Amazon Underground App Review: Where’s My Mickey?

It’s your friendly KF on KND Editor April Hamilton here, with another Amazon Underground / Actually Free app review.

Actually Free Where’s My Mickey? (4.5/5 stars) is described on Amazon like this:

Where’s My Mickey? introduces a whole new world of life-like physics-based gameplay with stimulating weather mechanics and humorous animations. Immerse yourself in the ultimate mobile gaming experience as you watch funny episodes while solving challenging puzzles! Tap, swipe, and swirl to help Mickey collect water and complete each story. Every drop counts!

• Original Episodes – Explore 5 unique episodes with surprising and witty scenarios! Watch how each story unfolds and ends as you play through individual level packs!

• Brand New Weather Mechanics – Use wind, clouds and rain to maneuver through 100+ levels filled with fun challenges!

• A Whole New Look – A classic Mickey art-style with a contemporary touch, inspired by Disney Channel’s new series of Mickey Cartoons!

• Collectibles and Bonus Levels – Help Pluto look for hidden collectibles to unlock more bonus puzzles!

• Featuring Mickey and Friends – Discover more hilarious episodes and new friends, beginning with Goofy!

Now a sneak preview of the first episode – “When Life Gives You Lemons”: On a hot summer day, Mickey decides to open up a lemonade stand. He’s got a bowl, the lemons, and a long line of thirsty customers, yet NO WATER! Help Mickey collect water and “tri-star” each level for ultimate fun! Even the stars are animated!

Enjoy Where’s My Mickey? with unlocked story packs for free, only through Amazon!

In this Amazon Special Edition, receive access to the first levels of all Mickey and Goofy story packs FOR FREE ($1.98 value)!

 

My Take:
The look of this app is absolutely adorable, and the physics-based puzzles are fun. They’re the types of puzzles that require you to strategize and plan your moves, like “digging” partial tunnels with your stylus, and then set the water, wind, paint, etc. in motion and see what happens. You can still interact with each puzzle once it’s been set in motion, but at that point you only have seconds to work with so any steps requiring more time have to be planned in advance.

I like that there’s no per-puzzle time limit, in most of the puzzles you have as much time as you like to plan—though again, once things get moving you’ve got to act quickly in some puzzles where timing is a major factor.

The old-timey animation is supplemented with some very cute and funny mini-cartoons done in the same style, and there are also links to longer cartoons online.

I only have three criticisms of this app.

First, as new factors and forces are introduced (e.g., wind, clouds, boiling water, paint), there’s no tutorial or help file to explain what they do or how they interact with the rest of the puzzle. You basically just have to experiment to figure it out, and there were a few puzzles where I eventually gave up because several experimental tries didn’t teach me anything about how to use the new material or work around it. There are lots of walk-throughs of the levels available on YouTube, but I don’t want to have to keep going back and forth between the app and the web to get information that should’ve been provided right in the app.

Second, if you’re inactive for a period of time in a given puzzle a “Would You Like A Hint” box pops up on screen, but I could never figure out how to access the hints. When I tapped on the box it would just disappear, leaving me right where I was in the puzzle with no text or visual indicators of help. If there’s a general help file available, I couldn’t find it.

Finally, as stated in the app description on Amazon there appear to be bonus Pluto items to collect, but here again there’s no help file or tutorial to explain exactly what this is all about or how it works. I discovered the Pluto stuff by accident when a beach ball was uncovered as I tunneled in a puzzle. Tapping it when the puzzle was solved, I was taken to the Pluto collection screen, where there were lots of empty slots for various items that are apparently buried in random puzzles. But no indication is given as to which puzzles have them and which don’t, so it’s impossible to know when it’s worth digging around a little more (and potentially messing up your main puzzle solution) to try and find a Pluto object. Also, there’s no explanation how the whole unlocking thing works: is a new Pluto level unlocked each time one row of collectible items is completed, or do you have to collect items to fill every empty slot on the Pluto collection screen before a group of Pluto levels are unlocked?

 

I rate Where’s My Mickey 3.5/5 stars. The things I like about it, I like A LOT. But the things I don’t like about it really detract from overall enjoyment of the app.

 

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