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 the week playing Apple Arcade games, but there were still some notable standalone releases. I also continued playing games that currently have events going on, like Genshin Impact and Sky. Overall, this week is more about quality than quantity.
Say No! More
I’d been looking forward to Say No! More ever since it was announced, not least because it’s made Studio Fizbin, the folks behind one of my favorite point-and-click adventure, The Inner World. Now that it’s out, I can say it’s every bit as good as I was hoping. You play as a new intern at a company where everyone is expected to say YES all the time, but you’re not really thrilled about that idea. Then you come across a self-help cassette tape that teaches you how to say NO. It’s a hilarious game that keeps up the insanity for a solid two hours. I highly recommend playing this one, but don’t go all trigger happy like I did — give people a chance to talk before yelling NO at them. It’s worth hearing all the humorous dialogue. If you still need convincing, I have a proper review here and more gameplay videos here.
fio!
fio! is not high speed internet, but it is a nice, minimalistic puzzler with a unique mechanic I haven’t seen before. It’s made up of sliding block puzzles, but with a twist. The blocks each have a certain number of dots on them, and that represents how many spaces they move with each swipe. So a tile with one dot on it would be easy to navigate anywhere you need. But if there’s, say, four dots, and you need to get the tile through a gap three spaces away, that’s where it gets tricky. You need to use the tiles to block each other and line each other up correctly. Deeper in, you’ll encounter other mechanics, like switches and tiles that all move in unison. I’ve played through the first thirty levels so far and there’s been a lot of variety and very little filler. I’m definitely looking forward to playing more of it and would easily recommend it to other puzzle fans.
RETSNOM
For some reason, I never played RETSNOM, even though I enjoyed the developer’s other game, Replica. So when it was on sale last week, I picked it up and finally gave it a try today. It’s a rather clever puzzle platformer, where you flip sections of the environment to create new paths forward. I’m still getting used to it and got frustrated when I couldn’t figure out how to get to a collectible floating in mid-air without dying in the process. I still really like the idea and want to spend more time with it. There are a lot of onscreen buttons, though, so it’s a little awkward to play on a touchscreen, but not impossible. You can watch some of my gameplay video below to get a better idea of what it’s like.
Tides: A Fishing Game
I had given up on Tides a few weeks after its release because it became clear that most of the game is about repeating the same tasks for gold or just waiting for idle gold to come in until you have enough to unlock the next island. My next island costs over $7 million coins, which has been extremely discouraging and made me take a good long break from it. There was an update this week, though, that added animal companions, as well as the ability to get out of your boat and explore islands. So now there’s more to do in each area and they feel a little bit more alive. Still, at the end of the day, there’s not much to do in the game. Again, you can keep fishing the same spots over and over until you have enough coins to unlock the next island. Then you’ll do the same while waiting for the one after that. It’s pretty shallow and hard to stay invested. But I have several videos of the game by now, so I collected them all in one place if you want to see more.
Sky: Children of the Light
The Season of Assembly has finally arrived in Sky this week, bringing young scout spirits and their treehouses to the Hidden Forest. You need to find the main treehouse and help the Assembly Guide fix it up by completing specific quests every few weeks. The first one is out, and I have a guide for it here. There are also six seasonal spirits that can be found throughout the Hidden Forest, usually near own of the treehouses. Again, I have guide for that here. I also updated my seasonal candles guide for the current season, which you can find here. And last, the Days of Nature are taking place in the beta version of the game, and I made a video showing off the new waves cape and shell necklace that will both be available as IAPs when the event comes to live.
Genshin Impact
And last, I’m still trying to keep up with Genshin Impact and its endless events. This past week we saw Contending Tides, where you need to defeat specific monsters in an arena setting. Then today a new event started called Wishful Drops, in which you befriend a baby Oceanid named Endora who helps you capture water spirits. You’ll also be able to keep her at the end of the event if you complete all the requirements. There’s also a new Oceanid challenge, which was a lot more difficult than I expected. I joined a random group for it and ended up striking the killing blow at literally the last second. It was tense! I also finished all the Hangout events and I’m working on building up two teams for the Spiral Abyss. So there’s no shortage of things to do, until I run out of resin. I still would like to be able to take a break from the game once in a while, but I want to try and get Zhongli when he returns in a few weeks and I need the primogems to increase my chances. I might take a break after that, but we’ll see what kind of events they add.
And that’s all the standalone games I played this past week. Make sure to check out my Apple Arcade roundup as well. I gave them their own post because there were so many of them. I also have been taking advantage of my new HBO Max subscription and finally watched Mad Max: Fury Road and started His Dark Materials. 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!