My Lands: Black Gem Hunting

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My Lands: Black Gem Hunting is a single player and multiplayer casual role playing game. It was developed by Gravvit Ltd and was released on September 16, 2014. It received neutral reviews from players.

My Lands is a free online RTS where dark and light forces fight for Black Gem and dominion in a vast fantasy world. Cooperation between players, joint economy development, creation of clans and alliances and elaboration of a team strategy serve as the very foundation of the game. Player chooses one of four races to lead it to the victory through ruthless wars over dominion in the universe of My La…

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57%

Audience ScoreBased on 579 reviews

graphics9 positive mentions

music5 negative mentions

Offers a deep strategic experience with a mix of economy, warfare, and diplomacy that appeals to long-term players.
Features various gameplay elements such as building, research, combat, hunting for rare black gems, and guild/clan collaboration.
Allows free-to-play with real monetary rewards possible and has a relatively active community among certain language groups.

Strong pay-to-win mechanics with expensive premium currency and timed quests that push players to spend real money to progress or avoid failing quests and achievements.
Extremely slow pacing with long real-time building and research wait times, leading to a repetitive grind and frustrating early/mid-game experience.
Outdated graphics, poor user interface, lack of sound or music, language barriers due to majority of players being Russian, and fragmented servers prevent smooth cross-platform play.

story
86 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
3%
94%
3%
The story is largely seen as poorly constructed with little narrative depth, heavily overshadowed by an intrusive and aggressive pay-to-win quest system. Many quests require real-money purchases to avoid failure, making key achievements and progression nearly impossible without spending. Overall, players find the story and quest design frustrating, as monetization undermines enjoyment and quest completion.
- “Great game, I've never played a game that feels so realistic and fun. If you're looking for an adventure RPG, this is it. The graphics and story are just so amazing.”
- “This game has an interesting backstory, and I like the deep strategy possibilities offered to you. The different races are interesting, you have a high level of control over your city, the tutorial quests are helpful, and most importantly it is entirely up to you when you open yourself to PvP.”
- “A nice simple tutorial quest system that goes on for about 20 minutes before you are considered to be in charge of what you are doing, which is nice.”
- “There is a quest achievement for completing 150 quests in a row, but if you don't pay the in-game currency and fail 6 quests (that require in-game currency), the achievement will permanently fail.”
- “Many, if not most, of the quests are simply to buy a buff for black gems, and have a time limit that will cause you to fail the quest (and some of the achievements) if you don't pay real money immediately.”
- “The game's entire plot revolves around fighting over the in-game currency, which is also mentioned in the title (black gems).”
graphics
39 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
62%
15%
The graphics are widely criticized as outdated, basic, and comparable to early 2000s or even 80s-era browser games, with many describing them as ugly, primitive, or lacking aesthetic appeal. Some users find the "retro" or "old school" style tolerable or even enjoyable, but overall the visuals are seen as uninspired and minimal, detracting from the experience despite occasional praise for simplicity or unique style.
- “The graphics are nice.”
- “Great game I've never played a game that feels so realistic and fun. If you're looking for an adventure RPG, this is it. The graphics and story are just amazing.”
- “Unique graphics, I quite enjoy the style.”
- “I've seen better visuals on mobile games from a decade ago.”
- “The UI is awful, it must have been made in 1998 or some nonsense, there are no keyboard shortcuts like more modern ones, the art is ugly and very primitive to look at, no aesthetics, nothing to sink your teeth into sadly.”
- “Looks like a browser game with graphics from early 2000s, first minutes are a 'basic' gameplay tutorial aka game plays itself with arrows you need to follow.”
gameplay
27 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
26%
55%
19%
The gameplay is widely criticized for being slow, shallow, and heavily reliant on pay-to-win mechanics, with long waiting times and minimal strategic depth. While some find casual enjoyment in short daily sessions and social interactions, the overall experience is burdened by grindy progression, unbalanced features, and outdated design reminiscent of browser or Facebook games.
- “The most important and rewarding part of its gameplay is expected to be the social aspect - communication, making alliances, etc.”
- “Somewhat slow game... I log on 3-4 times daily for maybe 15 minutes of gameplay, but it is a fun, casual, building/strategy game.”
- “Good game, good gameplay and community.”
- “Gameplay consists of basic screen tapping to 'build' a 'kingdom', where you will quickly find you're time/paygated and must buy mobile peasant in-game currency with real world money to progress.”
- “The gameplay is turn based like in most Facebook games but here it's prolonged to waiting days and days to make a next move which makes the achievements rather unobtainable since you have to waste like literally years to do some basic ones.”
- “I found myself stuck waiting for two hours after ten minutes of gameplay, this brought tears to my eyes.”
music
19 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
16%
58%
26%
The game's music is widely criticized for being either nonexistent, overly repetitive, or annoying, with many users noting a lack of proper background tracks or sound effects. A few mentions highlight that music was later added and is somewhat fitting, but overall the audio experience is minimal and detracts from the gameplay.
- “The good side of this game is that it actually reminds players how old strategy games used to look like and produces a nostalgic feeling. Also, the music is very good in the game.”
- “The devs added some fitting music after a few months.”
- “2015 edit: I believe sounds and music have been patched in now.”
- “The sound effects suck, the game's performance is mediocre, and the music consists of a five-seconds loop that barely passes for music, and is terribly looped.”
- “There is no fullscreen, graphics and animations are minimal, and the music manages to be forgettable and annoying at the same time.”
- “A game that is not only extremely boring but you don't even get background music as you watch numbers going down.”
monetization
15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
33%
47%
The game's monetization is widely criticized for being heavily reliant on microtransactions, often described as a pay-to-win cash grab with aggressive and abusive tactics embedded even in the quest system. While some note that microtransactions provide advantages like higher production rates, the overall sentiment portrays the game as a greedy, exploitative mobile port prioritizing profit over fair gameplay.
- “Microtransactions seem to be balanced quite nicely, with no massive pay-to-win elements, except that you can buy higher production rates which give you a slight advantage over other players.”
- “If the slight hint of microtransactions bothers you, you might want to move along, but overall they are not overwhelming.”
- “Although there are microtransactions, they don't dominate the game experience excessively.”
- “To top it all off, the game is riddled with microtransactions.”
- “My lands is a pay-to-win/pay-to-play mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as a nasty, greedy cash grab from morally void mobile app developers.”
- “Abusive monetization starts with the very first quest and keeps getting harder and harder; you see this 'black gems required' everywhere.”
grinding
13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
8%
92%
Grinding in this game is widely seen as tedious and relentless, with progress heavily favoring pay-to-win players. Resource acquisition is slow both online and offline, making gameplay feel like repetitive farming with little rewarding payoff beyond the initial hour. Overall, grinding is considered a major chore that undermines enjoyment.
- “It's just a tedious grind with no payoff.”
- “You basically have the choice to either buy black gems or spend much more time farming them.”
- “You might enjoy the first hour of free play, but afterwards it's the worst kind of time grinding Facebook gameplay you can imagine.”
optimization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
34%
33%
The game's optimization is mediocre, with slow startup times and some performance issues early on. However, once past initial tutorials and reaching key milestones, the game runs smoothly. Sound and music quality are notably poor, detracting from the overall experience.
- “Game is slow to start and requires reading tutorials or you may get stuck, but once you get your first city to 5* and open the gate it runs smoothly.”
- “The game's performance is mediocre.”
emotional
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players express emotional frustration and disappointment, feeling the game's progression is deliberately slowed after an initial enjoyable phase to push for real-money spending. This design leads to a sense of heartbreak and discouragement, as higher-level challenges remain elusive or disproportionately difficult without significant investment.
- “From my personal experience of playing similar games, it is usual to give the new player a positive experience, with an initial period of growth to create time/emotional buy-in, before slowing it down in order to get you to hand over your cash.”
- “If you buy them in real life cash, it's heartbreaking. The developers claim that the rank 7 ruins have up to 100k black gems in them. I am at the stage where I can kill rank 5 ruins (with about 5% losses and much planning). I have not found a rank 7 ruin yet, but the rank 6 ruins have about 3x the troops that a rank 5 does and about 20-30 black gems in them.”
atmosphere
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game's design and atmosphere are generally praised for being appealing, but the real-time construction mechanic detracts from the experience for some players, impacting their overall enjoyment.
humor
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users find the game's humor to be derived from its slow progression and the amusing discrepancy that Steam and browser versions run different game versions, with Steam being notably behind. The situation is seen as ironically funny rather than intentionally comedic.

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18h Median play time

13h Average play time

1-24h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 2 analyzed playthroughs

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My Lands: Black Gem Hunting is a casual role playing game.

My Lands: Black Gem Hunting is available on PC and Windows.

On average players spend around 13 hours playing My Lands: Black Gem Hunting.

My Lands: Black Gem Hunting was released on September 16, 2014.

My Lands: Black Gem Hunting was developed by Gravvit Ltd.

My Lands: Black Gem Hunting has received neutral reviews from players. Most players liked My Lands: Black Gem Hunting for its graphics but disliked it for its story.

My Lands: Black Gem Hunting is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include Stronghold Kingdoms, Kingdom Wars, Rise of Empires: Ice and Fire, Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest, King's Bounty Legions and others.

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