My Dragon is the newest of Glu Mobile’s freemium game line up. In My Dragon you choose a dragon to raise and train. You must keep your dragon entertained and happy, as well as helping the people of your kingdom.

GAMEPLAY AND CONTROLS

Most of the controls involve simply tapping options on screen. Some of the time you are required to swipe to pet your dragon or to train it to do a new trick. Any time swiping is required, a guiding graphic appears on the screen to assist you.

My Dragon starts with a very short tutorial that still leaves much to be learned when it is completed. Coupled with an overcrowded interface, it can take awhile to learn all of the options and things you can do with the dragon pet.

The biggest components of My Dragon are the quests. In unique fashion, the quests are completed by random rolls for collection items. At the end of the quest you keep the items, which are added to critter collections (critters appear daily to give you bonuses after you complete their collection). You must meet certain pre-requisites to do quests, however, which would be your resources.

The resources needed to do quests are energy, happiness, and stash points (costume points). You feed your dragon to increase energy, play with him to increase happiness, and purchase costumes to increase stash points. That seems easy enough, but resources deplete rather quickly and currency runs out even faster.

Very early on in the game you are encouraged to buy currency and items with real money. The other currency, dragon scales, are earned regularly. You can also use hearts, which are earned by visiting friends’ dragons, to purchase costumes.

GRAPHICS AND AUDIO

My Dragon does provide nice visuals which is to be expected from Glu Mobile. The environment, dragons, and costumes are colorful and bright.

The sound of the game is most entertaining with the medieval style music and the cute sounds of the baby dragon.

PROS

• Unique questing style
• Dressing up a dragon in silly costumes

CONS

• Very limited game play time before the necessity to buy currency with real money kicks in
• Crowded and confusing interface

The fact that My Dragon is a free app, I understand the necessity of relying on micro transaction purchases to fund the developer. I cannot shake how early you are pressed into buying currency and items, though. My Dragon is clearly a game geared for children, and that makes me feel even more uncomfortable with how soon micro transactions are encouraged. The crowded and confusing interface, even after completing the tutorial, can make it difficult to understand, as well.

Overall, the game has many flaws. While you can play without purchasing anything, you really only get about ten minutes of game time before you run out of resources. That is OK, if you like that, but I would rather not have a game taking up space on my phone for just ten minutes a day.

Download My Dragon here for iOS