My Week Unwrapped: May 8, 2018 – Tiny Bubbles, Magibot, Weave the Line, Scalak, Shadowmatic, Through Abandoned, Patent 9 and More

img_7417

Hi everyone and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I’ll discuss all the iOS games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. There were some hits and misses this week, but some are truly worth your while. Continue reading to see which ones those are! I’d also like to point out that I reached 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, and if you’re not one of them, now’s as good a time as any to subscribe!

Tiny Bubbles

Tiny Bubbles is one of the best puzzle games I’ve played. It’s not always relaxing and does require fast reflexes sometimes, but I never got frustrated enough through its 170+ levels to call it quits. I basically couldn’t put it down for two days until I beat the whole thing. The physics are hypnotic and brilliant the way they allow for all sorts of mechanics to be introduced. I already wrote a full review for it, though, so I’ll just let you read that here. You can also try my walkthrough guide if you get stuck on any levels, although the game also offers hints.



Magibot

I was really looking forward to the iOS port of Magibot, as it looked like an interesting mix between platoforming and puzzles, all while sporting some gorgeous artwork. The artwork and soundtrack are still fantastic, but unfortunately the touchscreen controls made it hard for me to enjoy the game and I gave up on it pretty quickly. Unlike something such as Oddmar, where it feels natural and you don’t have to deal with any onscreen buttons, Magibot felt uncomfortable and distracting, especially on my big iPad. There are two big arrow buttons on the left side of the screen that I struggled to reach. The right side has just one button, which is used when you walk through skill spots to activate them. I’m not sure why the game wasn’t simplified into a floating invisible joystick to move and tap to activate the skills, but in its current state I’m just finding it too much of a chore to enjoy. The puzzly aspects involve placing down a number of skills around the map so you can then walk through them and activate them to help you defeat enemies and get to the exit. These skills include a dash, a fireball to kill enemies, and a block that you can climb on. But I couldn’t even enjoy the game enough to mess around with everything and get comfortable with how the skills work together. Stretching my thumb to the right arrow made for a very unpleasant experience. I might have given it another chance on my iPhone, but there’s no iCloud sync and I couldn’t see starting over from scratch. So at this point, I’m afraid I’m done with the game and can’t recommend it.



Weave the Line

I actually expected Weave the Line to be a direct copy of 1LINE, but it turned out to be completely different. You’re given a shape at the top and you have to pull and stretch the lines below to copy the shape. Things get changed up a bit with puzzles where the lines mirror each other, and later where you have two separate colors that can overlap. As far as free puzzle games go, I think this is one of the better ones. I don’t like that it tries to trick you into watching video ads between levels, and there are also forced ones, but you can pay a small fee to remove them permanently. Anyway, I think it’s at least worth trying out and if you get stuck, I started working on a walkthrough here.



Shadowmatic

I finally caved and bought the new Shadowmatic content called Other Worlds. It includes 11 Music levels, 11 Ancient Worlds levels, and and 11 Space levels. Unfortunately, it felt very uninspired. I liked the original game to some extent, but had frustrations with it that I covered extensively in my review. The problem is that the issues I had with it three years ago are still issues, only this time the novelty has worn off and I didn’t find it enjoyable at all. I was also underwhelmed by the objects I had to create. There’s even a “planet” which is basically just a circle. So I can’t say I recommend it. But if you’re curious, check out my video below or my walkthrough guide here.



AXE.IO

I had a little fun with Crescent Moon Games’ AXE.IO until I realized that probably few or none of the other players were real. I’m not terribly good at battle royale games, so it seemed unlikely that I could go on such a long killing spree. I eventually got tired after around fifteen minutes and just let myself get killed off. I’m also not a fan of the option to watch an ad or spend diamonds to continue, since you start from scratch if you refuse. Oh well. I enjoyed it for a few minutes, so it might be worth checking out if you’re curious.



Scalak

Michal Pawlowski’s Scalak doesn’t release until May 23rd, but I’ve had it for a couple of months now and have since finished it. I wrote a bit about it here and made some video to show off a few of the mechanics. But I should have more about it as we get closer to release.

Through Abandoned

Snapbreak Games brought their PC adventure game, Through Abandoned, to iOS this week. It’s not the best game ever, but the first chapter is free, so give it a try. I also started a walkthrough here if you need help.



Patent 9

I had no idea what to expect from Patent 9, but it was free and I was curious, so I gave it a shot. Despite some pointless memory games, I thought it might be quirky and weird enough to be worth playing. But I stuck with it for forty minutes hoping something would happen and the characters just drawer on and on. I got too bored to continue with it and wish I could get those forty minutes back.



Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle

Not much to say here. I completed the free content for Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle, as well as my walkthrough. I enjoyed the game, but after eight episodes, I’m not sure I need to buy the extra content. I’ll consider it when I have a lull between games, though.



Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

And last and certainly least, I tried to give Hogwarts Misery (thanks Jim Sterling for that name), another chance, but I still can’t stomach it. You can see the second part of my experience with it in the video below.



And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week! I know there were a few duds, but also plenty of suds! And by that, I mean you really should play Tiny Bubbles even if you ignore the rest of the games. It’s that good. Anyway, let me know what you think of these games and I’ll see you back here next week with more of My Week Unwrapped!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.