Little skill is involved in this game that’s all fluff, no substance. This app is a slot machine game disguised as an action-oriented viking game.
Raid and plunder every village
For brainless zone out time, Coin Master is a match.
Coin Master is a free slot machine playing game. It’s easy to learn and hard to put down. Play as a guest or connect to Facebook to play with your pals.
Name your viking. The game doesn’t include random Viking names so type in your own Astrid or Arvid. Choose a cheery horned helmeted avatar to go with it.
Playing Coin Master
You’ll use slot machines to earn coins, attack, and raid other villages. That’s where the viking theme ends. Coin Master has no plot or story. The goal is to keep earning coins to build, improve, or repair your village and steal coins from your neighbor. If you’ve connected to Facebook, that neighbor you are stealing from could be your BFF.
Collect coins by tapping on a slot machine. Three-in-a-row matches net you big wins. But you won’t always gain coins.
An in-game tutorial gets you up to speed but the controls are easy enough you don’t need it. The build button transports you to the village shop. You’ll start by throwing down $60,000 on a sweet little thatched house.
Each item you build awards you one star. You need twenty stars to get to the next village level. As your item’s stars increase and bump up a level, your village will look less like something from How To Train Your Dragon after an attack. It will morph into something way more impressive. Gold statues, anyone?
But it’s also pointless. Each level up opens a new type of village and they have nothing to do with vikings.
Seeing stars
How do you get stars? Each hour, you will receive five free slot machine spins. These can accumulate so you don't have to check in every hour. You can hold fifty spins total.
When you spin the wheel, your slot machine win may not be a bundle of coins to plunk down on your next village upgrade. Spin a masked pig? Raid! You get to attack a Coin Master.
The Coin Master is a friend (if you’ve connected to Facebook) or a random player with the most coins.
Raiding is fast. Four different attack points are auto-highlighted in the cross-hairs. The game prompts you to ignore the cozy cabin and the reindeer, and directs your attention to the catapult. Destroy it with a tap and earn coins.
Only three of the four points will contain coins. Choose well. You will dig three times hunting for your gold. When you finish, you’ll head back to the slot machine.
By the hammer of Thor
Roll Thor’s hammer and you’ll whisk away to a neighboring village. If you’ve connected Facebook, it could be your friend’s village or a random player. Attack the village or you can tap “Revenge” or “Friends” at the top of your screen.
You can either bash and smash your friend’s village or view a list of the people who trashed yours. You’ll see a list of their names and how many stars they have so you can decide who is most worthy of your wrath. Sweet revenge is the best part of Coin Master.
Your village isn't immune from the fighting. You will lose a star from your total collected stars. Your village’s item will lose a star and revert to the previous level. Tap on “Fix” to put it right.
If you spin a Viking shield, you earned your village automatic protection. The next attack will keep your village safe and earn the raider less coins. Too bad three shields are your max. You’ll see them accumulate at the top of your screen. If you roll extra shields, you’ll get to re-roll.
With only three shields, and millions of players, your village won’t stay the way you left it. You will lose stars. As levels progress, it’s a frustrating process. You have to save money in order to upgrade your village, but you can’t upgrade with the frequent attacks.
Why do stars matter? Stars keep rank and put you on the leaderboard. Earn one star for each upgrade in your village. Once you gain a high enough level, you can earn stars through collecting cards.
Frequent paywalls are distracting and encourage you to spend money for faster leveling. It’s almost impossible to play without paying up.
Card-collecting bonanza
Where do you find cards? After you hit level 3, which is a slow grind, you can find cards in the chests of neighboring villages.
The kind of village you are in will determine the type and rarity of the card you receive. Nine cards form each collection. Complete your collection for the number of stars displayed at the top of each card and other prizes, like free spins. You won’t get items for duplicates.
Play long enough and you can unlock pets like a rhino, a fox, or a tiger. They don’t sit there and look pretty. Each type of pet offers a different village bonus.
Where can you run this program?
Download Coin Master for your Android phone or Apple products using iOS 9 or later.
Is there a better alternative?
Pirate Coin Master and Smash Island Crazy Cards offer the same cutesy graphics and coin-winning fun without the viking theme. There are still coin-stealing raids on the neighbors. Pirate Coin Master offers up different ships to build and cards to collect. Smash Island uses a wheel, not a slot machine, to spin and build your different islands. You can still attach your Facebook account so your friends can help you out (or not). These games are so close in style and mechanics. It boils down to whether you prefer one format of slot spinning and cheerful theme over another.
