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 been another busy week, both with new games and older ones. I was impressed by some, less by others. But there should be something here to grab if you’re looking for a new game to play over the weekend. There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s get started!

Machinika Museum

I had Machinika Museum for a few weeks already, and even wrote some early impressions here. I’ve since had a chance to finish it and review it properly, as well as make a walkthrough guide. I really enjoyed the game and, even though it’s on the short side, I appreciated how the different tools were used to make me feel like I was really tinkering with alien artifacts. There’s also a sequel planned and, if you make it to the ending, you’ll see why that’s so exciting. Definitely download this one and give it a try, then unlock the full game for $3.99 if you like what you see.

Tender: Creature Comforts

I was really looking forward to Kenny Sun’s dating game, Tender: Creature Comforts, which attempts to mimic Tinder but with aliens. There is a lot to like about it, but I’m turned off by the way the content is slowly drip fed. I’ve had it for a few days but got to play very little because you have to wait for matches to contact you. I’m also not a fan of the real-time dating, which asks you to schedule a time for a date and then you have to show up at that actual time. I hope some of this can be eased up on in the future, as there seems to be a lot of content and I’d like to be able to experience it within my lifetime. Anyway, you can read more about it here and see more gameplay videos for a better idea of what it’s like.

Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus

Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus is a turn-based strategy game in which you control Tech-Priests, who can be upgraded with different mechanical augments to make them stronger than just flesh and blood alone. It’s mission-based, and each tomb you explore is self-contained. Then at home base, you can manage your men and upgrade them, with a lot of freedom to build them to your play style. I only played through the tutorial so far, as it was an hour long! I’m impressed by the visuals and sound design, as the game both looks and sounds great. It also feels good to play on a touchscreen, since everything is turn-based, though it’s only available on iPad at the moment. I hope to spend more time with it this coming week so I can give further impressions. But if you’d like to see it in action, you can watch some of my gameplay video below.

Fallen of the Round

I was really looking forward to Fallen of the Round, from the developer of MIYAMOTO. It’s a turn-based roguelike in which you place “pawns” on the table and then pull back to aim their weapons at enemies before releasing. After each battle, you get to choose a new pawn from three random ones, some better than others. The goal is make it through the map and defeat the final boss. I’ve been struggling with it, though, and it’s not just because of my own skills. There are a number of issues with it. For one, if playing on an iPad, the “fight” button is right on top of the area where the pawns are stored before placing them. This makes it hard to grab them. But even without that, I’d need to tap on a very specific spot to pick them up, which makes it clumsy and awkward. Then, when placing them on the board, my finger blocks the the indication that shows where exactly I’m placing it. So it becomes a bit of a guessing game. Then, when pulling back on a pawn to attack, a red arrow should indicate that it will hit an enemy. But on several occasions, the pawn missed and even sometimes went right between two enemies, hitting neither of them. Besides that, there’s no save system whatsoever. So you need to complete a run without taking any breaks or you’ll lose your progress and have to start over. For a mobile game, this is pretty inexcusable. I recommend waiting for some updates before grabbing this one.

Unknown Fate

Unknown Fate released on other platforms a few years back, but its way over to iOS this week. I was intrigued by the idea of a exploring a dream-like world and solving puzzles. Unfortunately, nothing about the game really felt right to me. I already get motion sickness from some first-person 3D games, and Unknown Fate‘s camera just felt all wrong to me. It was like I was two inches tall, because I was always so close to the ground. Either that or everything else is really big, as a door would tower twenty feet above my head. I’m also not a fan of first-person platforming, and it I’m not sure it even added anything here. I would have preferred to just explore without the jumping adding to my motion sickness. The tutorial could also use some work, as floating words appeared to tell me to interact with objects but it took me a really long time to realize it wanted me to interact with a little tiny dot nearby. It was easier to find interactive items once I knew how work, but I almost gave up there. I eventually threw in the towel when it seemed to want me to jump onto a Ferris wheel cabin to cross a gap. I kept falling into the gap instead and couldn’t find a way back up. It just wasn’t worth the effort for me to figure it out. I do like the voice acting, though, and the story seems interesting. But I don’t see myself returning to this one.

Northgard

I only spent a little time with Northgard when it released last week, but I’ve since had a chance to play through some more of it and I’m really enjoying it. It does take some experimentation to learn what’s needed to survive, but the game also offers a lot of helpful tips as you go. That said, it is a major time commitment. I’m playing through the story mode and just the second area on the map took me two hours to complete. It could be I explored and built too much and should have just sent my warriors in sooner, but I liked that I got to a point where everything was plentiful. It did take a few population purges to get there, though. Not intentionally, but when I ran out of money or food, everyone got unhappy and died — and that made the remaining population happy again. So I just built them back up. So that could also be why it took me so long to complete it. It didn’t drag, though, because I was constantly keeping an eye on everything, even though the workers are mostly automated and do what they’re assigned without much extra input. Anyway, I really enjoyed it and definitely need to carve out more time for it so I can keep going. You can watch my video below if you want to see it in action.

Day Repeat Day

I played through Day Repeat Day last week, but due to missing the phone until later in the game and just generally making bad choices with my life, I decided to start a new playthrough. And it was going much better this time. I actually called all the numbers available to me and scheduled a date with Vivian. And then I wanted to see if I could actually quit my job, so I did. I quit my job at JokiJoki. Which is great, and all, but it meant that I had to start over a third time to continue playing. So I did that and now I’m on my third playthrough. I wish there was a way to skip the puzzles since I solved them all already, but I can see why it is the way it is. I’ll still continue this playthrough, but I’m going to space out my sessions so I don’t get burned out. It’s still a great game, but could be a little more friendly to replays. You can check out both new videos I made below.

Psycholonials

This week, the ninth and final chapter of Psycholonials released. By now I had been pretty invested in the story, even if I didn’t always like the main characters. I’m not sure how I feel about the ending, though. I think Z got off too easy for all the killing and destruction she caused. I was also disappointed that the choices we were promised later on only amounted to one choice that once again didn’t actually work. No matter what you choose, the ending plays out the same. I was really hoping that we might be able to change some things once we completed the game, but I saw no signs of that being the case. If it is possible, it’s unclear how to access those choices. So that was disappointing, but I don’t regret playing the game. It was insane in so many ways, but also had some wisdom to share. And once again, if yon want to see early chapters to get a feel for what it’s like, I have all nine chapters here.

Genshin Impact

I’ve been spending way too much time with Genshin Impact lately, as I started building up artifacts for different characters and then got a bit obsessed with artifact hunting. Most of that has been on my own when I wasn’t recording, so I could squeeze it in when I had a few minutes to spare here and there and some resin on hand. There hasn’t been a whole lot going on lately, but there is a new browser event in which you craft furniture and then use it to decorate a house. It’s in preparation for the upcoming 1.5 update, which will actually allow us to decorate our own realms inside a teapot. I’m also saving up for Zhongli, so I’ve been trying to squeeze out every last primogem from the game. And I’ve been having a ton of fun with Ganyu now that I built her up properly. I’m enjoying just roaming the countryside and sniping anything that moves. I still need to build up my other characters, but I was able to beat the 6th floor of Spiral Abyss with them so far. Anyway, I’m sure things will be more exciting when the next event arrives.

Sky: Children of the Light

This week was Earth Day and, to celebrate, a new cape and necklace were added to the shop in Sky that can be bought through IAPs. Half the proceeds will go to a charity that helps clean up our oceans. There’s also a new event in the game for a total of two weeks in which you help clean up the beach at Sanctuary Islands. It’s on a two-hour timer and it just gives you some wax. So it might be worth checking out once, but I think after that your time would be better spent just gathering light from a realm or two. Aside from the new event, the Season of Assembly is still in progress, and a new treehouse quest became active this week. Also, new daily quests were added that ask us to redo earlier treehouse quests. It’s unclear at the moment whether those quests will show up in the daily rotation after the season ends, or if they’re just temporary.

lumen.

I’m a big fan of laser-reflecting puzzles and rushed through all the initial content for the Apple Arcade game, lumen., on the day of release. So I was happy to see a content update released this week. It’s also pretty challenging at points, as I got stuck on level 174 before deciding I needed a break. I’ll go back to it, but for now I have a video of levels 162 to 173 below. And you can see the rest of my walkthrough guide here.

FANTASIAN

And last, I continued playing the Apple Arcade game, FANTASIAN. It’s still gorgeous and I enjoy exploring. But I got to a boss that seemed so impossible to beat that I haven’t been back to the game since my first attempt at him. I’ll give it another go eventually, but I’m actually dreading it. I did learn more about Leo and the other characters in my most recent videos. But I still miss my warp device, especially after realizing that I neglected to upgrade my dimengeon while I had the chance, so it’s capped at 30 monsters until I can warp again. I’m still a bit annoyed that the ability to warp was taken away shortly after being given in the first place. Anyway, you can see more of my walkthrough and videos here.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week! I also continued watching Lovecraft Country, which turned out to be quite a messed up show in various ways. I also finally saw the Ghibli movie, Howl’s Moving Castle, which was also incredibly weird but not nearly as horrifying. 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!