Android Wars [1] - Stack vs Tower with friends

This is a new section in our blog in which, we pick two similar android apps and we put them to the test to see which one is better. In this war we have Stack from Ketchapp and Tower with friends from Metafun. Both are games in which you try to build a structure, piece by piece as high as possible.

In Stack your goal is to build a pile of flat blocks. It starts with a steady block, that works as a reference point and a moving one that slides across the other. Both have the exact same size. Your mission is to place the moving square exactly on top of the other. If you succeed, a white light shines around the join of the two blocks, a confirmation tone sounds and a new block slides in, from the opposite direction. As the game progresses and the pace gets faster, then you will probably miss the right moment and the moving block will stick out of the pile. When this happens, the the block's overlapping section is cut off. The next block slides in, adjusted to the size of the previous sliced block and the game goes on.

You lose when the moving block entirely misses the pile. This is something usual. The combination of a tiny block and the fast pace, will eventually get you there. If you make eight consecutive successful placements, then the last block on the pile will grow larger. For every successful placement after that, it will grow even larger, until you miss. What I found challenging in this game, even early when the pace is slower, is what happens when the block is sliced uneven and it takes the shape of a rectangle. The block slides forth from two different directions and your tapping spot changes due to the shape.

Every ten successful placements, you get one point. The available points are shown on the right corner on top of the screen. When you gather 200 of them you can unlock a new skin for your blocks. Others help you align the blocks easier, others make it harder as their patterns are not that pleasing to the eye.

Tower with friends on the other hand, is a more complex game. The concept is to build the tallest skyscraper, floor by floor. A crane that's moving across the screen, holding a building block. Your goal is to place it on top of the other and so on. If you fail to place it in the center of the pile and lets say for example you put it on the right corner, then your building block will lean on the right and fall, taking your whole structure down. So when you pile the building blocks, you try to adjust them right or left, depending on the circumstances in order to even the scales.

On top of the screen, on the left there is a bar. When you make a successful placement then it is filled a bit. When the bar is full, then your structure until this point, is secured and you go on. On the right of the screen across the bar, you can see the amount of coin that you have. When you place a building block you get some coins. There are seven options, on how to spend them. There are two options before you start your round. You can pay to get double the coins on the next round or skip some of the early floors. During the round, you have 4 options on the right of the screen to help you pile the blocks. You can get a target to help you succeed in tapping the right moment. Save your block from falling, with wings. Secure your structure or make the crane move slower.

You can unlock new skins for your building blocks to change the appearance of the structure .There are four more skins for you to choose. You can unlock them, by spending some of your gathered coins.

Both games are interesting, with beautiful colors, smooth animation and nice music. They use different mechanics and an opposite approach. Lets see which one wins this fight.

Stack uses a more simplistic approach. It has a clear background and the pile of your blocks or the moving one have textures as simple as it gets. On the other hand, Tower with friends has more things going on. You have more options in your arsenal on how to play your round and the visuals are more complete with the concept of the construction of the skyscraper and the crane moving and all the other animations that happen during the game.

The sounds on both of them are great and indicate clearly that something happens. Stack has a soft music sequence that fits with its minimalistic style. On the contrast, Tower with friends has a faster music style that is in harmony with the construction background.

Both games are free in the playstore. Tower with friends is ads-free but stack unfortunately isn't. On the bottom of the screen there is a rectangle that contains the advertisement. There were more than a few times that during the game I mis-tapped on it and lost my pace. The ad isn't that annoying but it lurks in there to destroy your new high score that you were building to brag to your bigmouth, super-smart friend. There are also some full screen ads that pop up in between some of your tries. There is an option to remove all the adds for 2.03 euros in an in app purchase.

They run smoothly on my device and they never crashed once. After a while though, during my game in Tower with friends, my smartphone's temperature increased and I could feel the heat, something that didn't occur with Stack.
Battery drain wasn't much of a problem and especially with stack.

Conclusion

Tower with friends has more options in your playthrough, has more textures and is engaging. Music is great and sounds are clear. There are no ads and is free. Stack follows a simplistic approach, it is more pleasing in the eye and especially in night time. It is colorful and provides more different skins to not get easily bored. It drains the battery slower than Tower and doesn't heat your device. My pick from this war is Stack. The vantage point of stack besides everything foretold was it's addictiveness something that Tower with friends failed to deliver. I found myself playing for hours just to beat my last highscore. Things got even worse when I started antagonizing my friends.

Tested on ZTE nubia z7 mini
(1080 x 1920 resolution ~445 ppi pixel density
Qualcomm MSM8974AA Snapdragon 801
Quad-core 2.0 GHz Krait 400,
Adreno 330
2 GB RAM
Android 5.1.1)

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