Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. This week has been a bit light on the new releases, but there were some new Apple Arcade additions and I continued playing games from the last few weeks. So there’s still quite a bit to discuss and lots of great games to recommend!

Wingspan: The Board Game

Wingspan is an award-winning board game about birds that’s coming to iOS on July 20th. I was lucky enough to get an early copy and so far played through the tutorial, which was very well made. The whole game is very polished, from the hand/drawn artwork to the relaxing soundtrack. I think I got the gist of it from the very thorough tutorial, but I still need to play around with it to figure out strategies. I like the overall feel of it and definitely want to spend more time with it. If you’re at all interested in it, check out my video below and pre-order the game if it looks like something you’d enjoy. The quality is definitely there, from what I’ve seen so far.

Tukoni

Tukoni is a short but sweet point-and-click adventure featuring a cute forest creature. You need to complete some tasks in order to help other animals and get their help in return. The art style is wonderful and the game is completely free, so definitely give it a try. I wish there was more to it, but since it’s free I can’t really complain. I also have a walkthrough guide here if you get stuck.

Rabisco

Rabisco first released on other platforms but made its way to iOs and Android this week. You play as a little cloud who needs to recover the moon’s lost stars. It has a top-down 2D view and each level has you navigating around obstacles to collect the stars and then make it to the moon, which is the exit. I managed to get through the first few levels without any issues. But then I came across some moving spikes that were a lot hard to avoid and I experienced my first death. That wouldn’t be a big deal except for the fact that, upon respawning at the checkpoint, my joystick was stuck and my character would just zoom right into the spikes over and over. I was stuck in a death loop. I tried restarting the level, but the second I died, the same thing happened. So for now I can’t recommend the game, but hopefully that bug will be fixed in an update.

SNKRX

I mentioned SNKRX the last two weeks, but it is by far the game I spent the most time playing this week. Once it clicked, I was determined to complete the game on its hardest difficulty, NG+5. It took many attempts off-camera, but I finally got a nearly unbeatable team together and got past level 25. I continued going and thought I might make it all the way to 100, but I got sloppy on 85 and died. It was still a good run, but it required a lot of things falling into place so I could get the classes I wanted. I need a break from it now but maybe one day I’ll try again to get to 100. It is fun to mess around with all the different classes and items and find winning combinations. If you haven’t picked it up yet, I highly recommend doing so.

Chicken Police

I’m still slowly making my way through Chicken Police. I’m very much enjoying it, but since it’s mostly dialogue, I’ve been saving it for times when I really have the headspace to sit and listen to all of it without getting distracted. I’m not worried too much about finding every little bit of information in the game, but I’m being somewhat thorough, talking to people more than once to try and get more information out of them. Overall, it’s a very enjoyable game, but it’s akin to to watching a movie with all the voice-acted dialogue. You really need to carve out some big chunks of time to play and really get into it. I’ll definitely play more this coming week, and maybe even finish it, but no promises. Anyway, if you want to see more of what it’s like, you can watch some of my gameplay video below.

Here Be Dragons

Here Be Dragons is another game I’ve been played for the last few weeks, chipping away at it. I had an easier time with the area I played through this week than last week. At the same time, I do see that luck can vastly change the outcome. Sometimes, restarting a level to get different dice rolls can turn a loss into a win. It’s not a big enough turn-off for me to get me to stop playing, but it is a little hard to ignore. Again, you can watch some of my gameplay video to see if it’s something you might enjoy.

Genshin Impact

Not too much has been happening in Genshin Impact this week. The Never-Ending Battle event continued and ended yesterday. I managed to get a score over 2000 for each challenge except the final one. I may still try for it to get the extra rewards, but I’m really not a fan of this event. Anyway, Inazuma is coming soon and there should be much better stuff to do in the game.

Sky: Children of the Light

A couple of notable things took place in Sky this week. First, it was the second anniversary a few days ago. To celebrate, they gave everyone free access to the Office, where you can buy a few celebratory items like a hat, bunting and cake spells. There was also a new quest as part of the Season of the Little Prince, which has you exploring the cavern area of the Hidden Forest with him. Make sure to check both out of you haven’t yet!

Agent Intercept

I played some of Agent Intercept back when it first released on Apple Arcade, but back then it only had a daily challenge mode. I liked the game but wanted more than that. At some point a story campaign was added, but I didn’t even realize until recently when it was announced for PC. This week, the Apple Arcade version also got voiceovers and some other extras to bring it up to par with the PC version. So it seemed like a good opportunity to give it another go. I played through the whole first chapter and had a blast. I’m not particularly good at it, so I had to replay one level in order to earn enough “intel” to unlock the final level of the chapter. And my thumb hurt by the end of it, but I was still smiling the whole time. It’s hard not to when you’re controlling a car that turns into a boat and shoots actual missiles. The voice acting is also top notch and the cutscenes blend seamlessly with the action and are all fun to watch. I plan to play more of it, though I am slightly concerned that the difficulty might ramp up too much for me. But I’ll at least give it a try! If you haven’t played the game yet or haven’t played it in a long time, definitely give it another chance.

Alto’s Odyssey: The Lost City

This week brought a few old classics to Apple Arcade, and the most notable one is Alto’s Odyssey: The Lost City. It’s basically the original Alto’s Odyssey we all love, but with some extras, including an entirely new area to unlock. I was impressed — and thrilled — to see that the game was able to pull my progress from the original game so I didn’t have to start from scratch. It carried over all my characters, unlockables, and even all the objectives I completed. It made it a lot easier to get back into the swing of things, though I’m still a little rusty. The Lost City also has to be unlocked through play, by collecting 10 map pieces. I have 6 so far and it seems like each one is harder to reach than the previous one. So I’ve missed the seventh one a few times. I do plan to keep trying, and hope that once I’ve gotten more practice again, I’ll be able to get them all. If you haven’t played the Alto games before, this is a great entry point. If you’ve already played both, it’s still worth checking it out, especially since you can import your progress. You can also read my review for the original Alto’s Odyssey here.

Angry Birds Reloaded

I was never a huge fan of Angry Birds, or physics puzzles in general. But I still appreciated the original Angry Birds for what it was, a no-nonsense game where you just slingshot birds at structures to knock down as much as you could. Even if I didn’t love it, it was part of a golden age of the App Store, where developers were bringing innovative games to mobile that played on its strengths, like the touchscreen. Angry Birds and its slingshot mechanics just made sense for a device with a tactile screen. But over time, the franchise got diluted and polluted by free-to-play mechanics all meant to get as much money out of players as possible. I was hoping the new version on Apple Arcade, called Angry Birds Reloaded, would be free of all that junk and return us to simpler times. But I was immediately turned off when I couldn’t even figure out how to get three stars on the very first level. It’s hard to ignore the row of power-ups at the top and all I could wonder is whether I’m even meant to be able to get all three stars without using those cheats. The game also doesn’t indicate what kind of score is needed for each star, so you’re just playing blind, hoping you’ll reach the score without knowing what it is. The game feels rushed and soulless, like they made it only because Apple offered them a bag of cash and not because they actually wanted to. I’ve had enough of it and don’t plan to play anymore.

Doodle God Universe

I never played the original Doodle God, though I have played other games where you combine different elements to create new ones. Little Inferno is one that comes to mind as an example that really stands out. Unfortunately, Doodle God Universe pales in comparison. You spend all your time just dragging two objects together to see if they combine into something new. It’s a lot of trial-and-error and when you’re stumped, you’re really going to just try everything with everything until something happens. It can be a little addictive when you’re making steady progress, and the graphics are pleasing. But when you hit a wall, it’s painfully obvious what a massive waste of time this game is. I also nearly screamed when I tapped on something in the main menu and all it showed was three different modes that aren’t even available yet. It feels like yet another Apple Arcade game that’s feeding off nostalgia without really offering anything else of value.

SP!NG

And last, I made a bit more progress with SP!NG, since there’s an update coming next week that adds more chapters and themes. I’m still not a fan of all the gravity mechanics that change the flow of the game, but I’m going yo try and catch up so I don’t miss out on the new content.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week, aside from some more progress in Baba Is You. I also saw Black Widow, which was good fun, and watched Shadow and Bone on Netflix and was pleasantly surprised by it. Now im just waiting for the second season to release. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’ve been enjoying and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!