When comparing Back to Bed vs Merchant, the Slant community recommends Back to Bed for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games without in-app purchases/paywalls?” Back to Bed is ranked 63rd while Merchant is ranked 94th. The most important reason people chose Back to Bed is:
Players must figure out how to traverse the architecture in order to get items they need to use to help guide the the main character, who is sleepwalking. It is through this mind bending architecture that the core of the gameplay lies as each level is a puzzle in and of itself to figure out how to gain all the items needed, which is only half the gameplay as once that is figured out they then need to guide the sleepwalker to their goal.
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Pros
Pro Interestingly uses mind bending architecture in the gameplay
Players must figure out how to traverse the architecture in order to get items they need to use to help guide the the main character, who is sleepwalking. It is through this mind bending architecture that the core of the gameplay lies as each level is a puzzle in and of itself to figure out how to gain all the items needed, which is only half the gameplay as once that is figured out they then need to guide the sleepwalker to their goal.
Pro Excellent sound design
From its background music to its voice work, the sound design of The Room Two not only fits with the theme but adds to the player's immersion in the game and overall experience.
Pro Surreal graphics
The graphics of Back to Bed are very surreal, as if Dahli and Escher had teamed up to design a game.
Pro Pixel art
The game has a nice retro pixel art style. From the menus to the dungeons or shop there is a very familiar aesthetic to the overall design that would have fit in quite well on consoles in the 80's.
Pro Fun resource management mechanic
The player can sell their loot (gathered from a dungeon) for in game money, to then be spent on needed equipment or can equip their loot to try harder dungeons to get better loot to sell for new equipment. Each action is a gamble and may or may not pay off for the player.
Pro In active development
Merchant is still in a very active development phase, which means there will be plenty of bug fixes and new features and tweaks to the gameplay added.
Pro Dedicated subreddit
Merchant has a dedicated subreddit page where users can discuss the game, strategies and bugs.
Pro Completely free and zero permissions
Merchant is a completely free game that also has zero permissions.
Cons
Con Puzzles could be deeper
With such an amazing graphic design, the level of depth to the puzzles feels almost disappointing.
Con Current version has both ads and in-app purchases
Con Wait times
There are wait times in the game for both crafting and adventuring. This makes it impossible to sit and play for any length of time and makes the user have to come back to the game often in order to make any significant progress.
Con Lag/delay of action
When pressing buttons in the menus there is a noticeable delay until the requested action actually takes place.