Website: tinymogul.in
Download Link: Google Play
If reading that title made you think this is a Plants vs Zombies clone, you would be quite mistaken. Dadi Vs Jellies (DvJ) is a shoot-em-up with elements of tower defence. You play as a rather stylishly dressed Dadi who wields some powerful home-made weapons and have set yourself up behind a barricade to survive an onslaught of some rather cute looking Jellies gone rogue.
The game is free to play and quite fair in its implementation of microtransactions. You can pay to unlock stuff early or just grind it out and earn it. Your playtime is limited by the number of cups of Chai at your disposal. You lose a cup every time your Dadi is defeated. The game encourages you to invite friends to play as they can provide a boost to your defences and send you any extra cups of Chai they have. The Friend Shield seems almost essential when you get to the more difficult levels later on. You lose all your progress in an area if you are defeated, which adds to the challenge of the game.
There are three different guns on offer, each more powerful than the last. One of these is a Cricket Gun which underscores the heavy Desi cultural influences on the game. To aid you take out more jellies, you also have 5 powerups of which you can only bring 2 to any fight. These are available to use only after you’ve destroyed enough jellies to get the sugar to pay the cost, which increases as you upgrade your powerups. They also have a cooldown time before you can use them again. You would want to minimise the powerup usage however as the game gives you coins based on how much sugar you have at the end of a level.
DvJ has multiple item currencies in play. Cups of Chai are equivalent to your Lives and you can either wait for them to recharge to a maximum of 3 or play Endless mode and try to earn some. Coins are used to purchase upgrades for your weapons and barricades. You earn these by completing levels, stockpiling sugar in a level and allowing minimal damage to your barricade. Capsules are used to upgrade powerups and to get a boost to sugar in a level. These are earned by completing all the levels in an area. Sugar is only available while playing a level and is used to deploy your powerups. You earn it by destroying Jellies or by popping a Capsule.
Your adversaries in DvJ are some rather cutely drawn Jellies, each of whom has a distinct attack pattern. Some jellies attack from afar and these are the most dangerous as you need to kill the Jellies in front of them in order to reach them. The Jellies that melee your Barricade are only dangerous when they reach it. However, they can act as shields for the ranged Jellies by absorbing your bullets. You will face powered up versions of many Jellies as you progress through areas.
The art and design of the game is highly polished and makes for a good presentation, though the main menu looks rather cluttered and the Dadi chewing animation is slightly awkward. Some Jellies look so cute that you don’t quite feel like destroying them. The names for powerups and barricade upgrades are rather creative. There is a snapshot feature to share the image of your Dadi with your friends though it would be more useful if Dadi’s attire was customisable and not just her gun and barricade. The soundtrack is forgettable though and you’ll soon find yourself playing this game muted. One should note that the Grama Gun shooting sound seems eerily similar to someone ringing a bell during puja.
DvJ is rather slow to start up and also quite lethargic when showing the final score. The game would benefit from the implementation of damage meters for the Barricade and for a Wave of Jellies though the barricade does change in appearance and flash red depending on damage. One can’t skip the count in the post level statistics screen to see their progress without being forced to exit to the main menu. Also, you cannot see your progress when trying to replay older areas, which is necessitated when you get stuck in a newer area due to lack of upgrades. The game’s difficulty curve is rather uneven with difficulty spikes in intermediate levels in an area usually with an anti-climax of a relatively easy level in the final stage.
Some issues we experienced were that a single bullet (Fruit, Disc or Ball) can sometimes get stuck on your wall or the Dadi shoots into a corner area at random. Also Google Play achievements were bugged. Playing offline did not unlock them retrospectively and doing the same actions when logged in did not trigger them later on. Also, starting Endless Mode when out of Cups of Chai led to a dead end that caused the game to hang.
DvJ is a rather addictive and interesting game that you would like to get your friends to play. Tiny Mogul have been quite fair with the implementation of microtransactions and we appreciate the lack of any intrusive advertising. The game has plenty of scope for improvement however though it’s quite entertaining in its current form. And it reminds you of the superhero that is (or was) your Dadi.
Reviewed on a Google Nexus 5
