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Scratch Down by MDP Mobile review


“ScratchDown is a casual-style scratch & guess game available for the Android Market. It is fun and immediately accessible to players of all ages.”- MDP Mobile. This simple description does a decent job of summing up just what kind of game ScratchDown is. It also gives insight to the type of players who may be interested.

However, this description lacks to provide just how amazing and clever this somewhat simple game actually is. The aim of the game is to scratch and guess a picture given four options. Sounds easy right? One my first play with this game I thought to myself “this is too easy to keep me entertained”. Boy I was surely proven wrong.

Scratching is entertaining in itself, but the real challenge is to manage the limited scratches that a player is allowed to use. As one progresses through the levels, your ability to scratch lessons. This gives you less of a view to see what the picture actually is. This is where the game truley becomes intriguing.

After becoming confident that you think that you know exactly what the picture is you allowed, in a multiple choice fashion to select the answer.

The less scratches you use is the more points you will generate.

Game Modes

For what I believed to be such a simple game, I thought that there was not much that could be done in terms of playability. MDP Mobile surely proved me wrong. ScratchDown is comprised of multiple parts in the form add-ons. Below I will first discuss the general features found in ScratchDown and then I will discuss the features of the add-ons individually.

ScratchDown Features

  • Scoreloop– this feature comprises of a leader-bored tab, challenges tab and profile tab.
  • Leader-bored– this shows the top scores from all ScratchDown players within each add-on. It also enables you to see exactly where you stand (pictured below).
  • Challenges– this section allows you to play against other and wager coins. I was not able to get this working completely but it brought out my inner gamer and made me lust for a good time in winning with a cause.
  • Profile– this feature enables you to ‘customize’ your…well….profile. I say “customize” because there is not to much one can do in this option other then entering your name and email address.

 

ScratchDown Add-ons
  • Premium ad-on– this add-on lets you scratch and guess 110 high-quality pictures. These pictures  have been carefully grouped to ensure that it keeps you guessing. At first, with this and most things in life it starts off rather easy. As you progress further in the game it becomes more difficult. For example, it shows you an image of a flower and one must chose the specific flower that it is. In the process you will begin to learn new items and vocabulary. Any game that can teach you while you are having fun is worth getting. This add-on does just that.
  • Geography ad-on– this add-on lets you scratch and guess hidden outline maps of American states and world countries. Personally, I suck at such things mainly because I didn’t care in my youth about such things (I still don’t). So I was unable to enjoy this add-on at my full potential. However, that doesn’t mean that all my map lovers out there wont find this add-on useful! so if you got a fetish for maps this one is a must.
  • Money ad-on– this add-on lets you scratch and guess a combined value of 4 hidden Euro coins and notes. Already, my first problem with this is that I live in America. So unless you have a fetish for European coins or just live over that side of the world I don’t think you will enjoy this much. I surely didn’t
  • Custom ad-on– While I did not get a chance to play around with this add-on to much, I just have to love the idea! Anything that gives you the ability to customize should appeal to everyone one except the guys who’s phones all look alike and run the same OS. Anyways! this add-on lets you use the Flickr API to use your own photos. A must have.

 

Each of these add-ons will run you $1.21 but the initial game is free on the Android Market.

The Good, Bad and the Ugly

  • Good– Overall, ScratchDown is a great game that can give you hours of fun. With its simple yet unique gaming style, it will be able to save you from hours of boredom. This game is definitely to be considered a casual game as you probably will not play it just because you feel the need to play it.
  • Bad– The interface of the game looks like somethings from the 70s. Thats it!! It reminds me of an orange and blue lava lamp. This is defiantly easy to look past.
  • Ugly– Can’t get a good internet connection? You’re out of luck. Thats right, since the game is pulling it photos from a server you can’t play scratch down with out an internet connection. So I would not recommend playing this game while mobile. You may just hit a few dead spots, rendering the game unplayable. I am not sure how hard it will be to store pictures and cache it on the SD card but something should really be done about this.

Developer Website: MDP Mobile

Direct Market Link: ScratchDown

Click QR Code to enlarge for easy scanning: {rokbox}images/stories/QRCodeLibrary/QRScratchDown.png{/rokbox}

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