Chonkers

I bought the game, expecting cute idle fun, only to discover it has "micro"transactions as expensive as the game itself, with insanely high expectations of interactions for an "idle" game. There's not really any progress to be made while idling, and the cat EXP demands are crazy high. Meanwhile, you barely make any money from your cats unless you spend the hour needed to get EXP for them and sell them. I thought that was just how the demo played and was incredibly disappointed to find that the bought game is identical. Of course, you can also pay to """support the devs ♥""" and get XP boosts or guarantee a cat for your collection. Seems like the lack of progress is intentional... Not very cozy, if you ask me, even if the art is cute. Don't recommend. UPDATE: Recording dev response below, "Thanks for your feedback. I just want to make clear that monetizing through microtransactions was never our intent. The items you have found in the item store are all obtainable for free as rewards for daily and weekly tasks. Unfortunately, we're experiencing issues with the item drops. We have decided to take down the item shop until the issue has been resolved Our hope lies in a thriving marketplace with players purchasing EXP Boosters and Premium Rolls from other players, while giving the fans a chance to support us after purchasing Chonkers, like you'd see on Patreon. In any case, sorry if you hadn't a great experience with Chonkers. Hopefully, one day you'll give our little game a second chance. Cheers! Small edit: The Item Store has been permanently removed. Again, sorry for any confusion it might have caused." The line "all obtainable for free" is bolded for emphasis and "until the issue has been resolved" is struck through post edit. The thing is, removing the item market doesn't help when you're actively encouraging players to purchase from eachother. How does this work, is there any regulation? What prevents rich players from buying up all the listings and then returning them to the store at higher price, if anything? Do the devs receive a kickback from each trade? It's also still not solving the issue of the incredibly long wait times and pushing players towards paying more to make things shorter, to give themselves more luck. As it stands, the paid version of Chonkers isn't a full game— the demo is the "f2p" version you'd find on the play store, and paying for the game is effectively buying a pass. It unlocks the ability to unlock items, but these will take forever to get regardless. Regardless of the dev's intent, the presentation of this + the boost items reeks of mobile game mechanics, and trying to bring that to the PC is shameful. Again, regardless of the dev's intent, it also reeks of cashgrab tactics intended to get cozy cat lovers hooked with cute art, the promise of a relaxed playstyle, and then get them desperate for literally any drop of progress. It's shady and leaves a sour taste in my mouth. In the future, I hope the devs fix these issues and continue to do better in future games.

Initially the negative reviews had discouraged me from giving this game a try. "Not a real idle game" this and "The devs just want your money" that. Mind you, I had this game gifted to me but I was hesitant to get invested in something disappointing. It was after seeing some helpful positive reviews giving tips on how to comfortably get started that I finally took the plunge. And I'm glad I did. I'm a big enjoyer of idle/chill games that I can leave running whilst I work on other things. I have a lot of patience, and even then I have an auto clicker if I get too lazy to butterfly tap my mouse or drawing tablet. For the people complaining that it takes too long to level up some of the later cats, there's no shame in getting an auto clicker too. Of course, they are a sin in competitive settings but we're not against each other here. We're just admiring cats! Forwarding some of the tips I gathered from other reviews, as well as some of my own experiences: - Generally sell all cats at Level 1, but keep them if they bring in a lot of passive income. Especially chonkers/purple-quality. - Your daily tasks won't take long, just leave the game running for the 1 hour task. The EXP boosts you'll get aren't much of a benefit but still make a difference if you're dealing with high-requirement cats. - Need money? Set Distractions to 'Intense', turn on 'Outline', put on 'Chill Mode' and go crazy. If you have a drawing tablet like me this'll be much easier, and can actually be kinda therapeutic. - Make sure to check 'Toggle Toy'. Then, you only need to right click once. And if you wanna go crazier, butterfly tap the right mouse button or set your auto clicker. Tapping PLUS your toggle actually adds a little extra (at least I think so). - If you're able to buy from the next collection, do so ASAP. Those cats will rake in DOSH, even the most common kind. Selling just one of those Lvl 1 cats will give you like 2x/3x the amount you spent on the ticket. And farm common, low-requirement cats. For example, the lowest tier cats in 'Special Snugglers' only require about 4k points to level up and will net you like $700M. EASY RICHES! I find it important to give a game like this a proper review, since it's a small indie project. And I want others who may have found themselves in a predicament similar to mine to realise hey, this game is actually pretty sweet! Of course, it's not for everyone. But if you like cute little pixel cats and have a little bit of patience to see your em-paw-ire grow, this is a game for you!

[b]Edit:[/b] The developers made some changes to the game's pacing in their latest update (December 19, 2024), so the issues mentioned in this review might no longer be accurate to a considerable degree. [b]Tl;dr:[/b] Chonkers has a great theme and a promising gameplay loop, but the pacing is off to a degree that makes it frustrating to play. [b]The biggest issue about Chonkers currently is its pace of progression.[/b] There are both clicker mechanics in the game for active gameplay and idle mechanics for passive progression, but they are strictly not balanced to the degree that it is unbearable to start to get going with the game. [b]There are two prominent clicker mechanics in the game.[/b] One of them consists of clicking on the cats to imitate a playing action and make them gain experience, and the other one is clicking falling petals on the screen to gain more money. Clicking falling petals is boring after a minute since there isn't any progression related to them, and clicking on cats feels pointless since they require high amounts of experience points to level up. Finally, you unlock new cats semi-randomly and repeat the process until you get your collection of all cats. [b]When it comes to idle mechanics, I can't say they are varied.[/b] You can spend your money on random packs to get new cats, which provide money passively once they are adults, or get upgrades that increase your progression speed as well as get more "chonkers." I think these mechanics are enough to make this game shine due to its theme, but the pacing is just so off that getting these upgrades is frustrating in the first place. [b]The theme is great, the art is good, and the tunes are sufficient.[/b] Although there are almost no customization options in the game, it is sweet that you can collect many cat variants. I am sure that cat lovers will appreciate the variety. To sum up, [b]if you have an incredible amount of patience and certainly adore "chonkers," this might be a great game for you.[/b] On the other hand, regular clicker and idle game players may not find the pacing of this game pleasing and drop it off very early into the game.