Endless Frontier

A collection based idle game for ios.

Overview

Endless Frontier is an idle game, which means that it largely plays itself. The genre has been growing rapidly and idle games are becoming more sophisticated. In this game you collect heroes to form a team to kill wave after wave of enemies. More powerful teams can go farther and kill faster.

The collection aspect is reminiscent of Puzzles and Dragons. Since I don't like the puzzling in PaD but wanted to see more of the collecting, Endless Frontier held my interest.

The Good

There are a lot of options and strategies. There is collecting and leveling, so common in our post-Pokemon world. The game needs periods of idle time but you can generally give it less or more attention depending on your availability.

The Bad

This game has two fatal flaws. The first is the semi-mandatory 30 second ads. When you watch an ad, the game speed doubles for twenty minutes. When playing without the boost, the game feels slow and I would have quickly given up on it. To make matters worse, the ads crash the app about 75% of time. 

You can buy a speed boost in the game, but for me this has problems. If I was paying to disable ads, I don't mind that, but that's not how the boost is presented. For all I know it's an additional boost on top of the ads. Another problem is that I severely dislike that sort of payment. I don't want to pay for a week of benefit. I would rather pay a higher price for an app that is permanently unlocked. The only subscription based game I have paid for in years is World of Warcraft, and that is a huge value for the money. Lastly, the price of the speed boost is exorbitant at $5 per week. I will get much more enjoyment out of a $10 app than two weeks of this silly thing.

The second fatal flaw is that the game must be running in the foreground to really progress. This is becoming normal for the genre and I don't understand it. I understand why clicking should be mandatory, but why differentiate between the app running in the foreground vs. sleeping? If I have an hour-long run that doesn't require my attention, why hijack my phone so I can do something else? You expect me to stare at the screen for an hour? To make matters worse, the game is a big battery drain. 

Conclusion

If you don't mind the ads or paying $5/month and don't mind dedicating your phone to this game, there is fun to be had. Even still, it's free to try.