[blogmaw]

Game: Daddy Was A Thief v2.0.1
Developer: Rebel Twins
Category: Arcade & Action Games
Price: N/A
IAP: $1.99 - $19.60

Now, I'm not your average gamer and it does take a lot of work in a game for me to really hang on to it. I barely have any games in my list of apps, and I can tell you I download a lot of them... and uninstall them the next day.

Introducing Daddy Was A Thief by independent developers Rebel Twins. It's a casual and arcade game where you embody a lovely character; a cartoon middle-aged man who gets fired and, being entitled to feed the family, decides to learn how to rob banks to get some cash flow. He somehow fails and escapes from the bank's rooftop to the nearest building. Yeah, it seems pretty logical to me so far! Now, that's just the background context of the game; your reason for playing is because you won't crash a 700+ floor building without any reason, right?

Back to the genre itself. Daddy Was A Thief is a touch-and-slide game, which may remind you of a very successful game out there; Temple Run (as well as its numerous spinoffs). The first difference existing is that you actually go down instead of running away; thus, there should not be any monkey type of monster eating you if you stand too much, though missiles become increasingly frequent to urge you to go down further.

What you'll do in this game is swiping down and up, in order to progress. Destroying the ground floor, destroying an object to earn coins and stun policemen that are looking for you. Also, robbers who apparently don't like competition, guys in their couch trying to zap you with their remote and even robots controlling deadly lasers. Get yourself out of trouble while missiles come from flying across to do nasty things to you.

Alright, I'd like to get rid of the "weird" stuff in this game, all at once. I mean, it's not making it a bad game, but if you're Sheldon Cooper, you might find yourself badly. Sometimes, you'll see that levels are not quite the same and land up on an aquarium. An aquarium with wibbly wobbly slimey greeny stuff and coin-fish, of course. In a similar way, you'll find casinos; not actual mini-game casinos, that would be preposterous. No, you'll turn into a giant ball and bounce on tokens. Finally, you'll find in this very ordinary building classified Area 51 tech. Also, you can protect yourself crashing a fridge, to turn yourself into ice and shielding yourself! Power-ups bring even more "What the heck?" moments, but that's a bonus so I'll leave it to you to try it out.

Speaking of which, I'll get to what makes this game a great game. A game that will surely ruin your productivity, get you fired, lose your significant other and relatives, as well as friends while you're sitting in a dark corner of a room in a fetal position, playing this game again and again, losing your hair and screaming 'My precious!'. Alright, maybe not. It's still incredibly addictive though. It features great content to be unlocked such as costumes, power-ups and upgrades, and the usual stuff; however, purchasing (or unlocked content) does not influence that much of the game play (power-ups, I mean). That means two things; the first is that you're not entitled to buy them with real money. The second is that if you cheat your in-game currency, you still won't get bored of the game because it does not bring you the ultimate solution to the game. By the way, I'd like to add that you can fairly easily get enough coins to buy upgrades and other content without paying a quid.

And if you weren't motivated enough to play the game, it has an Achievement menu where you see a number of tasks you can accomplish to feel proud of yourself. Since the latest upgrade of v2.0.x, another reward system had been added with stars and missions to complete in order to unlock exclusive new content. Now, a game can't be perfect of course, and there are a few downsides. Firstly, I've tested out the app on an 8-inch tablet. It doesn't look that good, especially since it's on portrait orientation. It's not really bugging or anything, and it surely enhances visibility, but they could've expanded the to be able to play in landscape orientation. I've seen a few glitches, like an exploding wall getting completely dark or even getting in the bathtub weirdly. I've been playing a lot this game, and since its first release, I honestly don't know how can one manage to fulfill some achievements. Perhaps that is a good thing for replay value, however. Finally, this game has banner ads, but the developers were nice and removed it while you actually play. Considering that they released a great freemium (i.e. a fair freemium, not absolutely requiring IAP) and that they're independent, I understand that they've got to pay the bills.

Pros:

• A Freemium that doesn't require you to spend a penny to play decently!
• Amazing cartoon graphics.
• Does not get boring, even when you've messed around with in-game currency.
• Unlockable power-ups, upgrades and costumes.
• Achievements, and brand-new missions that keep you playing.
• Updates that bring awesome new game play and content.
• Indie Developers.

Cons:

• Where's the tablet-friendly version?
• In version 2, there are still a few minor graphical glitches.
• Some challenges seem really tough.
• Banner ads.

Reviewer rating:
Device/OS used: LGE-960 Nexus 4, A80S Archos 80G9 / KitKat v4.2.2

Purchase at Google Play
Mobilism: Daddy Was A Thief v2.0.1