Match Factory!

App Store Editors’ Notes

Surprisingly, this game is made with love

I downloaded this game for Fetch points and expected it to be like all the other low-budget, low-quality cash-grab ad-based games on there — imagine my surprise when I started playing and there were no ads, fun levels, high quality sound files and graphics, and a good tutorial. It’s clear that love and care — or at least a lot of competent planning — actually went into the creation and maintenance of this game. It has a thoughtfully designed UI that gradually reveals elements as you go through the first 20 or so levels to avoid overwhelming you, which I appreciate. I turned on the music to find they’ve made kind of a lo-fi track in the background (they know their audience) which doesn’t get tiring after 30 seconds. The sound effects are satisfying, not grating. All assets are high-quality though, and designed with intention to either help or hinder you with a level (or sometimes both, e.g. on the cop and donut level, the donuts are turned over but you can still see the icing seeping down onto the bottom half so know what color it is and you can still match it). And some of the assets are actually downright cute (the Barbie level). In terms of quality, I would put this right up there with Project Makeover. That’s another game where it’s clear that there’s a team full of talented individuals handling maintaining/updates. So, great job making a game where the frustration comes from the *challenge*, and not from the game being low quality or full of annoying ads — unfortunately for me, I might end up liking Match Factory a little too much ;)

Cool and addictive game, but frustrating

I agree with another reviewer about the frequent Hard, Super Hard and Ultra Hard levels in between and they’re too difficult to accomplish without coins, unless you want to buy them. Boosters sometimes don’t help on those levels, so you end up dwindling down your stash. I was really excited about the Super Ball but now feel like it’s a waste of time spent on the game. You have to beat 10 levels to have it activated, but if you lose one level, you have to start over again. And usually when you’ve activated the Super Ball, the very next level is either Super Hard or Ultra Hard, which you’ll for sure lose unless you already have coins to use or you end up having to buy coins. This becomes discouraging and frustrating and I end up not wanting to play the game. I’ve noticed that when playing Space Trip, if you’ve won timed boosters (lives, rocket or sandglass), the countdown starts as soon as you’ve won it, not when you claim it after playing Space Trip. The developers need to change this. Also, if you’ve won 2 hours of lives, rockets or sandglass but can’t spend 2 hours playing the game, you should be able to pause those boosters so you don’t lose them. I like the game and graphics but just become discouraged with the Super Ball, Hard, Super Hard and Ultra Hard levels. For reference, I’m on Level 2079 - Super Hard and have been stuck for weeks. I also lost my Super Ball on this level because I didn’t have enough coins to use and didn’t want to buy any.

Fun game but…

Update (Feb. 2025): I saw other reviewers saying this game cheats and didn’t really give it much thought until it happened to me quite a few times this week. I was getting all my boosters at the start of a level and the game kept adding items to spaces instead of instead of using the boosters. This last time I made sure my finger was directly on a rocket and even held my finger on the rocket for a few seconds and instead of the rocket being highlighted, an item below it was and then it was added to a space. Deleting this game after helping my team with the weekend challenge. Bad enough they’re making it impossible to win even their easy levels without spending money, but to cheat as well…disgusting. Downgrading my rating to one star just for the cheating. Forgot to mention items jittering around like someone with a nervous tick and how slowly they’re placed in a space when you tap on them. This game is fun but it can get so frustrating at times. The really difficult levels are such that you need to spend money to pass them, which I’ve done a few times. But the really frustrating part is when you fail a level, you are not given the option to view the board to see how many items you have left to collect so you can decide if you want to use your precious coins to for extra time.

Rip off/ false advertisement

I’m in level 3652. I know is a very high level and the higher the better, and I got very invested in this game and I have spent a lot of money and time in it. I have reached out to them and asked them how is it, my husband and I both have iPhones and his almost in level 2000 and even though he has never spend money on this game, he gets everything before I do. Like months before. Like the super ball and for the sales? His is $. 99 cents and his prize was 1000 coins and other perks. Mines was $6.99 same sale but instead of 1000 coins, my prize was 500 coins? How is that fair? My regular levels are like a super hard level. And to get the super ball you need to win 10 games and I always get it on an ultimate difficult level and don’t even stand a chance to keep it. It’s so hard because the level is so full of things and I only get like 2 minutes even with power ups, adding extra time, but I lose and never get to play with the super ball, once I lose it the next try keeps getting less and less and I ask myself if it was this much from the beginning I would of been able to keep the super ball. It’s so addictive and no matter how bad I don’t want to play anymore, it’s hard. But I’m sure that spending any more money like I used to and it takes me sometimes couple days to pass one level. They wrote back to me and said everyone experience is different so I guess I got the worst version and my husband got the best one. So disappointing.

Not like the ads

In this game, you do have to match three of the same thing in order to clear them off the board and it gives you a list of everything that it wants cleared. Often times there will be extra items mixed in with the required items and you can clear them away, but they don’t count towards anything. That is the only thing that looks similar to the ads. The thing that does not show up in any of the levels that I’ve played like you see in the ads and I’ve played somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 levels is a person in peril if you don’t clear away all the items and keep them from getting crushed, drowned, burned, or whatever other things they show in the ads. Now, with all of this being said it is still an enjoyable game, which is why I gave it 3 stars. I just don’t like that the ad is misleading. Another thing I don’t care for in the game is that you tend to have to use coins to give you a little extra time or to revive you and it’s not very easy to build up coins in the game through regular play and the cost of the coins if you wanna purchase them is rather pricey. I want to say it’s like eight dollars. just for 500 coins and if you’re having a bad run, you can burn through 500 coins in 5 or 10 minutes. Overall, it’s a good game but just try to avoid the in app purchases because they add up quick and they don’t charge it right away… They let a few add up over a few days and then hit your bank account for the total.

Was fun, but now too many new items too frequently.

I really enjoyed this game for a good while. I started a team and was enjoying playing along with others as well. Then came the new 'packs' of items. The first one was a fun change. The second was fine and added a bit of challenge back into the game. But new packs of items every two weeks is just too much! Even for someone who tries to play at least a little every day, it's too much change and variety. The game went from a fun time waster to something that honestly stresses me out because I've had to go through my accumulated helps in a rather short time, all in response to trying to get through levels with these new items in play. Perhaps allowing players to set a difficulty level or play in different 'factories' to play the different packs would be a better way to introduce options for those that want them while allowing those of us who prefer NOT to have a game stress them out continue to play with the packs we're familiar with until we're ready to take on a new challenge. There are simply too many coming through too quickly to advance your skills before another new pack is released and you're back to square one. I also heard someone suggest the idea of banking the 15- and 30-minute infinite lives/rockets/extra time. That would be so much better than having to lose those rewards if you can't play for an hour plus at a given time. I know I have some of those I'll be forced to use the next time I open my app, so I've been avoiding doing so. Please allow this to be a relaxing, fun game again!

Used to be a favorite

This game used to be a favorite before they started implementing all these changes. For instance, you used to work towards earning immediate rewards where now they do cards that have to build up to earn single rewards. I have been playing for weeks and haven’t built up enough cards to earn these rewards, but have double triple and even quadruple of the same cards. I hate the cards! In addition, their app, glitches and team rewards are not claimed successfully. When you try to reach out to their team, it takes several days to hear response with no resolution. Their levels that are not listed as “hard“, “super hard“ etc. are still extremely difficult and they’ve made it where you almost have to always spend money in order to win because now they no longer provide rewards so it’s all a money scheme at this point. Where it used to be fun to earn rewards and play as teams, multiple times I haven’t received the rewards successfully that our team have earned because of the glitch or I’m unable to complete levels without spending money. They need to make the levels seemingly fun and not so difficult especially when it’s not leveled as a difficult level. Their team should be more supportive in responses and so I’m giving it a two star review because of the inability for them to resolve issues and the changes they’ve made that have made it extremely challenging to earn rewards

Fun but requires money

This game is fun, but it requires you spend money to get beyond a certain point. If you play this game a couple times a day, you will enjoy it for about 2-3 days and then you will simply hate it. The puzzles become way too hard to beat unless you use boosts and there simply isn’t any way to acquire boosts other than spending money. You get one daily prize, but all of the other boosts require you beat several puzzles to get boosts. Even the side game that allows you to get boosts requires you beat so many levels so you can even play it. Plus the total score you need to get any boosts from that side game is so high, it takes dozens of tries to reach the goal. Basically, if you don’t want to spend money to win, avoid this game. The game can be very challenging since the pieces continue to move when you remove an item and a lot of times the piece you are trying to select has another piece fall in front of it just as you try to select the piece. It seems that the higher levels tend to have this happen more than the lower ones. The developers trick in in the beginning by giving you plenty of boosts for doing very little, but that changes as the levels get higher and more difficult. I am all for a developer making money on their game, but I have played other games like this that get you hooked and then make you have to spend money if you want to continue. I just deleted the game and will look for something else to play.