A free resource collection combat game for mobile devices

Hobo Life has you play as a homeless person who searches through garbage bins to find resources to unlock new areas, enemies, upgrades, and weapons. There are elements of an exploration game and elements of a territory capture game, but the primary gameplay loop is resource gathering.

Oddly, the territory capture, resource gathering, and combat elements are pretty similar to what you have to do in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. However, the graphics look torn from a Roblox game. The game generates map areas extremely efficiently, which means almost no loading or gameplay lag.

Unlocking new areas and leveling up

Though the app describes itself as an adventure game, it is more of a resource-gathering combat game. You collect junk and money to pay to open up new sections of the map in order to collect more junk and money. Capture areas by beating a boss.

Feels unfinished and polished

This is a resource-gathering game with a few fight mechanics tagged on. Yet, it is closer to an infinite running game than a genuine survival RPG because all you do is collect more resources in each area. The requirements for opening up new areas become higher, but so do the caches of resources, making it feel a little hollow.

A monetized grindathon

The developers clearly understand the principles of freemium software, and they could have created a great game if they had added more games, variety, and challenges to their freemium app. As you progress, you are forced to watch adverts or make micro-payments because collecting resources becomes slower and slower the further you progress into the game.

Incorrectly installed adverts

Near the end of the game, the pop-up adverts are set up in a way that they appear when you transition into another area. However, when you build up enough resources to unlock a new area, the advert respawns you back into your old position. The only way around this is to play with the internet when opening new areas.