Game of Thrones Browser game: Wildly bad

If you watch Youtube at all you have almost certainly been subjected to advertisements about the "super addictive" and officially licensed Game of Thrones browser game. Well, because I am glutton for punishment, I went ahead and tried it and wow, is it terrible.

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Well for starters, this is a browser game right? Well, the strange thing about this browser game (and many other people according to a massive amount of comments) doesn't actually work in your browser. I tried FF and Chrome and both of them resulted in a black screen where nothing ever happens. So because I am persistent in pursuing disappointment i downloaded the standalone app to my desktop.

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The game is exactly the same as every other time-based micro-transaction strategy game in existence, and this is the first flaw. I think another major flaw is that the interface, although not riddled with errors has quite a few English mistakes including forgettingtoputspacesbetweenwords. One thing I found really egregious is the fact that on the start screen you have many choices of who to play as. They include Arya, Night King or JOHN snow. That's right.... they spelled the name wrong of one of the major characters of the series.

Also after you choose who you will play as and then select what attribute you want the to have; Assassin, Mage, or Warrior. Then it takes you to the login screen for the game where the choices you JUST MADE have absolutely no bearing on your gameplay at all. You do NOT play as the person you just selected nor do you have any mage, assassin or warrior qualities... WTF?

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A vast majority of the gameplay is about city building and upgrading said facitilies in your city. These all have timers on them until completion (you know, like every other micro transaction game in existance) and you have the choice of waiting for hours, using your parents' credit card without their permission, or not playing. I should have chosen the 3rd option but instead went for the 1st.

The eventual goal in this (as far as i can tell) is to enter battles with the forces you accumulate by having upgraded facilities in your city. Which brings us to the next part.

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You place your available troops and then utilized exactly zero strategy until the battle is over. There are a few buttons that you can hit to make some bombs go off or some other special abilities but if you want to make a sandwich instead that is also an option because it doesn't seem to have any real impact on the result. These are designed to be cakewalks until they become impossible to win unless you pay money for it.

Just like any other game of this type, victory can only be achieved via paying real world money and I have to say that there must be some seriously stupid people out there because this company actually is making money - just not off of me.

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I am not at all surprised when a browser game ends up being a micro-transaction nightmare of a mess that isn't even fun. I expect that. I can't remember an app game that I ever played that was anything but. However, I have to express a little bit of surprise that HBO would allow their name to be attached to this turd. It would be one thing if it was a polished and lovely micro-transaction based app game, but it isn't. It is a really bad version of this tired concept.

However, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because they already pissed on most of their fan base with Season 8 so why not go ahead and stick em with the pointy end a few more times.

tl;dr
This game is terrible and not that you would anyway, but don't play it.