Aug 24, 2016

[Games] Futurama: Game of Drones (Android)

I try not to invest too much time into mobile games since, well, life is beautiful and all that. But inevitably one looks for something to do while waiting in queue or while idle for one reason or another and a lot of mobile games nicely address that particular itch. But they don't address that itch for long.

While I'm not the biggest Futurama fan, I eventually gave in and downloaded Futurama: Game of Drones since (1) match-3 games are decently casual and easy to pick up and drop between tasks and (2) Futurama is funny. The combination of the two elements made for a decent enough game with all the frustrations of this game genre.

I played the game steadily for a week or thereabouts while switching between Star Trek: Wrath of Gems on the side. But over time I played it less and less until I've reached a point where I only occasionally venture into it when I remember that I have it.

So let's explore that a bit.


Futurama: Game of Drones is a free-to-play match three (or in this case 4) game developed by Wooga. The game is available for both Android and iOS.

The game has nothing to do with the Game of Thrones franchise despite the pun in the game's title. Instead it's all about the Planet Express crew needing to deliver various drones to customers. The game represents drones being "delivered" when you match at least 4 drones of the same type - but not necessarily in a single line. Combining larger groups of drones of course leads to various power-up to help you in your mission.

That game map is represented by a 3D-style rendering of various locations of the Futurama world but imagine the Planet Express ship traveling along a line. It's still your classic linear map where you move along a track as you complete levels and you can try to aim for up to 3-star ratings for each level. Your ability to play is limited by how many hearts that you have and you spend hearts every time you play a level, more or less.

What I Liked: Well, it's still a decent enough match three four game and as you progress through the game you open up new challenges to overcome, similar to what we all experienced in Candy Crush. It's not quite as addictive in this regard, but it's decent fun.

The game has a decent amount of Futurama flavor despite the nonsensical story tacked onto the game. But you do get various characters featured to a limited degree but that's about it. Every ten or so levels represent a new arc for the game thus initially you will fly with Fry as a companion and you get to use a special power provided by him and later on you get Bender and Zapp Brannigan.

What Could Have Been Better: It's not that innovative a match three game. You have the initial matching gameplay and you have a progression of level complexity that at times feels brutal but that's life. But then there's not much else beyond that as the story element wasn't all that strong and the way the characters were utilised wasn't all that impressive.

The game includes a weird trading card system as an alternate goal system in case you want to complete all the "cards" for your benefit. But the cards aren't all that exciting and certainly not enough to really feel like a reward for all your efforts. So it can get a little repetitive pretty fast.

And the game of course has a very strong in-app purchases component with many levels starting with giving you an initial quantity of some power-up that may or my not help you win the stage. It's the classic trap of making you try the power-ups so you can consider purchasing while playing.

Futurama: Game of Thrones is a decent matching game but it is not necessarily an exceptional member of that family. It was nice to be with the crew for a while but I wish it didn't feel like a television bottle episode.

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