Growtopia

Hurdles must be overcome in order to have fun with this game, and some come with a price tag, with the first hurdle being the first hour of play. Growtopia begins by unceremoniously plopping players into a world with little in the way of easily accessible guidance (you need to figure out how to use the Growtopia manual in your inventory) and a strangely confusing control scheme that assigns unexpected functions to action buttons, triggers, and control sticks. But stick with it long enough and you'll overcome these quirks, at which point you may discover that it's actually pretty easy to harvest resources, build things, make doors, edit signs, and do all sorts of other fun creative stuff. Like other crafting and building games, the only limit to what you can create in this 2D sandbox is your imagination. And few such games make it easier to join up with and collaborate with friends -- even those playing on different platforms.

Unfortunately, you may soon encounter a second hurdle even steeper than the first: Money. While it's easy to build basic things (so long as you're willing to wait for the necessary resources to grow once you've planted them) the most tantalizing stuff costs money. There are dozens of packs and item sets that allow players to do everything from recruiting dragons and riding tiny horses to creating their own themed games and stories. Even some basic, necessary stuff -- such as expanding the very limited amount of storage in your backpack or using locks to safeguard your worlds from griefers -- has a price tag. Some players will be able to get away with spending only a little to sate their creative appetites, but others could wind up spending hundreds of dollars to access and obtain everything they want to be able to build with. Growtopia provides plenty of opportunity for players to create and cooperate, but it doesn't make it as simple or inexpensive as one might hope or anticipate.