Keeps timing out
Unable to play at all keeps timing out
Borderline Unethical
The Good:
This game is super fun and highly educational. The interface is beautiful. The way the game is designed is great for learning. It presents you with five historical “faces” and you have to guess which facts match which face. There are different rounds, each using the same faces, but a different set of facts. The result is that you are learning to associate a particular face with a location, time period, their notable deeds, and so forth, while also learning to distinguish them from other historical figures, and memorizing what their faces look like. As an educational game, this is one of the best I’ve seen. The game, itself, is well-done enough that I can’t give it one star despite is very terrible, borderline unethical business strategy.
The Bad:
It’s not free. At least, it is not a free “educational” game. To make this game educational, you’re going to end up spending a minimum of $5. Otherwise it is like a glorified toy.
The reason for that is that they refuse to let you replay levels without spending money. Since no one ever learned history by once hearing a random fact and remembering it forever, that completely sabotages the entire point of the app - which is to educate people, not purely entertain them.
The Ugly:
It tries to trick you into paying coins.
When you run out of “coins” and try to tap an answer while playing the game, a screen will pop up saying “Get more coins”. What this screen neglects to tell you is that you don’t HAVE to have coins to keep playing. You’re definitely going to want to make sure you have restrictions and passwords in place to stop your kids running up your credit card bill on this one.
The game does a very bad job of explaining what the coins are and why you might want them. It leads you to believe that they’re somehow necessary to continue playing, because it literally interrupts your gameplay with a screen that says “buy more coins”. I actually left the game and came back later to see if my coins had replenished, just because I thought I couldn’t keep playing without spending money.
Constructive Criticism:
- Earning coins shouldn’t require you to get a streak of ten.
- Rather than retract coins for wrong answers you should simply not reward coins when corrections had to be made
- Consider making the coins have some other purpose as well that could be fun for kids. (Like buying power up buffs, or prizes from a prize shop)
- Make a Lite version and a Paid version. Lite versions could allow people to play and replay the first five levels for free. Paid versions could cost a flat fee of $7.99, with the option to buy coins in game. I don’t think parents would mind paying this for such a great game...it’s when the charges are sneaky that people feel duped and cheated.
Thoughts for the future:
- It would be great if kids could be challenged to drag and drop the faces along a time line to show, relatively, when each person lived and died.
- It would be great if kids could tap each area on a map to show where people were born and died.
A few more visuals like that could really add “addictive” appeal to this already delightful gameplay.
I did pay to replay levels, and I hope the makers of the game will do more with it in the future. I think this could be a very successful game if it had some marketing behind it, but I doubt that it will be successful with the current payment structure.
This game is super fun and highly educational. The interface is beautiful. The way the game is designed is great for learning. It presents you with five historical “faces” and you have to guess which facts match which face. There are different rounds, each using the same faces, but a different set of facts. The result is that you are learning to associate a particular face with a location, time period, their notable deeds, and so forth, while also learning to distinguish them from other historical figures, and memorizing what their faces look like. As an educational game, this is one of the best I’ve seen. The game, itself, is well-done enough that I can’t give it one star despite is very terrible, borderline unethical business strategy.
The Bad:
It’s not free. At least, it is not a free “educational” game. To make this game educational, you’re going to end up spending a minimum of $5. Otherwise it is like a glorified toy.
The reason for that is that they refuse to let you replay levels without spending money. Since no one ever learned history by once hearing a random fact and remembering it forever, that completely sabotages the entire point of the app - which is to educate people, not purely entertain them.
The Ugly:
It tries to trick you into paying coins.
When you run out of “coins” and try to tap an answer while playing the game, a screen will pop up saying “Get more coins”. What this screen neglects to tell you is that you don’t HAVE to have coins to keep playing. You’re definitely going to want to make sure you have restrictions and passwords in place to stop your kids running up your credit card bill on this one.
The game does a very bad job of explaining what the coins are and why you might want them. It leads you to believe that they’re somehow necessary to continue playing, because it literally interrupts your gameplay with a screen that says “buy more coins”. I actually left the game and came back later to see if my coins had replenished, just because I thought I couldn’t keep playing without spending money.
Constructive Criticism:
- Earning coins shouldn’t require you to get a streak of ten.
- Rather than retract coins for wrong answers you should simply not reward coins when corrections had to be made
- Consider making the coins have some other purpose as well that could be fun for kids. (Like buying power up buffs, or prizes from a prize shop)
- Make a Lite version and a Paid version. Lite versions could allow people to play and replay the first five levels for free. Paid versions could cost a flat fee of $7.99, with the option to buy coins in game. I don’t think parents would mind paying this for such a great game...it’s when the charges are sneaky that people feel duped and cheated.
Thoughts for the future:
- It would be great if kids could be challenged to drag and drop the faces along a time line to show, relatively, when each person lived and died.
- It would be great if kids could tap each area on a map to show where people were born and died.
A few more visuals like that could really add “addictive” appeal to this already delightful gameplay.
I did pay to replay levels, and I hope the makers of the game will do more with it in the future. I think this could be a very successful game if it had some marketing behind it, but I doubt that it will be successful with the current payment structure.
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History Faces
This new game by Rob Lincoln is great for all ages and fun for families playing at home or driving in the car. And teachers, this is Perfect for classroom competition too!
So much fun
What?! Stimulate my brain AND have fun?! I just got this app this morning and had to stop playing because my phone now needs recharging. Hold that thought. I’ll be back at it soon. Best 99 cents I’ve spent in a while.
Education Disguised as Fun
This game is addicting in a good way! Fun to discover things you never learned in history class, but should have. Also, I like the creative combinations and juxtapositions of the historic figures and facts. A game you can feel good about playing because you’re learning, too!