So-called “freemium” games seem to be a dime a dozen these days, offering a free gaming experience, and allowing the player to progress through the game faster by purchasing coins or credits. Most of these games are city or village building titles such as Smurfs Village or FarmVille. BaronsonCreative has taken that concept all the way down to the ocean floor with AquaVille (free, link).
Overview
AquaVille has all the elements you might expect from a village-building game, including a wide variety of structures to build and underwater plants to grow – all of which, of course, can be done faster by purchasing credits. The game also adds an interesting element: marine life.
The game features a wide variety of fish and other underwater creatures that swim freely through your underwater village. Fish help you keep your city pollution free, and can also bring you coins and various mystery items.
Those willing to devote enough time to the game will be able to build impressive, sprawling ocean villages built of corral reef and stone, impressive structures, fields of crops (to feed the fish so they’ll keep bringing you coins and items), decorations, and more.
The weakness of games like AquaVille, at least in my view, is that they are incredibly demanding. The game continues on in real time even when you’re not playing it, so if you have a job, a life, or real commitments, you may find yourself struggling to establish a flourishing underwater world.
If you do have the time and energy to devote to building a village, AquaVille is about as fun, rewarding, and addicting as possible! There’s an endless number of things to do, and nearly infinite possibilities for expanding and designing your city.
I did find a couple of concerns with AquaVille (other than my personal dislike of free-to-play games), such as that the app takes quite a while to load for the first time. In fact, it took nearly a full three minutes for the app to download all of the content necessary to get started, and frankly, I find that a bit annoying. I was also disappointed that the game wasn’t optimized with Retina graphics for either the iPhone or iPad.
Verdict[rating:3]
All things considered, AquaVille is a fun and engaging game, and (at least under ideal circumstances) it’s completely free! Unfortunately, there’s nothing especially remarkable to make it stand out in the sea of similar titles strewn across the App Store.
AquaVille is a universal app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and is available now through the App Store (free, App Store link).
Pros
- Simple and fun to play
- Free
Cons
- Long initial load times
- Time consuming
