My Week Unwrapped: October 31, 2020 – Lamplight City, 8800 Blue Lick Road, Reach SOS, Goblin Raiders, Pixboy and More

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Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. It’s another busy week, and this time there’s also a new Apple Arcade game that I highly recommend playing. One of the games listed also isn’t really a game but I decided to treat it as one and make a video of it. I also continued playing a few games that I’m in middle of. Overall, not too shabby a week. So let’s get to discussing the games!

Lamplight City

I played some of Grundislav Games’ point-and-click adventure, Lamplight City, back when it released on PC, but I really hate playing games on there. So I decided to wait and hope that it might one day come to iOS. And this week it had a surprise release! I had no idea it was planned, but, as expected, it feels perfect on an iPad. I stick by my convictions that point-and-click adventures are best played on an iPad. I’ve spend almost two hours with it so far and the script is fantastic, as is the voice acting. I also like that there doesn’t seem to be inventory puzzles. Instead, you’ll automatically use an item in the right place if you happen to have it. Much of the game takes place as dialogue between characters, as you question everyone to find out more information and solve cases. There are also a lot of locations available at once, so if you hit a wall in one area, you can explore and make progress elsewhere first. I’m enjoying it quite a bit, and now that I can play on my platform of choice, I have every intention of completing it. I also started a walkthrough here if you need help.

8800 Blue Lick Road

This is not really a game, but it felt like a game so I decided to treat it as one. There was a house listing on Redfin that used to be a church. The current owners have been running an eBay business out of it and the whole basement is a maze-like warehouse. People were sharing it and suggesting you try to find the bathtub, so I did so. I got lost a few times on my own but then found it. And then decided to make a video playthrough of it. I wrote about here and included a bit more information. Unfortunately, it’s no longer intact, but you can see what you missed by watching my video.

Reach: SOS

Reach: SOS had been out for a little while and I kept meaning to play it. This week I finally did so. Unfortunately, it’s a very short demo at the moment and only takes a few minutes to play through. It’s still interesting, but it needs some work before the full version releases. There were a few issues I had with it. First off, it doesn’t explain that you can tilt your screen to move objects, so I had to discover that on my own by accident. But the bigger issue is that if you accidentally go back down a ladder you just climbed up, you’ll end up at the start of the previous room instead of on the other end of the ladder. So this short game ended up taking me a lot longer to finish because I kept having to redo the same rooms over again. If you do play it, pay very close attention to which ladder you took and be careful not to tap on it again or you’ll waste a lot of extra time. And if you get stuck, I have a walkthrough guide here.

Goblin Raiders

Goblin Raiders is the latest game from Arif Games, the makers of Dark Fear. Even though it uses the same kind of pixel art, it’s a very different style of game. It’s also only available on iPad. The idea is that you’re defending a castle from invading goblins by dropping boulders on their heads. As with any tower defense game, there are cool-downs, so you can’t just drop tons of boulders one after another, but instead have to time them right. Ideally, you want to bounce them off one goblin onto another and take out multiple goblins with one stone. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at aiming them and already by the fourth level I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. That level also went on longer than I’d like without any warning how many goblins I should expect. I quit there because I don’t really think it’s for me. But the game is free and supported by ads, with just a $0.99 IAP to remove all ads. There are also IAPs for gems, but I don’t know yet what they’re used for and how those IAPs affect the balance of the game. Anyway, I recommend trying it for yourself in case you like it more than I did.

Pixboy

Pixboy originated on PC and other platforms but was ported over to mobile this week. In general, I’m not too skilled when it comes to platformers, especially when they have onscreen buttons. I end up looking at the buttons more than I’d like. Overall, Pixboy seems like a well-made game, and I especially like being able to unlock new themes. But I found the jumping a bit hard to get used to, especially when trying to land on enemies. I also got stressed out by the timer, but enjoyed looking around for hidden coins. You can focus on only one at a time — and it appears you have to, since the timed goal doesn’t give you enough time to take any detours. It seems like a well-made game for those who like platformers, but I probably won’t be continuing with it.

Power Volt

I liked the idea of Power Volt, flinging a box around to collect orbs and smash through blocks before heading through the portal. But I found it very hard to continue if my box fell to the bottom of the screen. There just isn’t enough room to pull my finger back and fling the box back up. So I didn’t make it very far. I may take another look at it if it ever gets an update that improves the controls.

9th Dawn III

I started 9th Dawn III back when it released on iOS, but it’s such a huge game that I’m taking my time with it and playing when the mood strikes. This week, I went exploring a huge dungeon and found a few ability coins, but eventually experienced my first death after being locked in a cage with a very angry skeleton. I also realized that I only saw 30% of that dungeon, so there’s a lot more to explore. Not to mention the rest of the world! I’m still enjoying the game, but I don’t like that if I accidentally leave a dungeon, I then have to fight all the enemies again when I go back in. This dungeon is swarming with them, so it’s going to be harder now to find the paths I haven’t seen yet because I have to clear out all the enemies again — and make sure I don’t leave before finishing it. That’s a bit of a turnoff, but I’m still excited to play more, so I’m not giving up on it.

Genshin Impact

If you subscribe to my YouTube channel, you may have noticed that I played a lot of Genshin Impact this week. That’s because I realized that it does in fact work on my iPad. I just need to wait a while for the game to load and then it plays beautifully. I was even able to put it on the highest graphics settings with only the occasional blip here and there. My only issue with it is that the joystick is fixed and it’s too low for my thumb. So I keep ending up going straight even when I pull my thumb down, trying to go backwards. It’s led to a lot of unintentional climbing, but it’s still worth the inconvenience in order to be able to play on my iPad. My iPhone was straining my eyes so I was only playing once every day or every few days. Now I’ve been playing more consistently and even twice a day sometimes. There’s so much content here, so again I’m not stressing about beating it and just enjoying the exploration aspect of it. You can see more of my videos here.

Circulous

The next part of Circulous is releasing in November and I’ve had a chance to play through a good chunk of it so far. I’m really impressed with where the game is going and can’t wait to see more of it. I don’t have video, but I wrote up a little preview of it here.

Sky: Children of the Light

This week in Sky, there’s a new Traveling Spirit from the Season of Enchantment. You can see how to find him here. The Trial of Air also got some revisions in beta that make it a lot easier. So I made a new video of it and this time I was able to solo it without too much trouble. The snow is sticky instead of slippery and they added a checkpoint at the end where I gave up the first time. There were still a couple of tricky points where I died a bunch of times, but it’s nowhere near as bad as before. I also tried the Trial of Fire, but find it too stressful on my own. It turns out it’s much easier dragging a friend along, but I still let my friend lead for most of it because she knew the way.

South of the Circle

And last, but certainly not least, State of Play’s South of the Circle released on Apple Arcade this week. I had a hard time putting it down and only did so because my video was getting too long. Basically, it feels like a very well-made interactive movie. The story, dialogue, pacing, voice acting, music, and of course the art style, all work brilliantly together. I cannot stress enough how good this game is. I plan to write a proper review so I don’t want to say too much here. But it’s easily one of my GOTY. I have more videos here if you want to see if anything is different from your own playthrough.

And that’s everything I’ve been playing this past week. I look forward to continuing Lamplight City, Genshin Impact and 9th Dawn III. I might even try to squeeze in another playthrough of South of the Circle to see how my choices affect the story. There’s also a lot of games on sale right now for Halloween, but as you can see I’m overwhelmed by the number of games I’m trying to play and don’t really have time to put together a list. But try to find them, as there are some great deals out there. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re playing and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!

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