I hate the practice of using fake ads (with completely different gameplay) to sell mobile games.
To that end, I’m starting a list of games which feature the actual gameplay shown in the ads. I use android so my links will be for the Google Play Store. Please share any you find. Here’s a couple to get started:
“Pull Pins To Save The Person Ad” - “Hero Rescue” - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.herorescue.knight.pull.pin&hl=en_US
“Attack the Smaller Number To Defeat the Tower Ad” - “Hero Castle Wars: Tower Attack” - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=game.genix.stickman.hero.war.puzzle&hl=en_US
What’s the actual original game where you start off as a single guy with a gun walking up a vertical alleyway and you gain more and more armed guys by going through blue boxes with numbers on them?
I haven’t found a real mobile game which plays like that ad yet. There is a similar game for the PC: Math Runner by FatDino
Last War isn’t what spawned those ads but looks more like someone decided to make a game that plays like those ads. I installed it and played it for like a day. It’s pretty fun, but that one day essentially gave me my fill and I haven’t returned.
Game Grumps did a let’s play not too long ago on a game the premise of which is explicitly “those fake games from the mobile ads”.
(EDIT: For some reason the link to this Wiki article doesn’t work, apparently because of the exclamation point at the end, but if you copy-paste it into your browser it should.)
This should work:
I’ve seen a lot of game ads, and some of them seem like they might be fun games, but I never atually played any of them. It didn’t take long before I started hearing that the ads are nothing like the games they’re plugging. Which leaves me with lots of questions; I’ll be keeping an eye on this thread.
One thing I noticed about the ads is that they usually show someone playing a game, and being really bad at it. Is that part of the advertising, make people think “oh, that looks easy, I could beat that”?
I played the first few levels of Hero Castle Wars: Tower Attack and it’s just as boring as you might expect. It’s basically a greater-than/less-than game. If you comprehend numbers, you can win the game. I deleted it after three levels.
Are all of the puzzles in that game as easy as the ones shown in the video?
That’s the problem with that kinda game, it only looks viable while someone is playing it badly.
It’s stupidly easy at first but does get more difficult. Later on some of the levels initially appear unwinnable but can be beat by trying a less obvious order. But yeah, it’s not rocket science and there’s an overabundance of ads.
Here’s another one in the “choose left or right” genre on mobile. Looks to be aimed at a younger audience: