In its current state I wouldn't recommend it. I love kob kobs, the silly lil guys always causing mischief, but right now.. this game doesn't have much to do... like... at all really.
It does not even have a tutorial, you cannot rotate the camera, very, very limited interactivity with the world, unless I am missing something, because again... there is no tutorial really on how to operate in the world and what to do.
You apparently earn coins, by playing mini-games, and these mini games are very basic mobile app style games that you can probably find better and more dedicated versions of on the mobile game store for free. Most of these mobile app style games which currently only number 2 having nothing to do with your kobolds or related to their skills (I was picturing something like that one Duck flash game where you raise a kobold's skills and make them run in races, or do all sorts of other events and their skills would improve their performance, but nah.. none of that. Its Memory and Rock Paper Scissors.) These 2 games are so tedious to grind coins for the dev themselves added cheat codes to give yourself a bunch of coins within the first patch.
All it seems you can really do is toss or pet your kobolds, throw em in the water to make em swim but I never see the swim skill go up. I dont even know why the animals are there other than for scenery really? No building or gardening systems, no food maintenance/farming stuff. There are many things one could do in a game like this and I feel like a game that has been developed since as far back as 2018.. should be better by now.
I do like the silly lil kobold garden premise, but right now, there isn't a game here and I cannot recommend it. I'm getting a refund, but I will keep my eye on it. I'm hoping the developer will kick into gear and really make something out of this game, because there is a lot of potential in a game concept like this. I will say this, the Art Style is great! Its very thematic and I also dig the music choices! If the developer is reading this review, I will post some suggestions down below on how to really make a game out of this.
Suggestions:
1. Tutorials - This is the most important thing, everything should be explained, every mechanic, every keybind, even just a lil popup window that can easily be dismissed should tell you these things, or a lil encyclopedia button that has all the mechanics listed and how to go about pursuing them.
2. Scrap the mobile phone mini game idea, instead change it to different events related to your kobold's skills. The better your kobold's skills the better they perform. Look at the game Duck Life, its a simple game, you raise a duck, train it, it improves, and performs better during races and such. However, for this type of game you could add all sorts of different things besides races. With this kind of game, and given what kobolds are, you can have all sorts of different skill competitions for the lil guys. From weightlifting, to silly lil sumo games (Where they try to push each other out of ring), again you can keep racing in as one of the games. Hell, you can even make the mini games interactive where the player has control of their kobold and their skills improve their stats. Maybe you are doing a race and have a kobold with a high endurance skill, that means they can sprint for longer. Maybe their agility is really high, that means their sprinting is faster. Put obstacles in the way during the race so kobolds have to run around things. Heck just focusing on races is a lot of gameplay content right there. Then look to something like Mario Party for ideas for other mini-games you might be able to use for other kobold skills you might want!
3. Food/hunger systems with farming. We gotta have some way to maintain our kobold garden and something that might be neat to add is farming, where you can grow different foods for your kobolds. You can even teach your kobolds to help you in the farming so they can grow their own food while you're away. You can have all kinds of different food that can actually help raise certain skills at a faster rate.
4. Equipment for Skills, this suggestion is just let us buy different pieces of equipment that our kobolds can use to be trained. I would even say, you can have two modes for this. An automatic mode where you can just put a kobold on a piece of equipment and they will train and the experience they gain from their training will be fairly moderate, or... a manual mode where you get to play a mini game with your kobold where you have the potential to raise their exp far more than automatic mode, but it does involve you focusing your attention on that kobold for the time being. (This allows the option to basically mass train a bunch of kobolds at once, or focus on a few individuals!)
There are so many things you can do with this concept, but it should all relate to your kobolds. No system should not relate to you raising these lil fellas, cause the whole point of the game... is raising these lil fellas.
Refunded for now, hoping for good changes in the future!
