Doodle Alchemy

I've been playing for less than 5 minutes, and I've already seen 3 ads and been hit with a pop-up to rate (how would I know yet if I like the game?), plus banner ads. One ad hit me before I even got to the first game screen; it was the first thing I saw after clicking play in the top menu. I thought the ad was the tutorial for a moment. It's a bad look. From what I can tell, the game is a pretty basic combination alchemy game otherwise.

The game was set up in a way I liked, but often the combinations to make different elements made little sense or had far better alternatives. Ex: Grapes instead of being vine+fruit or vine+berries was wood+earth. Sure it works vaguely, but that sort of counterintuitive way of getting the answers made the game unenjoyable. You really had to use hints to find some. Also, some of the elements were too specific/referential when basic ones were missing. Ex: catdog-yes like the cartoon- but no lion???

Same old element combining game. Except that the elements get reorganized if you exit and re-enter the game (they appear in the order you discover them while you play, then get reshuffled into the game's preferred order if you exit; it makes methodical play very difficult unless you do it all at once). And the ads are over-the-top intrusive. Way too obnoxious and aggressive. It's a dollar to remove them, but the game isn't worth a dollar to me, so bye.