Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss what I’ve been playing over the last seven days. I’m finally back on schedule with these roundups, but I was busy making lots of walkthroughs for Reigns: Game Thrones, so this will be fairly short. Still, there’s some great games to cover, as October has been turning out to be quite the month! So without further ado, here are all the games I’ve been playing and my impressions so far.
Reigns: Game of Thrones
I was pretty sure I’d had enough of the Reigns formula, but Game of Thrones is such a good match for the game that I got pulled right back in. It helps that this time you have a whole bunch of different rulers to play as, each with their own unique cards to discover. And while the clues to uncover everything can be cryptic as usual, I appreciated that you can’t mess up and get a bad ending. Perhaps it’s because the developer realizes that the scope of the game is too big to expect anyone to keep starting over to find the “good” ending. Whatever the reason, I’m glad he made that decision. Reigns: Game of Thrones is bigger than the previous games and there’s so many new mechanics added to keep things from getting too repetitive. I wrote a full review here, though, so I’d rather not repeat it all. I also wrote a walkthrough guide if you need help getting to the end.
Fidel Dungeon Rescue
I had been keeping an eye on Fidel Dungeon Rescue ever since it released on PC, as it looked right up my alley and got a lot of positive reviews. Then, out of nowhere with almost no notice, it came to iOS this past week. The game doesn’t really give you any guidance, so my first half hour with it was kind of embarrassing. But the more time I spent with it, the more I learned and the more I fell in love. I was unable to tear myself away from it all weekend and I still have so much left to play. But rather than gush about it to you here, go and read my review. I also wrote a short guide if you don’t want to figure everything out on your own.
Pivotol
As a big match-three fan, I’m always looking for new twists on the genre. I played Six Match for months before I got tired of it and was ready for a replacement. Pivotol looked like a worthy contender, so I gave it a try. Despite it feeling too easy at first and getting bored long before I died, something drew me back to it. But I’m very picky when it comes to purity of a game, especially high score chasers. I don’t want to see any way for someone to watch an ad or spend real cash to artificially boost their score. Pivotol has no forced ads or IAPs, and you can technically avoid both. But after each loss, it offered you a continue if you watch an ad or pay some in-game currency. If you don’t want to watch an ad, you’ll likely run out of currency pretty quickly and have to resort to buying more. I don’t think that has any room in a high score chaser. It’s a shame the developer didn’t instead go the route that Six Match took, with forced ads every once in a while unless you pay to remove them. There’s no way to get ahead through ads or IAPs. And that’s the way I think it should be. It’s a shame, as I would have happily added Pivotol to my IAP-free match-three list if it took a different monetization route. Also, I can’t seem to get anywhere close to the score I got on my first game, which makes me think that the difficulty was increased in an update. I got almost 2000 points on my first game and now lose usually around 500, with 1000 being an incredibly lucky run. So between feeling like I’m never going to beat my best score and feeling pressured to use continues to do so, I’ve already stopped playing. But feel free to give it a try if that doesn’t bother you.
Element – RTS
I’ve only spent a little time with Flightless’ real-time strategy space game, Element, and I want to replay the tutorial before I dive in any deeper. But it’s got gorgeous low-poly graphics and is advertised for people who don’t normally have time to play real-time strategy games. I usually find those games too time-consuming, so this seems perfect for me. I’m going to try playing some more on my own and get a better handle on the mechanics. But it does seem like each game can be played in a matter of minutes instead of hours. I suggest watching my video below to see what it’s like, and I’ll make sure to follow up on my impressions after I spend more time with it.
The Office Quest
After nearly rage-quitting on both chapters 2 and 3 of The Office Quest due to some awful mini games, I finally completed both and vowed I was done with the game forever. I didn’t even finish my walkthrough for chapter 3 because I couldn’t see going through all that pain a second time. But a reader reached out and told me that chapter 4 was released as a free update, so I started playing and writing a walkthrough here. I only just started and keep getting distracted by other games, but I’ll keep adding to that as long as there aren’t any horrible mini games that make me rage quit.
Tesla vs Lovecraft
Tesla va Lovecraft actually doesn’t release until later this week on October 25th, but I got it a bit early and spent some time with it. Oddly, it starts off pretty easy and I wasn’t having any trouble. But I’m currently stuck on a level where I keep getting swarmed by monsters and can’t keep up. Still, it looks great in action, and if you’re a fan of twin-stick shooters you may want to check this one out. You can watch my short video below to see what the beginning is like.
And that’s everything I’ve been up to this past week. Well, that and more upcoming games I can’t really talk about yet, like Euclidean Skies. I know everyone is excited about Stardew Valley releasing tonight, but I’m still not sure if it’s my kind of game. I am curious about it and what makes it so great, but I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll pick it up. I also want to spend more time with Element and see how The Office Quest plays out. In any case, I should have plenty to talk about next week when we meet again for more of My Week Unwrapped!