Alphabear: Words Across Time

Like all of the iPhone games I’ve played, this game has pros and cons. The early levels are fun and I got pretty far over several months without spending money. I’m currently on Chapter 8 Normal and Level 3 Hard, and I’m stuck again. I’ve read the doc about advancing the campaign and I already do the suggested activities. However, it seems that once you’ve gotten to higher Bear levels, around 30-40, then it’s very difficult to advance. The cost in real $$ of coffees to level a bear up a tiny bit is insanely high, so many days all I do is level up bears while I’m stuck in the Story Mode. I do the Daily Events too but that usually just levels up useless bears (by a tiny bit). I can’t do well on Tournaments, even though I completely clear the board, apparently because I don’t have the right bears that earn enough points per 4 letter word (Alphabear stacked with Doc bear according to its Wiki). And I’ve been wanting the darn Doughnut bear, so finally shelled out real, hard earned $$ out of desperation. Close but not enough so like a fool I kept spending more - $30!!! And I still didn’t get the Doughnut bear. You’re also stuck in Special Events without that bear so I can wait five weeks then shell out another $30 to maybe get it. I’m debating just deleting the whole game in disgust.

This is an amazing game with great graphics and a fun story to keep you just interested enough to play but not enough to be a problem or get in the way of the gameplay. The unique bears, tv time function, rechargeable honey, and special events add a little something that other games don’t have. I’ve only gotten one or two intrusive ads in the month or so I’ve been playing this game. I’m just wondering if you could have a feature to make your own levels or bears that can be unlocked by helping people out by, say, sending them honey. You could friend people and send gifts to earn custom bears. Or maybe there’s a different currency, say, candies, and you can pay a certain amount of candies to make a custom bear. Then you have different levels of items and accessories and powers. Common level stuff is free but rare, epic, and legendary bears cost candies. You can earn candies through tournaments and by competing with your friends. Overall I love the game, so do my friends and family, and I can’t wait to see what the developers have in store!

This is one of the most highly polished and feature rich games on the iOS store. This game is free, which is ridiculous as there’s no intrusive ads or forced video watching. Instead they gamify the ad experience with some hilariously meta commentary that has me actually watching ads because I want to contribute to “TV time!” I’m going to “purchase” this game (disabling ads is a little steep at $9.99) but I want to really help this developer be successful. It’s great to learn new words too, which this game has helped me do. The only negative I’ve found so far is that with someone who has a larger (more verbose!) vocabulary, the game doesn’t really reward you for going way above the required score at the beginning. I’ll sometimes end up with a few thousand points over the limit and a fully completed tile (the largest “biggest bear award”) but I don’t really get rewarded for it aside from some cloth. Would be nice to have the game acknowledge more power players in the early stages and perhaps unlock the medium and difficult modes a little earlier (I’m still on easy as I haven’t progressed to the later chapters yet despite nearly always acing each stage). Aside from that—this is one of the best and most polished apps on the iOS store and I'm very happy to support it!