My Week Unwrapped: May 28, 2017

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Hi everyone! You’re probably used to me being late with this already, so I’m not even going to bother with excuses. It’s been a pretty busy week, so let me cut right to the chase with the latest installment of My Week Unwrapped.

Faraway

First off, I completed my walkthrough for the eighteen levels of Pine Studio’s puzzle adventure game, Faraway: Puzzle Escape. I’m still trying to figure out what the coordinates on the letters mean and what to do with Level 0. You can see my progress with that here and help me brainstorm!

Subdivision Infinity

Next up, I’ve been playing some of Crescent Moon’s space shooter, Subdivision Infinity. It has some pretty impressive graphics and some hardcore space battles. The good news is that there are a number of ways to earn gold so you can buy new ships, weapons and upgrades if you’re having a hard time. It can feel a bit grindy at times due to this, but if you like the battles themselves, there’s a Free Hunt option with high score leaderboards so you can compete against friends. The developer has also been listening to feedback and adjusting some things to make it more user-friendly, and that’s always appreciated. I recommend checking out my video below to see if it’s something you might like.

HYPER BEAM

I loved the look and feel of Rinikulous Games’ Lonely Sun back when it released, but found it to be way too hardcore for me, since it lacked any sort of checkpoints. I kept dying and got tired of starting at the very beginning. But their new game, HYPER BEAM, is a pure arcade high score chaser. Each of your thumbs control a little circle, and there’s a beam that connects the two. This beam is what you use to destroy enemies, but it also acts as a shield, or buffer. So if something hits one of the circles while the beam is active, the beam will disappear for a little while and you have to carefully dodge obstacles until the beam returns. If you get hit without the beam active, it’s game over. The high score seems to be based entirely on enemies killed in a single game, but it also tracks your longest run and which enemies killed you the most. So there are some fun stats to look through once you’ve put a good amount of time into it. The game is still hectic, but since you’re chasing a score, no checkpoints are necessary. Still, I don’t know if I’ll ever get past Sector 3! Definitely give it a go, since it’s free to try with a limited number of games. You can then watch ads for more runs or make a one-time in-app purchase (IAP) to unlock unlimited tries, making it a fully premium game without ads or any other IAPs. It’s a very friendly model that I think is worth supporting if you like the gameplay. So check it out and try to beat my high score of 89!

Onirim

One of my favorite games this year — or any year — is Asmodee’s digital adaptation of the solitaire card game, Onirim. I’ve played over 900 games by now and find it to be the perfect iPhone game to play anytime and anywhere. And to make it even better, they just released a free expansion called The Glyphs that adds a new mode with some extra cards to make things more interesting. They also have plans for further updates, and I hope that means all the expansions from the physical game will make it over. I’m happy to have another way to play the game to shake things up. My only complaint is that the stats for both modes are mixed. I hope they’ll separate them in an update. Otherwise, it’s perfect. And it might still be on sale for free at the moment, so make sure to grab it if you don’t have it yet.

Jaipur

Jaipur is another card game released by Asmodee Digital. I actually like it quite a bit, but it doesn’t have that same ability to play anywhere. There’s a lot on the screen and it’s best on an iPad where everything has room to spread out. It’s also a two-player game, so you have to play against the AI or pass and play to a friend in person, or find a game online. There’s also a campaign mode, but I don’t find it as interesting to play two-player games against AIs, so I don’t know if it will hold my attention for long. If you don’t mind that, it’s an inexpensive card game that’s easy to get into right away. There’s no steep learning curve to worry about. You can see some gameplay below.

Prison Architect: Mobile

Next up, I gave Paradox Interactive’s Prison Architect: Mobile a try. Unfortunately, it’s not really my kind of game, as you’re giving little construction workers orders to build a prison and then wait for them to do so. You then manage the prisoners, with the tutorial having you build an execution room and sending a murderer off to the electric chair. You first see a bizarrely graphic cutscene as a replay of his crime. I would have given it more of a chance, but the game crashed there and the autosave didn’t save my full progress. I wasn’t enjoying it enough to play through it again, so I haven’t been back to it since. Still, it’s free to try and then you can unlock the full game with IAPs. If you have an iPad and like building or management sims, give it a try.

Rogue Wizards

And last but not least, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Spellbind Studios’ dungeon crawling RPG, Rogue Wizards. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten into an RPG, but I’m a sucker for loot. It’s getting harder and harder these days to find a solid game where you loot tons of equipment instead of just buying it all with real cash or premium currency. The game is still free to play, sadly, instead of fully premium like the PC version. This means there are gems and they’re used for just about everything. It does mean the game’s economy is off balance, but I’ve been enjoying it for what it is anyway. You can earn more gems and gold by watching ads or buy gems or a gem doubler through IAPs. You can also try my walkthrough guide for some tips and tricks I picked up as I played. Not everything is explained well in the game, so I recommend reading through it before playing. Otherwise, you may end up like me restarting after hours invested. Anyway, if you like turn-based games with tons of loot, try it out!

And that’s everything I’ve been playing this week! Let me know if you pick any of them up and what you thought of them. Until next time, that’s My Week Unwrapped!

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