“Dots” hit the top five most downloaded free games for the iOS last month. That means there must be something to it, right?  Wrong.  “Dots” is exactly like every other type-matching game out there, except that it’s lacking anything resembling originality.

Freemium games are supposed to be designed to draw the user in with fun, easy gameplay at first, and then turn up the difficulty until the players are spending hundreds of dollars a month to win. Many game companies have created successful “Skinner Boxes” of this sort, some of them seeing more success than traditional game design companies.  The developers of “Dots” attempted to pare this down to its bare bones, creating a simple, fun, easy to play game that is instantly addictive.

They failed horribly. “Dots” starts out hard, with the player barely able to make any progress unless they slog through multiple game sessions of failing miserably in order to earn enough in-game currency to buy power ups that allow you to make a real move.

“Progress” is also a joke. There is nothing but a leaderboard that asks you to promote their game on Facebook and Twitter, or spend money for the in-game currency that actually makes the game playable. Betaworks One, the publisher, tried to make a Skinner Box disguised as an elegantly simple game.  They produced a garish and blatant money grab.