App Name | Street Life: Merge to Survive |
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Latest Version | v.2.5 |
Last Updated | Nov 18, 2023 |
Publisher | Udo Games Oyun Yazılım Anonim Şirketi |
Requirements | Android 5.1 |
Category | Casual |
Size | 120 MB |
Mods | Unlimited Money/Gems |
Google Playstore |
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In Begging Life, you start out as a lowly beggar on the streets asking people for spare change. Through tapping and idle progression mechanics, you slowly earn money and acquire businesses, assets, cities, and more on your quest to become the richest beggar in the world. With its cheeky premise and engaging core gameplay loop, Begging Life provides a humorous and addictive experience on mobile.
This in-depth review will cover all aspects of Begging Life to help you decide if it’s a game worth playing. I’ll discuss the graphics and audio, gameplay and progression, monetization, and overall experience playing on Android. Let’s dive in!
Begging Life features simple 2D cartoon graphics with a lighthearted, silly art style that fits the absurd premise and tone of the game. The visuals are colorful and charming, if a bit basic, with expressive character designs for the beggars and pedestrians. The user interface is clean and intuitive, making it easy to navigate the various menus and options.
The animations are fairly minimal, mainly comprising of the beggar character bouncing up and down while begging. When hiring new beggar helpers, you get to see them displayed on the screen tapping away or playing instruments to earn you money. It’s a nice bit of visual flair that livens things up.
There are also some limited customization options available to change your main beggar’s appearance and outfit. While the wardrobe selections are not extensive, it’s a nice feature that adds some personality. Overall, the graphics are serviceable if unexceptional, and convey the silly tone successfully.
The audio mainly consists of upbeat background music that fits the light vibe of the game. There are also satisfying tapping and coin sounds as you earn money, along with some voice lines for the beggar as they plead for change. The audio is decent but repetitive over long play sessions. An option to mute the music would be welcome.
The core gameplay loop of Begging Life revolves around tapping on the screen to earn coins. Your beggar character stands on the sidewalk holding a cup, and each tap drops coins into the cup, representing you asking pedestrians for spare change.
The more you tap, the more money you earn. This money can then be used to upgrade aspects of your beggar, hiring helpers, purchasing businesses and assets, and progressing through the game.
The tapping starts out slow, only earning you a few cents per tap at first. But as you earn money, you can level up your beggar to increase your tapping power, earning dollars, and eventually millions per tap.
Upgrading your beggar increases your passive income as well, earning money even when you’re not actively tapping. This idle progression system hooks you in to keep checking back and growing your wealth.
As mentioned above, the main way you progress in Begging Life is by upgrading your beggar. This is done by spending coins to level up your beggar, which increases your tapping power, i.e. how much money you earn per tap.
Higher beggar levels also boost your passive income, earning you money automatically without having to tap. You’ll need to get your beggar to high levels in order to progress and earn serious cash.
In addition to leveling up, you can upgrade your beggar’s skills which provide various bonuses. For example, certain skills make your taps more powerful, boost your passive income, or make beggar helpers cheaper to hire.
Finally, you can change your beggar’s appearance and outfit by purchasing different skins and clothes. While these don’t affect gameplay, they provide cosmetic customization.
In addition to upgrading your main beggar, you can also hire helper beggars to automatically earn you money. These include a fashionista, rocker, pianist, and more, each with their own earning rate and bonuses.
Helpers earn passive income in the background, even when you’re not actively playing. As you earn more money, you can hire more helpers to really scale up your earnings. They also have upgrade paths to increase their income generation.
Aside from beggar upgrades, the other key progression system is acquiring businesses, assets, and locations. As you earn coins from tapping and your beggar helpers, you can spend this money to purchase businesses, real estate, islands, artwork, and more.
Each asset generates automatic income that gets added to your earnings. More expensive assets produce higher passive revenue, incentivizing you to keep acquiring and upgrading to grow your wealth.
The assets start out reasonably priced, like a lemonade stand or small house. But as you play more, you can eventually purchase corporations, entire cities, even whole countries!
This sense of progression from lowly beggar to tycoon is very satisfying and becomes increasingly absurd. Owning continents and planets as a beggar really shows how far you’ve come.
A key part of progression in idle and clicking games is prestige mechanics, where you reset your progress in exchange for bonuses to advance faster on your next run.
Begging Life includes a prestige system called Rebirth, which you can unlock after your beggar reaches a certain level. Rebirth resets your beggar level and earnings, but provides permanent bonuses to help you progress quicker, especially early on.
This gives the game more replayability, as you can repeatedly rebirth and try to reach higher levels and earnings each time. It provides long-term goals beyond your first playthrough.
Begging Life monetizes through ads and in-app purchases. Ads appear occasionally between screens, though they are skippable after 5 seconds. There are also incentivized video ads that reward you with bonus coins for watching.
The in-app purchases are mostly focused on speeding up progression or removing ads, including:
Thankfully, none of the IAPs are required to progress or succeed in the game. With enough grinding and checking in regularly, you can experience everything Begging Life has to offer without spending money. The IAPs simply act as shortcuts for impatient players.
One concerning aspect is the inclusion of a lottery ticket IAP that essentially allows gambling for rare prizes. This seems at odds with the game’s silly, lighthearted nature. Parents may want to restrict access to purchases to prevent kids from accessing this.
The simple tapping and idle progression provides a satisfying gameplay loop. It feels good to slowly build up your beggar from weak to powerful, hire more helpers, and purchase bigger and better assets.
Seeing your earnings exponentially increase from pennies to billions creates a strong sense of growth and progression. There’s always a next milestone to work towards.
As an idle game, Begging Life is designed to be played in short bursts. You can tap to earn some quick cash, then let your beggar and helpers generate money automatically while the app runs in the background.
It’s easy to jump in for a few minutes during spare moments of downtime. The rebirth system also encourages replayability in multiple short sessions.
The absurd premise of a beggar growing to become insanely rich provides humorous moments and makes the progression feel over-the-top in enjoyable ways.
While clearly not realistic, the lighthearted tone and cheeky beggar character designs give the game charm. It doesn’t take itself too seriously.
A downside is that, as with many idle games, progress can become very slow at certain points without spending money on IAPs. You’ll need to leave the game running for hours or even days to earn enough for later upgrades.
The rebirth system helps a bit, but it still requires a hefty grind to keep advancing at later stages. This can test the patience of players looking to progress without spending.
Another negative is that Begging Life requires an internet connection to play, even in single player. This limits options for gameplay during commutes or in areas without signal. An offline mode would be a welcome addition.
Overall, Begging Life succeeds in providing an enjoyable and humorous idle tapping experience on mobile with its novel premise and addictive progression system. It’s easy to get invested in growing your beggar from humble beginnings to outrageous wealth, and the simple gameplay makes it a great time-waster.
However, the excessive grinding and online requirement may frustrate some players. The inclusion of what amounts to gambling for prizes also seems at odds with the game’s lighthearted nature.
But if you’re looking for an idle game to play in short bursts and don’t mind a silly, absurd premise with lots of grinding, Begging Life is a solid choice. Just be wary of letting kids make purchases to avoid any gambling.
With fun progression, charming graphics, and ridiculous amounts of money, Begging Life puts an absurd but enjoyable twist on tapping simulators. Give it a try if you want an idle game that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Begging Life is available on Android for free with in-app purchases.
Genre: Simulation, Idle Clicker
Developer: Mana Baba Games
Release Date: October 2015
Platforms: Android
Monetization: Ads, in-app purchases
Link: Google Play
Casual