10000000 Review: Freedom at Last!

I don’t usually review Android games. Actually, I NEVER review Android games, but I’ll make an exception for 10000000. (That’s ten million if you’re too lazy to count the zeroes). Thanks for making this addictive puzzler, EightyEightGames. 

Okay, just to give you guys a quick rundown on the “story”, if you can even call it that, 10000000 is about you being trapped in a dungeon where you’re forced to fight your way out. The ultimate goal is to get a total high score of, you guessed it, 10,000,000. 

Graphics

There’s not much to the graphics in this puzzler. The art style is pixelated and 8-bit. I feel the developers purposely made the visuals and textures in the game somewhat basic. It’s just a simple looking game that you can play for hours on end. 

The theme music that plays during runs all add a sense of rhythm to an arguably repetitive game. The upbeat music is just another (very small) noteworthy feature about this game. 

Gameplay

Alright, now we’re getting to the bulk of the game. 10000000’s gameplay is based on the simple idea of matching tiles to make a minimum of 3 identical tiles, much like Bejeweled or Candy Crush. What’s just slightly different with this Android title is that you can slide entire rows and columns to match your tiles.

The basic gameplay mechanic is that you’re endlessly running forward in a dungeon where you can encounter enemies, mini bosses, bosses, locked chests,  and locked doors. Every time you stop running, whether it’s to kill monsters or unlock doors, the dungeon slowly keeps moving forward without you. So if you wait too long or get stuck somewhere, you’ll die. 

In a nutshell, the goal is to keep running for as long as possible and rack up as big a score as possible. 

Behind this simple idea is a deeper gameplay mechanic. There are “magic” tiles that hits your enemies with magic, there are “sword” tiles that hit your enemies with normal attacks (with the chance for critical strikes), “key” tiles help you unlock chests, “rock and wood” tiles all contribute to another part of the game.

That other part of the game is your castle. 

The castle is where you revive if you die. There are many rooms, each with it’s own special purpose. One room might let you learn a new perk or skill, another will let you upgrade your magic attacks, while another will let you have more armor at the start of each run. All these rooms are upgradeable using the “rock and wood” you collected in your runs. 

Needless to say, the rock and wood tiles are basically useless during actual runs so it’s best to quickly break them, leaving space for more useful attack tiles. 

Matching more tiles, say, 5 same tiles or 3 tiles of “key” and 3 tiles of “chest” at the same time grants you items that you can use during the run. These items can range from scrolls that turn several tiles into swords or magic. Other items, like food, help give you some more time if you’re not moving quickly enough in the game. There are multiple ranks in the dungeons as well. Think of them like levels. The higher the level of the dungeon, the tougher the enemies, but the higher the score multiplier. 

The Overall

Overall, this game is actually only 4 to 5 hours long, depending on how long you play. However, it felt much longer when I played it, and I’m sure many gamers who’ve played 10000000 would agree. Each run feels very rewarding and satisfying as you try to conquer your previous score, all in a collective effort to reach that score for freedom.

The game provides a very distinct “so close yet, so far” feeling when you play the game and it keeps you coming back for more. The game is available for both iOS and Android, all for a cheap price of less than $5. It’s one of the few games that I would’ve payed more for. 

To sum it up, 10000000 is short that feels long. it leaves you wanting more at the end of each play session. It’s a satisfying thinking game that you will gladly give your complete attention to. Definitely worth a buy.