Game Review: (Updated) Toon Blast (Mobile – Free to Play)

Toon Blast is described as the funniest cartoon puzzle adventure. Having played many hours & gotten pretty far into its ‘match coloured blocks’ gameplay I’ve not laughed once. Why the developer (Peak Games) felt the need to describe it as such makes little sense. It is a pretty decent if unoriginal free to play game!

It’s cute looking toon characters, colourful visuals & easy to understand gameplay makes it a very appealing game to play. What it lacks in originality it makes for in quality, it’s definitely one of the better ‘match’ games on the market.

Each level comes with a goal & a number of moves to complete that goal. 2 coloured blocks next to each other can be broken resulting in more falling from the top. Goals vary from having to clear a certain number of coloured blocks to breaking a certain number of crates or popping bubbles later in the game.

It pays to try & build up the coloured blocks before you break them though. As more match more in-level bonuses appear such as rockets that destroy an entire row or column, bombs that blow up everything around them or disco balls that destroy all blocks of the same colour. This adds a little more strategy to something that is extremely simple to play.

To help you along the way you can choose to the start a level with a specific bonus (the same stuff listed above). You’re given some of these for free at first but once you’ve run out you can buy more for in-game coins.

Yep, this is a free to play game so of course it has a number of in-app purchases for you to choose from. The currency is coins & these come in 6 packs starting at £1.99 for 100 before reaching the staggering amount of 5000 for £99.99.

The only other part of the game that requires coins are lives, you have 5 & when they’ve run out you can either wait out a timer or pay 100 coins to refill them. No problem, right?

Well, yes it is a problem. 100 coins for 5 lives, 5 lives on Toon Blast. That’s £1.99 for 5 attempts, nothing more. That is absolutely disgusting, no matter how stupid or greedy they are. No developer can justify these prices.

Want to buy 3 bonus disco balls to take into levels with you? That will be £4.99 please. Seriously, 3 disco balls cost 250 coins, 250 coins cost £4.99.

Still not convinced of the disgusting greed on display here? Let’s break down what you could get for £99.99.

You could buy 12 disco balls, 18 boxing gloves & refill your lives 10 times. That is it. That is all you’re going to get for £99.99. I’ve seen terrible in-app purchases before but this may be one of the worst yet.

However, it has to be pointed out that Toon Blast doesn’t really try to force you to buy anything. You can wait out the timer for lives, it’s not too long anyway. Later levels (there are 120 in total as of this date & the developer keeps adding more) do get tricky. Sometimes the random block drops do seem to be weighted against you but it doesn’t really make you reach for the purchases button.

It’s such a pity that the developer, Peak Games got so greedy with their in-app purchases. It’s a decent game, nice looking & fun for a while. The sort of game that I’d normally suggest paying a little something but with such little return it’s just not worth it.

———————-Update——————–

Since our initial review of Toon Blast there have been a number of updates that include:

• Many more levels.
• Chests where you can earn coins & boosters to help you progress.
• Teams – where you can join other players in competing on global leader boards, chat & exchange/help each other with lives & coins.

The latter of the three is the most significant as here you can gain extra lives by asking for them from your teammates. With up to 50 players in a team this is pretty much a guaranteed way to gain lives provided other players are willing to help.

It’s very easy to join a team or set one up yourself so if you’re regularly running out of lives then make sure you join one.

Stars earned in levels will now towards a ‘star chest’ that when opened (once you have 20) give meagre rewards. Considering buying 1 set of ‘bomb’ boosters costs 150 coins it would take you earning 3 stars across 7 levels 8 times. In total you’d need to play over 50 levels just to pay for 3 bomb boosters.

This can at least be shortened by opening ‘toon chests’ that become available when you reach a certain level but once again the rewards are extremely limited.

There has been one change to the pricing of the ridiculous in-app coin purchases with 100 coins now costing 99p instead of £1.99. However if you consider that to gain 5 extra moves in a level costs 100 coins & the cheapest booster item (rocket) costs 100 coins it’s clear the drop in price is hardly a bargain.

Still disgustingly over-priced for what it offers, it is nice to see the game supported with extra content on a regular basis.