When comparing Desert Golfing vs Merchant, the Slant community recommends Desert Golfing for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games without in-app purchases/paywalls?” Desert Golfing is ranked 85th while Merchant is ranked 94th. The most important reason people chose Desert Golfing is:
Desert Golfing is unique in that there is no menu to speak of, all there is, is one course after another.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro No menu
Desert Golfing is unique in that there is no menu to speak of, all there is, is one course after another.
Pro Each course is procedurally generated
Guaranteeing that the game will never get old, Desert Golfing is procedurally generated, meaning every single course is a new random experience.
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 May start repeating some aspects after 3000 holes
Being that the game is so minimal there is most likely only so many variations that can be randomized before some particulars start to get repeated. Supposedly this may happen around the 3,000 holes mark.
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.