10000000 Is A Near-Perfect Mobile Game

10000000 is a weird name for a video game, arguably a bad one, but it is easy to find in the App Store, so the decision to call it that was not completely misguided.

Ignoring the maybe great, maybe terrible game name, 10000000 is easily my favorite mobile game of 2012. Almost everything about the game is simple, from its art style to its gameplay, and to a certain degree even its music, but it’s incredibly hard to put down. It’s a match-three puzzle game, with its closest cousin being Puzzle Quest. The tiles that you match correspond to your attacks, your shield, and your collection of loot and experience. It plays differently enough from something like Bejeweled to stand on its own, but the core match three gameplay is easy enough to grasp as long as you have basic understanding of how video games work. As you collect items you slowly build your strength and skills making each return to the combat grid an exciting endeavor.

The music frames the combat, and it will stick to your brain. Only a handful of music tracks are in the game, which are randomly assigned each time you jump in to fight. I would be hard pressed to select a favorite track, because they are all so good. I ripped through the game like a motivated addict a few months ago, and still today I find myself humming each of its tracks with nostalgic bliss every few days.

One of the best things that 10000000 has going for it, is that for $1.99 you get the whole game. This is a mobile game that you can finish. No extraneous features that can be bought separately like customized characters, or experience doublers are constantly thrown at you. You get the whole game for $2 without any notifications that you can keep spending money on the game if you want. It’s refreshing, and I hope it sets a trend. I don’t mind spending money on a good game. I would rather buy a game and get the whole package than receive a slowed down or ad supported version of a game for free.

10000000 does have a few annoyances. Similar to games like Jetpack Joyride, interstitial goals pepper your game each time you jump into to combat which are required to hit the upcoming levels. Many of the them are fun to go after, but many others are only won from the result of random drops, which can be frustrating, but it will never force you to stop playing. Also, some of the interface in the castle where you level yourself up could offer better visual representatives of what is available without having to enter each section of the castle.

To me, 10000000 feels like a perfect mobile game. It has the RPG elements you crave from a traditional game, which gives you a reason to keep returning to the game because the rewards are worthwhile. At the same time though, it’s a game that you can comfortably play for a few seconds and put back in your pocket. You can play it for three hours straight, or three minutes, and you will get a sense of accomplishment either way. I ended up putting nearly eight hours into the game when I finally escaped the dungeon, and it was fantastic.