Banished vs Tiny Pixel Farm
Banished
Banished is a medieval-themed city-building simulation that can be pretty difficult to get into at first mainly due to its many nuances and lack of a comprehensive tutorial. But once you get the general idea of how things work (we'd recommend starting with easy mode), you'll start to truly appreciate the game as the challenge that it is. In some way, this game is quite similar to SimCity in many ways with the obvious difference being the themes and the lack of piping, waste management or electricity. Different maps will pose a different challenge and of course, the bigger your village is, the more stuff you'll need to manage. Although it does have some strategy elements to it - mainly in the form of village management, the game is not a war game. There is no fighting involved but your villagers will die from natural causes or disasters like illnesses or famine.However, once you've gotten the hang of the game, Banished becomes less of a punishing game and a bit more boring due to the same-y looking buildings and the soundtrack. When it comes to replayability, we'd say that the game has maybe tens of hours in it before you'll get bored and move on to the next game... and this play duration may be drastically reduced if you happen to be a pro SimCity player.
So, in short, Banished will appear to be a somewhat frustrating game at first, but once you've gotten the hang of it, the game might gradually becomes boring mainly because there is nothing else to do except to expand, expand and expand! However, we can't say that we didn't enjoy playing the game, and even for the shorter play duration it has to offer, as opposed to triple A city-building titles, the game is worth the money it costs.
Tiny Pixel Farm
Tiny Pixel Farm is an idle farming game that is unlike any other. Backed with a heartfelt story about an elderly farmer whose farmland is slowly being claimed by greedy corporate goons, in this game, you play as the grandchild of the said farmer and you are determined to reclaim what was rightfully your family's.Although the gameplay is generally idle in nature, the idle part of the game isn't exactly textbook-styled. As opposed to fully automating everything, you still need to put in some "work" for instance, by swiping and tapping on your animals to collect produce, on your hay-producing farms to collect hay, on your pets to collect exp gems, and others. Aside from the well-design and satisfying progression system in this game, there is an insane number of animals you can keep at the farm too.
The game is also very "video ad-heavy" mainly because you will always be given an option to watch video ads in exchange for instantly completing something, be it a construction process or selling all the goods in your shop. However, what I really like about the game is how it gives you a heads-up whenever a full-screen ad is coming up and it also thanks you after you've watched a video ad. More games should seriously take a page out of this game's book and do this!
All in all, although this game does require a good (middle range to high-end) mobile device to run, Tiny Pixel Farm brings a ton of innovation to the idle gaming genre and the game does it so brilliantly well. If you enjoy idle games, farm games or both, you might want to give this game a try.