My Week Unwrapped: November 7, 2020 – Samorost 2, Lamplight City, Forager, My Memory of Us and More

img_7417

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 again spent a lot of time with Genshin Impact since it’s working on my iPad now, and also made more progress in Lamplight City. But there were still some strong releases this week, including a surprise port of Amanita Design’s Samorost 2 and not one Apple Arcade game, but two! Anyway, onto the games!

Samorost 2

Out of nowhere, Amanita Design released Samorost 2 on iOS and Android, alongside an update for the PC version. It’s to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the game and comes with a whole lot of improvements over the original. I never played it before, so I can’t really compare, but it’s perfect on touchscreens, as can be expected. I wrote a proper review here and made a walkthrough video here if you need help.

Lamplight City mobile

I wrote about Lamplight City last week, but I had only just started it. I’m about nine hours into it now and I’m close to completing the fourth case out of five. I’ve really been enjoying it, though I’m not sure yet if I’ve made all the right decisions. I know the game allows you to fail, but I guess I’ll have to see when I finish if it seems like I got everything right. I did notice that the Steam version has achievements and those are missing here, so that’s a bit of a bummer. But otherwise, it plays beautifully on iOS and I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of it plays out. You can more of my gameplay videos here.

Forager

Forager is another game that was ported over to iOS this week, stealthily too, since it was pushed off a little while back with no new release date announced. I spent about an hour with it yesterday and I’m making some progress with my little island. I’ve caught a whole lot of fish, crafted a new backpack, fought some slimes, and collected fireflies for a magician. He also wants me to help him stop people from mining all the island’s resources and somehow hasn’t been able to tell that I’m the one doing it! Overall, the game seems pretty relaxing, but you do need to eat almost constantly to replenish your energy. I also find it a bit difficult to attack the slimes sometimes, but the touch controls work fine otherwise. There’s also controller support, but I haven’t tried it yet. Sadly, there’s no iCloud sync, so you’re stuck playing it on one device. That’s a shame, because it seems like the kind of game that would be easy to pull out and play a bit here and there on my phone, but I started it on my iPad. Still, I’m going to stick with it for now and see where it goes. You can watch some of my gameplay video below to see what it’s like, at least early on.

My Memory of Us

My Memory of Us appeared to be right up my alley — an adventure game about two friends working together to survive in a world inspired by World War II. Unfortunately, it’s an absolute chore to play, at least on mobile, and I had enough after about half an hour. My first woes began with the controls. It’s a side-scroller, not a point-and-click adventure, so you swipe left and right to move your character. Then, if there’s a box you can jump onto or a doorway you can go through, you swipe up. You then swipe down to jump off the box. This all feels a bit clumsy, especially having to pause to jump down. Still, I managed. You also play as two separate characters and tap a button to swap between them. Double-tapping on them is supposed to make them hold hands so they can run together, but it can be a bit tricky to pull off. There’s also a button to change who’s leading and a button for each of their abilities. If the girl is leading, you can hold it down to run. If the boy is leading, you can hold it down to crouch. But that’s not all! Each of them also has an item they can use which has the worst possible control scheme I could imagine. The girl has a slingshot and the boy has a small mirror that can reflect light at people to blind them. For each one, you tap and hold the button with one hand, and use the other to swipe to change the arc. When you’re satisfied with its positioning, you tap the screen to either throw the rock or reflect the light. The swiping is slow and hard to control and it’s so easy to mess up the whole thing because of how overly complex it is. On top of this, I encountered rhythm sections, stealth puzzles, and random puzzles that just don’t really make sense. I also almost gave up early on because the game asked me to place a basket on an X but it wasn’t recognizing that I did so until I adjusted it several times. And finally, the icon-based tutorials are confusing, and I don’t understand why they even used them only to later have text-based tutorials. If they’re going to use text anyway, just keep it consistent and less confusing. So, to sum it up, I really can’t recommend this game, at least not on mobile. Everything is clunky and you’ll spend most of your time battling with the controls rather than solving puzzles. If you’re still curious, though, you can watch some of my gameplay video below.

Genshin Impact

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Genshin Impact and even used most of my peimogems to make wishes, which is the gambling part of the game. I regretted it pretty much instantly since I got very few characters out of it and some weapons I didn’t even need. I’m still enjoying the game, though, and am trying to level up different characters to see which ones I prefer in my team. I’ve also opened up the whole map that’s available to me at the moment, though I’ve been stalling on some of the harder quests I need to complete. The world is so big, though, that I still find plenty to do each time I play. So yes, I can see how the gambling aspect can be a problem, but for now I’m still enjoying it enough to overlook that and get what I can out of the game without spending any money. Again, you can see more of my videos here.

Blackbox – mind puzzles game

There aren’t any new Blackbox puzzles, in case some of you got excited seeing this. But the paid content packs are free for just this weekend, so make sure to grab them if you don’t have them yet. You can read more about it here.

All of You

I’m a big fan of Alike Studio’s Bring You Home, which is a playful puzzle game in which you change the order of the sections of a scene and then watch it play out. I was hoping for another relaxing game like that, but their new Apple Arcade release, All of You, is actually quite stressful at times. It’s shares some similar mechanics, not least the fact that you’re changing how a scene plays out. But this time, you play and pause each section by tapping it. The idea is always to get the chicken to her baby chick. Some panels can be swapped or reversed, and others can’t be manipulated at all. There are a lot of clever ways these mechanics are used, and it’s put a smile on my face quite a few times. But it’s also frustrated me to no end. The game is a mixed bag of accessible yet tricky puzzles, combined with plenty that require lightning fast reflexes or perfect timing. I think they could have eased up on the ones that require perfection and it would still be enjoyable without the anger and frustration. So while I would recommend the game, I think it’s not quite as accessible as it claims. I’m also working on a walkthrough here if you need help. I have videos and also hints for those who don’t want to see the whole solution.

Reigns: Beyond

And last but not least, Reigns: Beyond also released on Apple Arcade this week. I only played for about 45 minutes this week because of the sheer number of games I’m trying to play at once. But I can already see it’s pretty big in scope compared to the previous games. This time, you’re a band exploring the galaxy and playing gigs to earn money. I can see there’s a lot of puzzly aspects to it and it’s going to take some time to really unravel the whole story. It does seem more forgiving than the previous games, but I still ended up dying when I couldn’t figure out how to take on an enemy ship. I’ll definitely be spending more time with this next week and should hopefully have more impressions for you in my next roundup.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week! It’s also been a crazy few days here in the US, but the election is finally over and I should be a lot more productive the next four years! I also hope I can catch on on the four years of lost sleep. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re enjoying and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Dr Renier Palland

    I loved the closing comments. Yes, a certain someoneΓÇÖs Rusty Forest narrative will have to rage quit soon!

    ΓÇ£My Memory of UsΓÇ¥ is on sale and I was about to buy it when I realized I needed to check AppUnwrapper before wasting money on something that also seemed to be ΓÇ£right up my alleyΓÇ¥. ItΓÇÖs a shame. The graphics look great.

    As for Γò¼├┤Γö£├ºΓö¼├║Reigns: BeyondΓò¼├┤Γö£├ºΓö¼├æ, the game is absolutely epic. ThereΓò¼├┤Γö£├ºΓö£├╗s so many variations for each scenario! And I agree – thank the good lawd one doesnΓò¼├┤Γö£├ºΓö£├╗t die because you pissed off House of Stark or got eaten by an angry mob or some weird priest burned you alive for refusing him bread.

    One problem I do have with this colossal hybrid in the Reigns universe is the slight repetition… I do believe the devs went for a sarcastic spin on KubrickΓò¼├┤Γö£├ºΓö£├╗s Γò¼├┤Γö£├ºΓö¼├║2001: A Space OdysseyΓò¼├┤Γö£├ºΓö¼├æ, but thereΓò¼├┤Γö£├ºΓö£├╗s instances where the game drools like a narcoleptic nun – laborious and repetitive. I also found the in-game navigational system a bit tiresome and too random for comfort.

    Just my personal experience with the game!

    Great write up!

Leave a Reply

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