Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. I spent most of this week playing my latest match-three obsession, High Rise, but still found time to squeeze in some other games, including the highly anticipated If Found… from Dreamfeel and Annapurna Interactive. I also finally finished a game of Kingdom Two Crowns, even if I died a bunch of times to make it happen. Anyway, let’s talk about the games!

High Rise – A Puzzle Cityscape

Like I said above, Florian Grolig’s match-three game, High Rise, devoured most of my free time this past week. It’s also why this roundup wasn’t published earlier. I’ve been enjoying it so much that I decided I needed to give it a proper review, which you can read here. It’s one of those games that just begs to be played “one more time.” And since it’s free with just a one-time purchase to remove ads, there’s absolutely no reason not to try it.

If Found…

I’d been looking forward to Dreamfeel’s and Annapurna Interactive’s If Found… ever since it was first announced. Annapurna has a knack for publishing truly unique games, and this time is no different. If Found… is less of a game and more of an interactive story, but that doesn’t make it any less compelling. It tells the story of Kasio as she tries to find a place where she belongs, as she doesn’t feel she can be herself with her family. The whole game is told through scribbles in her notebook, and you reveal the next page by using your finger to erase the text. It’s a story full of complex characters, all dealing with their own demons. There’s also a juxtaposing story about a black hole and an event that will devastate the planet, but I preferred the story that was more grounded in reality. I also want to replay the game at some point, as there’s a lot of little details that are easy to miss or forget if you’re not truly focused and absorbing it all. Anyway, I’m really glad I played it and would recommend it to those looking for a well-written story who aren’t concerned with gameplay. If you’re looking for action or puzzles, you’ll definitely be disappointed, so just know what you’re getting into before you buy it. You can also watch some of my gameplay videos below to help you decide.

Wilmot’s Warehouse

I played some of Finji’s Wilmot’s Warehouse back when it released on the Nintendo Switch, but I decided it wasn’t really my kind of game. It’s not bad, per se. I just don’t enjoy organizing things that much. Still, I wanted to see if maybe playing on my iPad would change my mind. It does seem like a good fit for iPad — though I did accidentally drop what I was carrying a few times due to the controls — but I still don’t think I’ll stick with it. The idea is that you manage a warehouse that gets filled with items represented by little icons. Each day, customers ask for things and you have to find them in under 1.5 minutes. The faster you get them their stuff, the higher your score. So you need to take advantage of the organization time you’re given to move things around and make them easier to access in a hurry. You also keep unlocking new items, up to 200. So each day it gets harder and harder to keep track of things. Again, it’s an interesting concept, and it will definitely fill a void for some players. But it’s just not the right fit for me. Anyway, you can watch some of my gameplay video below to see what it’s like.

Endless Cards

Cristophe Coyard’s Endless Cards is a very approachable high-score chasing dungeon crawler in which the dungeon is a bunch of cards laid out on a grid. Your character is also a card, and you swipe in a direction to move onto another card. The goal is to collect as much gold as possible before dying. Some cards give you armor, others restore health, and of course monster cards attack you. If you have higher armor and/or health than a monster, you’ll kill it but lose that same amount of armor/health. You also need to be careful not to make a path brought the cards that leads to a dead end. Every few moves more cards are dealt, but you could wind up stuck with nowhere to go if you don’t plan things out well. I actually like the overall game quite a bit, but I’m turned off by the huge grind. You see, after each game, you can use the coins you earned to unlock new item cards, which will randomly appear in a game. Those items can be picked up and used at any point. For instance, an axe can reduce enemy health, and a potion can restore some of your own health in a pinch. I don’t have an issue with these unlockables, per se, except for the fact that there’s just so many of them. You also need to buy items to unlock more playable characters. And the characters shake things up and keep the game from getting boring fast. But it makes each round feel so meaningless when all I’m doing is working towards more and more cards. It’s a high score chaser, but by the time I unlock everything, and get to the real meat of the game, I’ll be bored of it already. On top of that, I’m not sure what the point of the ranking is, since there doesn’t appear to be any leaderboards to compare with other players. So I’m afraid there isn’t much pulling me back to the game right now. It just feels like an endless grind, which might have been a more appropriate name. But if you’re not as turned off by the grind as I am, you might enjoy it more. It’s only $0.99, so it’s not much of a gamble to try it for yourself. You can also watch some of my gameplay videos below to help you decide.

Detective Undead

The name Detective Undead probably should have been a red flag, as I’m not sure if that’s the detective’s name or job description or what. The game’s intro has no text and it’s not really clear what’s happening. I think he’s an undead detective, which would have made more sense as a name for the game. But the name is just a minor nuisance compared to the issues I had with the rest of the game. First off, the good. I bought the game because I have a soft spot for point-and-click adventures and I liked the weird artwork of trees with many eyes and other creepy things. But it turned out to be a game with very little logic and a whole lot of pixel hunting. Everything is gray and there’s no hot spot locator, so you’re basically tapping every pixel to see if anything happens. There are hints, which the developer made more readily available by reducing the cooldown timer from 30 minutes to 1 minute. But I’m not interested in playing a game where I need to constantly use hints just to make any progress. And many of the puzzles don’t even make sense once you know the solution. For instance, early on you encounter a tree that says FRESH. That’s literally the only word I’ve encountered in the game outside of the menus. Somehow, you’re supposed to know from that one word that what he wants you to do is place the baby (that you made from two corpses) on a table by a mirror. Then prick yourself with a nail and bleed all over the baby. That makes the baby FRESH and appealing to the tree. If you can get that on your own you must be a psychic who can read the developer’s mind, because there is absolutely zero logic there. Now, there are a few interesting aspects to it, but I just really don’t have patience for a game that’s trying so hard to be hard that it only makes sense to the developer. It doesn’t seem like it was play-tested before release and now changes are being made in response to player feedback. But I didn’t sign up to be a beta tester and I don’t really feel like being a lab rat. If you do, by all means buy it. But I feel like I threw out $2 on it. I did start a walkthrough here but I doubt I’ll finish it unless it gets a huge overhaul.

Kingdom Two Crowns

I already reviewed Kingdom Two Crowns last week, but at that point I hadn’t finished the game yet. I spent a few more hours with it this past week and finally rid the lands of the Greed! I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t anything after that, but otherwise I really enjoyed it, even if I did die a bunch of times. I also realized I haven’t tried any of the challenge islands yet, so I’m going to try and make some time for that this coming week. It’s insane how much content this game has, all included in the initial purchase price. If you’re on the fence about this one because it’s more expensive than most mobile games, I can’t stress enough how much bang you get for your buck. It is absolutely worth the asking price. And again, you can see more of my gameplay videos here.

Sky: Children of the Light

And last, Sky got another Forgotten Ark quest, this time the gorgeous purple light that adds tents to the ark. There’s also a new Healing Pack available for about a month, which gives you a white poppy hair accessory and 75 candles. All proceeds also go to Doctors Without Borders to help them deal with the pandemic. I also spent a lot of time with the beta version this past week, due to crazy glitches and some new quests to test out. There was a bug with the shrink spell that made you extra tiny if you used it, so my friends and I decided to do an entire Eden run like that. It caused some problems, including crashing, so it’s divided into several videos. But it was fun and I recommend taking a look at them. There are also some spoilery videos for the upcoming Days of Rainbow event, so watch those at your own peril. Tomorrow there’s also the final Ark quest in beta, so tune in if you want to see what the Ark’s final transformation looks like before it comes to live!

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this past week. I also played some a Apple Arcade games and published a roundup of all the Arcade games I played over the last month or so. I’m eager to get back to trying to beat my high score in High Rise, but I’ll see you back here next week with more of My Week Unwrapped. Until then, let me know in the comments section whether you agree with my impressions of the games I covered.