No, you are not confused. I did say that a game published by Zynga is quite enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised when I started playing Mountain Goat Mountain, the latest game from Zynga. In short, its adorable main character, simple game play and varying environments, make this game a great one to play for you, and the young ones in your family. Zynga has gotten a bad rap at times for some of the strategies used while incorporating free-to-play in their games. Thus, some people either avoid, or cautiously approach their games. I am pleased to say that you don’t have to worry about that with Mountain Goat Mountain. The game is fun, it looks amazing, and the free-to-play implementation is well done. Mountain Goat Mountain has you in the role of a little goat. In this puzzle game, the goal is for you to climb as far as you can up the mountain. You control your goat with simple taps or swipes, to get your goat moving in the direction you want. It really is along the lines of a reverse Q-Bert game if you will. As you climb the mountain, you encounter different obstacles that attempt to make your journey up the mountain short-lived. These obstacles may include crumbling rocks, logs that roll down the mountain, pits, clouds with lightning, and a myriad of other perils awaiting your precious little goat. All your goat wants to do is gather gold coins, and eat a little grass along the way. If your goat doesn’t nibble on patches of grass ever so often, it is game over for your goat. An indicator pops up on the screen when you need to get to more grass quickly. This seems like it would be a simple task, but there is always something in the way. The game is not difficult by any means, but it is not necessarily easy either. The game strikes a perfect balance by allowing you to progress, while continuing to ramp up the difficulty, which keeps me coming back to play it. Since Mountain Goat Mountain is a free-to-play game, you have the option of using your collected coins to acquire different goats. It costs one hundred coins to open a treasure box, which allows you to basically win a different goat. As with most games that work in this fashion, which Crossy Road made popular, sometimes you get the same goat repeatedly. That didn’t really bother me in this case, because you easily acquire coins. The good thing about it is that there aren’t any ridiculous timers that limit how much you can play the game. You can play it as much as you want, and racking up gold coins won’t take you long. If you choose to, you can watch a video to earn more coins. Also, gold coins are distributed to you automatically over a scheduled period of time. In no way to me, does this feel like a cash grab type game. One of the things that is really nice about the game, is the change in environments. Each time you are awarded a new goat, the environments change accordingly. Currently, there are 22 goats available. Some of the different goats include, Timber Goat, Samurai Goat, Infrared Goat, and one of my personal favorites, Dubstep Goat. The goat, the mountain’s aesthetics and challenges change with each new goat. The graphics look amazing, and they translate well on your phone and tablet. You have to play this one to really appreciate the level of detail that has gone into the game. Mountain Goat Mountain is integrated with Google Game Play Services. It includes leaderboards and 21 achievements to unlock. It is free-to-play, but the in-app purchases are used to unlock the different goats. If you choose to do so, each goat will cost you $.99 You can’t go wrong with Mountain Goat Mountain. The free-to-play structure is not intrusive, the graphics are great and the game is plain and simple fun. It is rare these days that you find a game that everybody in your family can pick up and play easily, but Mountain Goat Mountain succeeds in doing just that, creating a family friendly fun game. Originally posted at http://www.droidgamers.com/index.php/game-reviews/9535-game-review-mountain-goat-mountain-by-zynga-is-quite-enjoyable
