Review: Molehill Empire

Molehill Empire (Builder)

Quality: 5/10
Fun: 4/10
Longevity: 3/10
Total: 12/30

By the time I tried this game I had tried a couple of browsergames and was awakening to the genre. Therefore I had a bit more expectations. Initially they were also fulfilled, but over time my initial sense of freshness was diminished.

The game is about a little garden gnome that gets responsibility over an abandoned garden with nothing but weeds and stones in it. Over time he (or she) plants vegetables and fruits that can be sold to customers or on the player market. At first the money is spent on clearing your garden of roots, weeds and stones. For all things planted and harvested you get points in addition to the money you can sell them for. As your points increase you get access to more advanced vegetables and fruits that generate more money but also take longer to grow. Once you get enough money you can invest them in many things, like gardenhelpers, faster growtimes, more gardens or vanity stuff.

Alot of things in this game is very fresh and new and gives you alot of pleasure when starting to play. For example the possibility to sell to both the computer and fellow players gives a sense of reality and absence of rules. There is also a fair amount of functionality to discover when you start playing that isnt obvious or told in the tutorial. There is also a very clear progress through the score which directly affects what vegetables and fruits you have access too.

So, the game seems like a breath of fresh air and lots of fun eh? Well the bad news is that the game grows old very fast. The only long time incentive for playing is reaching a higher score and accessing more fruits and vegetables. But since there is little to use the new stuff and money for even that dies a little. Also, even with helpers and different gadgets you can achieve the daily login and orders are very much like reallife work. Gardens have about 250 slots and most things you can grow require one slot. So you have to click 250 times to grow one garden and after a while you have 2-3 gardens. Since you do this every day or sometimes several times a day it grows tedious very fast.

There isnt much else to tell about this game. There is some interaction with other players, both hostile and guildplay, but it is fairly limited and pointless in most cases. There is however one major positive thing I want to mention. The game is free, like all games I will review here, but you can spend real money to get 'coins' in the game. These can be used to purchase stuff or sold on the player market. They can also be used to open up additional functionality in the game. This is interesting because it means you can aquire the 'coins' without being a paying player - though at a high (ingame-)cost.

All in all, this game is fun to try if you want to try something refreshingly new but it has little longevity-value.