Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. Apple Arcade took a week off, so I had more time to focus on regular App Store releases. Terafyn was the highlight of my week, but there are several other games very much worth your attention. I also continued some games from last week and revisited older ones. There’s a nice number of games to discuss, so let’s get to it.

Terafyn

I mentioned South Gale’s fantasy RPG, Terafyn, last week and was incredibly impressed with it. The writing and artwork are the strongest aspects for me, but even the battles have some appeal. I wrote a full review here, so I’m going to let you read that instead of repeating myself. I also have a walkthrough guide with some tips and tricks here. The prologue is free and the first episode costs just $1.99, so definitively give it a try and see if it grabs you the same way it did me.

Ministry of Broadcast

I’ve only spent about half and hour with Hitcents.com’s Ministry of Broadcast so far, but I’m really excited to see where it goes. The plot is some bizarre Hunger Games-like competitive TV show in which people trying to complete platforming puzzles in order to get something in return…like the ability to see one’s family? It seems to drip feed information, so I probably have to stick with it to find out what exactly is happening here. Also, someone stole my boots so I’m running around in the snow barefoot. There’s a lot of humor both in the script and the puzzles — like forcing your competitors to run onto spikes so you walk over them to the exit. The controls are well thought out for touchscreens, since the whole left side of the screen is a floating joystick and you tap anywhere on the right side to jump. There’s also an action button on the right, but it only pops up when there are actions to perform. Some jumps even early on were hard to pull off, so I’m not sure how far I’ll make it. I did choose the Normal difficulty, though. If it becomes too stressful, I may switch to Easy so I have a better chance of seeing it through to the end. Anyway, the game is free to try with a one-time IAP to unlock the full game. Download it and give it a try!

Empty.

Dustyroom’s Empty. is a short but sweet puzzle game about letting go of clutter. It reminds me of Possessions. a bit, but I found it much more enjoyable. The idea is to rotate the room so that an object’s color matches up with a wall of the same color. Early on this is easy, but as you progress through its 19 levels, the rooms get more crowded and you have to figure out which items to work on first and find the right angle to sleep so from. The whole game took me only 30 minutes to finish, but it was a relaxing and meditative experience. I especially liked the quotes between levels that you need to rotate and line up properly to see. The game is completely free without any ads or IAPs, so there’s no reason not to download it.

Rip Them Off

I was very much looking forward to Lozange Lab’s stylish Rip Them Off every since it was announced. Once I got it in my hands, I spent nearly an hour with it, but still had no clue what I was doing. It’s cross between a tower defense game and a management game, but too much is left up to the player to figure out. I still have no idea why things worked out when they did or didn’t when they didn’t. It felt like I was just winning through trial and error and not because I had any actual strategy. What’s even more bizarre is that the game hides its rules behind a spoiler warning, like knowing what’s going on is going to somehow ruin the game for me. But even after finally caving and reading them, I was still lost. I wish I wasn’t, as it really is a nice-looking game. But I just don’t have the patience to try and figure out how everything works. You can watch some of my gameplay video below if you want to see what it’s like before deciding whether to buy it.

Azure Saga: Pathfinder

I didn’t know much about Azure Saga: Pathfinder before trying it, but the visuals appealed to me and it looked like a well-made game. Unfortunately, I got bored of it pretty fast. The battles are pretty dull, and there’s no way — at least so far — to avoid random battles. The exploration is more interesting, but the random battles slow it down. Also, the sound effects are just terrible. I was going mad from the walking sound effect. I don’t like playing games without sound effects at all, so there wasn’t much to do about that. I’m also not a huge fan of RPGs these days, so they have to really do something special to hold my attention — such as Terafyn‘s strong writing. Others might enjoy it more, so I recommend watching some of my gameplay video before deciding whether to buy it.

Adventure Escape Mysteries: Picture Perfect

I started playing Haiku Games’ latest Adventure Escape game, Picture Perfect, last week, but finally finished both my text walkthrough and video walkthrough for the entire game. Overall, it was enjoyable with some nice humor about social networks and influencers. But it didn’t blow me away. I’m hoping for more like The Covenant, which was way over-the-top and also had branching narratives. It’s still worth playing, but don’t expect it to be life-altering.

Kavel

I still can’t seem to stop playing Kavel, and I recently blew my old scores out of the water with a 200 million-point score! It also topped the leaderboards (but I’ve since been dethroned), so I decided to make a walkthrough guide to help others do better. I’m also trying to get a higher score on video, but so far the best one I’ve made is 145 million. I’ll get there, though!

Sky: Children of the Light

And last, the upcoming Halloween event called Days of Mischief is being previewed and tested in Sky beta right now. The red skies return to the Office area, along with some deadly krill that guard the dark plants on the roof. There’s also a new costume you can buy. The witch’s hat costs $9.99 and the web cape costs $14.99. I kind of wish the inside of the cape was black or gray instead of green, but I really like the way the web only appears under certain lighting. It’s an effect I don’t think we’ve seen before in the game. You’ll also be able to test both out with free spells before deciding whether to buy them. And if you missed last year’s Halloween costume, you can buy them this year at a small price increase.

And that’s all I’ve been playing this week! I’m hoping to do an Apple Arcade roundup soon, since it’s been a while since my last one. I’m also going to continue playing Ministry of Broadcast and possibly replay Terafyn. And of course, I’ll continue trying to beat my Kavel score. Anyway, let me know in the comments section what you’re playing and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!