When comparing Orbital vs Merchant, the Slant community recommends Merchant for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games without in-app purchases/paywalls?” Merchant is ranked 94th while Orbital is ranked 108th. The most important reason people chose Merchant is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Simple intuitive gameplay
The gameplay consists of firing orbs into the playing field to then fire more orbs to remove those orbs. Pretty simple to understand but not always easy to accomplish, making for an arcade puzzle style game that can be played easily but still requires some strategy and thought.
Pro Free version available
There is a free version available for download that has no in app purchases but is limited to 20 points to which the game is cut off. Makes a good trial version to see how the game plays.
Pro Three single and muti-player modes
There are three play modes available in game, Pure, Gravity and Supernova. The first two modes change up how the orbs move once fired upon, one allows the orbs to shoot off in straight lines, the other has the orbs shooting and bouncing off of one another. Supernova offers a twist on these by making the player shoot 5 shots instead of three.
Pro Local same device 2 player mode
Two users can play a match against one another on the same device, making for a good game to play when friends are around.
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 Controls could be more accurate
Shooting orbs can be less precise than wanted, this is something that could be improved on.
Con May not hold interest for long
Being that the game is pretty simple, users may get tired of the gameplay quickly.
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.