If you ask me about my attitude to clicker games, I’d say it’s complicated. On the one hand, there are classics like Bitcoin Billionaire, on the other a multitude of generic titles that exploit the tried system. Groove Planet is clicker, indeed, but it does one very special thing differently – it adds all the sense in the world to tapping because you are tapping to the beat.

Think Lost in Harmony and Groove Coaster 2, then add Adventures of Poco Eco visual style, gameplay mechanics of Bitcoin Billionaire and you get Groove Planet.

It’s fun, funny and good-looking. Most importantly, it makes time fly. The main appeal of Groove Planet is its music. I did not expect anything, but when I heard a song, and then another, and another, I got sucked into the vortex of the beat tapping action, enjoying every single moment of it.

Gameplay

The gameplay is fairly typical for a clicker game. Tap to the beat, increase your funds, and the money here is the notes. Once you get enough notes you can start building structures on your Groove Planet. Oh, before you start you also get to name it!

So, you start building portals, through which space travelers come to visit your groovy planet. They are funny little Poco Eco-kind of people, and once they come and start dancing to your music, they populate your planet. Then you build cinemas, mixers, restaurants, controllers, microphones, and many many more structures. They pop to the beat and earn you more notes.

You can then upgrade your base, and change your planet’s style for an X amount of notes.
Once in a while, you see an alien space ship flying by – tap to shoot it, otherwise it will kidnap your dancing folks. Smashing an alien space ship also gives you a boost of notes.
But nothing gives you notes as much as tapping to the beat, like really trying to keep up with the beat. The bigger combos you score the better. You can tell the game is praising your efforts by the fireworks that light up the night sky of your planet.

However, Groove Planet does not urge you to tap your life away. After some 20 seconds of inactivity it switches the game to the listening mode, and you can just enjoy the music and the funky visuals without tapping your fingers numb.

Music

The selection of music is great, and makes all the difference for this clicker game because it makes tapping actually fun and rewarding. In many clicker games the problem is common – they turn tapping into tiresome business. Not the case with Groove Planet.

Design

Visually it reminds me of Adventures of Poco Eco a lot, and it’s a good thing. The environments are vibrant and rich, and surprisingly detailed, with lots of neon and dark, my favorite combination.

Another neat detail about Groove Planet is it lets you play to your own music, so you can enjoy your favorite tracks to a nice interactive tapping game, as you populate your planet and buy them dance loving denizens more entertainment buildings. You are basically building a big planet that’s a giant discotheque.

You can rotate it to look around and hunt the aliens down, to change the scene and to look at what your people are doing. It’s a surprisingly fun way to play to the music, and it clicks immediately as you start playing.

The game also has mini-missions like kill three aliens ships, build a restaurant and such, and it grants you a reward when you complete them. All in all, it’s a busy place bustling with life, music, groove and fireworks. I envy those dancing dudes with all my heart.

Performance, IAPs

I have not had any performance issues with it, and Groove Planet has some nifty cloud save and backup features, leaderboards, unlockable characters and such. There are optional IAPs, like a spin of the premium fortune wheel, or gems. By the way you earn gems by playing and upgrading your base level, but eventually as long as the music goes on, these details remain behind the scenes and largely irrelevant. The most important thing is there is no paywall as far as I can tell. You will want to pay if you want more in-game music tracks, and it would be a worthy investment.

The Verdict

All things considered, if you like music games like Lost Sounds – Adventures of Poco Eco, Lost in Harmony and Groove Coaster 2, Groove Planet is right down your alley. It’s free to play, with non-intrusive IAPs, awesome music and the ability to play to your music. The eye candy is sweet and the replay value is wonderful. It’s fun, funny, easy to play and accessible, addicting and kind. There is no reason not to try it, and you will most likely love it. I did.

Groove Planet

Developer: Animoca Brands
Genre: Music
Downlad from Google Play | iTunes
Price: free-to-play, optional IAPs