Officially Annoyed

I downloaded the Bus Out game after I saw it advertised on one of my other mobile games. It sounded like a fun, time-wasting sort of game. I like puzzles like this. But I’m officially annoyed with it.

Why Annoyed, You Ask?

The game is made so users are forced to watch videos to beat levels.

What Happens?

The passenger queue will be moving and buses will be filling up. The player has to be strategic to free the buses when they are needed. Then, a single passenger of a new color will be in the queue. And in order to proceed, the game prompts the player to watch a video to unlock an extra parking space for that color bus. I’ve tried levels repeatedly to avoid having to watch a long, annoying advertisement, but continuously encounter a place where it’s necessary. I’m convinced that the levels are designed specifically so the player has to watch the ads or spend real money in order to beat them.

So, it’s not really a game.

Question: Game developer, is the Bus Out game an advertising platform or a mobile game? Hmmm?

So while Bus Out’s gameplay is entertaining, it is an advertising platform disguised as a game.

Annoying Ads

What’s worse, the ads run on Bus Out are the quintessential annoying mobile app ads that show gameplay from a game that is completely different when you actually download the game, the game is nothing like the ad.

Gossip Harbor and Seaside Escape = Same Game?

Two different games ads currently run on Bus Out’s ad rotation that are clones of each other. The games are blatantly running the same ads for differently named games. This is so annoying!

How do I know the game is nothing like the ads? I played one of the games, Seaside Escape, for a while before I got bored with it.

And there’s nothing in Seaside Escape like the ads where the players rescue some lady from an abusive boyfriend and fix up her shack saving her and her homeless kid from the freezing streets. Seaside Escape has a tropical setting for Pete’s sake, where’s all that snow supposed to be coming from?

Gossip Harbor DOES feature the characters from the game ads, but both Seaside Escape ads and Gossip Harbor ads run with the same game characters and misleading gameplay.

Both Games are Merge Games, BTW

Can’t Skip Ads After 10 Seconds

Many other mobile games I play allow users to bypass ads after watching the ad for a certain number of seconds. I don’t mind that sort of situation as much. I understand that mobile game companies need to make revenue to stay afloat. But ugh, people, let us skip the ads after a shorter amount of time.

When You Press the X…

Another gripe I have with mobile games is how when you finally get the >> or X button to get back to your game, it often starts a cycle where you press the button but the game download screen comes up repeatedly. Do they really think that annoying people with their ads is the way to get people to download them? Spoiler alert: It’s not!

Bus Out Gives No Rewards

Another thing Bus Out does not do is award the power-ups that allow players to shuffle the board. I’m actually not sure how to buy them because nothing happens when I click on them. It takes me to the page where you can purchase coins but I don’t see an interface where you can exchange coins with the tools. So again, the game is funneling users into watching the ads in order to get past points in levels where they will otherwise fail the level.

Update!! Critical Security Issue

Update as of February 2025. I’ve kept playing this game, even though many of the issues I mentioned in this post stand. But a new and more troubling issue has popped up, literally, in the last few days.

What happens is that while playing a level, a popup will force-open and navigate to a highly suspicious-looking website that seems like a malware scan but it’s not. This highly suspect site tells you to buy their software because your phone is infected with a virus. But my phone is not infected. It’s an iPhone. So this knocks Bus Out way, way down in my books. Like, off the page down.

I’m officially not playing it until they fix this issue. This pop-up to a scam website is a critical security issue. Even if it’s happening through their advertising network integration, the popup advert is a deal-breaker.

I cannot continue to play this game with this current issue. It is too suspicious. And I cannot recommend you play it either.

So.. Bus Out is a FAIL

That’s just shady business, as far as I am concerned. So as much as I enjoy playing a game like Bus Out, I love the puzzle aspect of Bus Out, I cannot recommend this game. If they were to address some of these issues and make the game less of an obvious marketing platform/money grab I might reconsider.

You can download Bus Out on the Apple App Store and on Google Play Store. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Gaming

I write about gaming frequently here at Fae’s Journal. You might be interested in some related posts.

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