AppUnwrapper

Hi everyone! It’s been another long week with lots of games, so I’m here with My Week Unwrapped to tell you about them. There are also a lot of great sales this week, so don’t forget to scroll all the way down for those so you catch them before the sales end!

Sidewords

If you’re a fan of Typeshift, you’ll want to grab Milkbag Games’ Sidewords. It utilizes a simple idea to create not-so-simple puzzles. It’s a word game for those who like a challenge. You can read my full review here.

The Lion’s Song

I was off to a rocky start with Mipumi’s adventure game, The Lion’s Song, last week. It kept crashing and I had to give up on it. But I’ve since gotten it working again and they released an update, so I finished the first episode and started the second. It did crash once during the second episode so far, but otherwise has been fine. The game hasn’t really pulled me in yet, since there aren’t really any puzzles, but I want to give it a chance. I’ve also been compiling my gameplay videos here.

Color Magnet

The One Pixel’s match-five game, Color Magnet, actually released a couple weeks ago, but it went on sale for only $0.99 this week so I decided to give it a try. I’ve actually been playing it quite a bit since. The gist of it is that you have a colored square at the bottom and you have to choose where on the board to shoot it, kind of like a bubble shooter. But you’re trying to match five of a color so they’ll fall off the mass of squares. What makes it different than other matching games is that if you sandwich some other colored squares between two of the same color, the middle squares change to the outside color. It opens the game up to lots of strategy. Add to it some locked squares that don’t show you the color until you unlock them, as well as some X’ed squares that can only be removed by making them drop, and you’ve got quite a bit going on. Not only that, but there are three gameplay modes. Two of them are high score chasers. Classic is random each time, so luck can affect your score. But Universal is really neat because it’s the same sequence every time. So you know that every score is entirely dependent on skill. It’s as pure a high score chaser as you can get. I’ve improved my score in both modes quite a bit since I started playing, so the ones in the video are pretty low for me. There’s also a puzzle mode with thirty levels in which you have to figure out how to clear the board within a certain number of moves by deciding which colors to use and where. It can actually be quite tricky and also help train you for higher scores in the other modes. I’m still working my way through it, but have a walkthrough in progress here. If you like these types of games, I highly recommend grabbing it, especially at the low price of $0.99.

The Franz Kafka Videogame

I get excited about quirky adventure games, so I was eager to play the Daedalic-published Franz Kafka Videogame. I was even willing to forgive the use of “video game” as one word. And I started off really enjoying the game. But unfortunately, most of the puzzles just didn’t do it for me. You can read more about it in my review here.

Retroshifter

I gave Murdercliud Studios’ autorunner, Retroshifter, a try because I liked the look of it, reminiscent of the colors of Tokyo city streets. It has stylish pixel art that caught my eye. I was enjoying it for the brief time I played, though I didn’t like having to look at the screen to switch colors quickly. That seems like a poor control scheme for a fast-paced touchscreen. It’s odd, because the game includes swipe controls for jumping, ducking and sliding. But every time I messed up, it was because I was trying to find the color I needed. Perhaps with a controller that might work, but not on a touchscreen. Also, it’s a high score chaser that’s bogged down with micro-transactions. I don’t have patience for pay-to-win games like that, so unfortunately I won’t be spending more time with it. But it’s worth checking out for free.

Calculator: The Game

Nothing new here. I just made a short video to explain why my videos for Calculator: The Game are all wrong. The gist of it is that they keep removing levels, resulting in my walkthrough being out of order. And I’ve already remade the videos once. I can’t keep doing it without knowing when they’re going to stop making changes.

Day of the Tentacle Remastered

Double Fine’s remastered version of Day of the Tentacle is on sale this week for only $0.99, so I grabbed it and started playing. This is my first experience with it and I am enjoying it so far, even if I don’t know when I’ll find the time to finish it. My first half hour or so involved a lot of dialogue — amusing dialogue — and very few puzzles. I’m not a fan of the old school controls and wish I could just tap on things to pick them up or interact, instead of having to choose from a wheel of options. That might keep me from finishing it, unfortunately. But it does seem like a very well-made and entertaining game, and I can see why it’s remained so popular all these years. If you have the time and patience for it, $1.99 seems like a steal.

Glyph Quest Chronicles

I was a big fan of Super Glyph Quest back in the day and even added it to my list of premium match-3 games. I’m not a big fan of free-to-play match-3s, so I came into We Heart Dragons’ new game, Glyph Quest Chronicles, with some hesitation. They did spruce up the artwork and animations and it is a well-made game. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel fresh enough for me to want to start from scratch all over again. And this time I either have to deal with energy and ads or pay a good chunk of change to make it premium — even though I’ve already had the premium experience before. Still, if you’ve never played the previous games, this might be a good place to start and at least see if you like it.

Sales:

YANKAI’S TRIANGLE by Kenny Sun is currently FREE as Apple’s Free App of the Week! It was one of my favorite games of 2016 and now you have absolutely no reason not to play.

Color Magnet by The One Pixel is on sale for $0.99, down from $2.99. I wrote about it above!

Prune by Joel McDonald is one sale for $0.99, down from $3.99.

Day of the Tentacle Remastered by Double Fine is on sale for $1.99, down from $4.99. I wrote a bit about it above!

Broken Age by Double Fine is on sale for $1.99, down from $4.99. This is another superb game that should not be missed by adventure fans.

Grim Fandango is another Double Fine game on sale for $1.99. I haven’t played this one much, but it’s supposed to be very good.

Tavern Guardians by Wombo Combo Games is on sale for $0.99, down from $2.99. It’s an endless match-3 that’s by no means perfect, but still loads of fun and definitely worth picking up at that price.

Evo Explores by Kyrylo Kuzyk is a Monument Valley-alike that’s made pretty well and on sale for $0.99, down from $1.99.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week! Let me know what games you picked up and I’ll see you back here next week with more of My Week Unwrapped!