pays for F2P games that he likes. He considers it encouraging the developer to continue making the kinds of games he likes.

I hope the response is positive enough that eventually we see Mother 3 stateside, or another game in the series. Not holding my breath, mind you, but that it's a huge seller at least gives me hope :)

Is XP/levels something they've monetized? Is this the sort of thing they'd patch saying "oh, it's a glitch that breaks your fun" when they really mean "oh, you completely bypassed your need to pay for something we were planning to charge you for :("

Man, I would pay double the price for this game if they'd gotten Sam Jackson to do Nick Fury's voice. I don't know what he charges, but dude, that would have been sweeeeeeeeeeet!