Hello Kitty - Merge Town

Disappointing - See Rec

TLDR; Download “Hello Kitty My Dream Store” instead. While I’m a huge Sanrio fan, and this app technically functions at baseline (hence 2 stars), it has too much room for improvement, which isn’t going to happen as the last update was 3 years ago as of now. I use the app 1Blocker, so I don’t run into the incessant ads that other reviewers have (in fact, zero total). But I don’t think this game can be played unless you pay real money, in large amounts, at high frequency, for a mundane experience. The “generators” (or items you tap to exchange energy for mergable items) are ridiculous.. I’m talking two level 1 items and then it has to recharge for 10+ minutes…unless you pay diamonds…which cost real money. Obviously, developers have to get income somehow, but the mechanics are so overly locked up for profits that a player cannot develop a fondness for the app—it’s bad for players and for business. It’ll prompt you to spend diamonds to replenish energy, only to have no generators that can use that energy, and so on. It’s really frustrating, especially because the merging board is the only aspect of the game, so there’s nothing to entertain you while you wait, and that makes the game avoidable for ADHD minds like mine. Aside from that, the aesthetics are pretty sucky. The items and board were not designed with visual fatigue and recognizability in mind. The board always looks like maddening high-contrast clutter. The pastel softness of Sanrio is absent. This is a home improvement themed merging game with *occasional* sightings of Hello Kitty, and the UI seems to have been made by a carpenter himself. Save your time, serotonin and money for a better game: Hello Kitty My Dream Store. That game is much more aesthetically appealing for a player trying to do lowkey regulation in a merging game, and there are constantly side-events that give you something to do, somewhere to harvest energy and helpful items, and a narrative that doesn’t take days to produce a plate of cookies. I’ve never invested real money in HKMDS, yet I get plenty of gameplay daily. And it’s cute, with all the characters we know and love, plus ones I’m just discovering. It’s updated by the developers at least twice a week, which keeps events fresh and entertaining even when you’ve been merging some of the same items for a while.

So many ads

Wish they had an option to just remove ads I don’t need a subscription but ads pop up every few minutes to every 30 seconds it is ridiculous