Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. There was another huge Genshin Impact content update this week, so that’s been eating up most of my time. But I still managed to fit in a few other games and some of them are definitely worth checking out. Apple Arcade is still disappointing me and it’s getting harder to justify giving the new games any attention, but I’m still trying. Anyway, let’s get to the games!

Dungeons & Miners

I’m still fairly early into Dungeons & Miners, but there’s a lot to like about it. First off, the pixel art is gorgeous, and the soundtrack to go along with it is haunting in all the right ways. The gameplay itself is a combination of mining and dungeon crawling, in case you didn’t get that from the title. You’re equipped both with a pickaxe and a sword and you head into the mines to dig for ores. If you dig in the right direction, you can find your way inside a dungeon. Here you use your sword and shield to fight off enemies and look for treasures. If you die, you’re sent back to the village with everything you earned so you can buy upgrades or even new weapons. It’s a pretty compelling gameplay loop, but could potentially get repetitive. My main issue at the moment is that I’m not really sure what my goal is. Every dungeon I’ve entered so far just led back to the mines or another dungeon, without any boss or collectible at the end. I’m not sure if I’m missing something or that’s just how it is. I do want to play more, though, so I’ll be sure to update you when I do. I should mention that the game is in portrait mode, which is a bit odd since there are several onscreen buttons. The buttons can be moved around, which I appreciated, but I still think it might have been better off in landscape mode. I doubt I would try playing it with one hand, but maybe there are those who would. Anyway, you can watch some of my gameplay video below if you want to see what it’s like.

Dice Paradise

Dice Paradise is a charming and relaxing high score chaser in which you place dice on the board and arrange them in order to try and earn lots of points. You have exactly 20 rolls of four dice before the game ends, so you really need to make each turn count. If you put four of the same number in a row, they’ll clear and you’ll get points. Same with four dice in ascending or descending order, like 1234 or 6543. Five in a row will give you more points, though, and making combos by clearing multiple lines at once is the best way to rack up points. I spent about an hour with it in the video below and was still getting used to it. But I’ve since played more and got my score up to 2900. One thing I find a little imbalanced is that if you’re lucky enough to get the right numbers in your first two moves to allow you to clear the board, you’ll get 500 points right off the bat. In fact, that’s how I got my highest score. It means you might be best off restarting until you get a setup like that. Aside from that, I’m enjoying the game a lot. It’s great for when you only have a few minutes to play but also has that “one more game” pull to it. If you’re a fan of pure high score chasers without any grinding or filler, give Dice Paradise a try and see if you can beat my score!

Impossible Isles

Impossible Isles is a free daily puzzle game in which you compete against everyone else for a high score. You start off with a 7×7 grid with a few tiles filled in. You then have to place each of the other 45 tiles one at a time until you fill in the whole board. Each tile reacts differently to the other tiles around it and will give you more — or fewer — points depending on the layout. For example, a rabbit likes to be around trees, so if you place it next to a forest tile, you’ll get bonus points every turn. Similarly, ducks like water, while mountains like being near other mountains and hate water. There’s one puzzle each day, which everyone plays. The order of the tiles you’re given remains the same so you can keep replaying it to try and get a higher score. It’s a solid idea, though I think it can become dangerously time-consuming if you get too caught up in trying to improve your score. So I don’t know that I’ll be that dedicated, but I do want to at least play here and there. It also reminds me of another game I played but I can’t think of the name. I’m sure it’ll come to me eventually. I’d recommend Impossible Isles even if it cost a few bucks, but it’s completely free without any ads or IAPs, so just try it. There’s absolutely nothing to lose!

Assetto Corsa Mobile

I really don’t know what to say about Assetto Corsa Mobile. I’m not a big racing fan, but I still wanted to give it a try. I was immediately turned off when I booted it up and the orientation was forced into having my USB port on the right, instead of on the left where I normally prefer it. But that alone wouldn’t be a big deal. What’s much worse is that the game isn’t fullscreen on my iPad. And I don’t mean it’s letterboxed because it’s a PC port. The dimensions are the same as my iPad, but it’s in the center of the screen with black borders all around. My iPhone’s status bar is also visible at the top instead of hidden. This is a brand new game, so I don’t get why it wouldn’t be fullscreen on the latest iPads. Aside from that, the graphics look very dated and the controls didn’t feel great. You can adjust the controls, but I didn’t bother. I had enough of it from the tutorial and quit there.

Another Tomorrow

Glitch Games have been working on their latest adventure game, Another Tomorrow, for quite some time now. I played some of it on my own back when it was still in its early stages and I really liked the new look, which is isometric 3D instead of their usual first-person exploration. It still has their usual punny clues that make you both grin and groan when you figure them out. I made it a bit further than I did originally, but still got stumped on a puzzle fairly early on. Once I work it out, I’ll make more gameplay video. But for now you can see a bit of it in my video below. There’s no sound, but that was fixed in an update so the next video should have it. There’s also a demo available on itch.io right now if you don’t mind playing on a PC. The full game has no release date yet but will be coming to iOS, Android and PC. You’ll definitely be hearing more about this game from me, so keep an eye out.

Genshin Impact

As I said above, the 2.1 content update came to Genshin Impact this week, which brought with it two new Inazuma islands, a new fishing mini hame and tons of quests, including a major story quest. There are also new characters and I was lucky enough to get Raiden Shogun after many wishes for her. I’ve been working on building her up while also dabbling in fishing and exploring the new areas. Exploration was always my favorite part of Genshin, and these new areas make me feel like I did when I first started playing and had the whole world ahead of me to explore. I also love how they keep adding new puzzles and new mechanics to keep things varied. The other day I was solving puzzles while climbing higher and higher into the sky, eventually meeting and fighting a boss there. It’s just incredible how they manage to keep things fresh after all this time. The fishing game is also a lot more fun than I expected. I’m just so impressed with this game and how much stuff they fill these areas with. I’m not a fan of the gacha system, but this isn’t a low effort game built around its gacha system. It’s a superb, full quality game that just so happens to make its money off of gacha. If you think you have willpower not to spend a ton of money trying to pull for specific characters, I implore you to try the game.

Sky: Children of the Light

This week, the final Rose quest became available in Sky for the Season of the Little Prince. You need to go through the Eye of Eden as you normally would, rescuing the Prince who’s been turned to stone. Once you complete that quest, you can purchase the sword pants for 200 candles and the asteroid jacket for $25. But what this quest did was push me a whole lot closer to quitting Sky for good. Eden feels a lot harder now, easier to lose wings if you get hit by anything. The final section also feels like you hemorrhage wings a lot faster than usual. But worst of all, it’s still a massive time sink. After my friend and I finally died and turned into spirits, the game forced us to follow some random person while they lit their own statues. Then the flying sections after that are still unskippable. So the whole ordeal wasted an entire hour. And that’s without collecting our wings after. I’m just done giving this game so much of my time to just repeat the same stuff over and over. I can’t do it anymore. Life’s too short. I haven’t even done the spirits or quests in beta for the the Season of Flight and I’m not sure I will. This game is no longer wholesome to me. It feels like a giant ball and chain and the longer I stay chained to it the harder it gets to break that chain. So it might be time.

MasterChef: Let’s Cook!

And finally, I took a look at the latest Apple Arcade offering, MasterChef: Let’s Cook! It has you creating dishes and competing against other players, through a series of touch-based mini games. For instance, you slice tomatoes and carrots with your finger, swipe to spread sauce, and control a meter to keep your pot from boiling over. The core gameplay is actually pretty solid. But the rest of the game is so shallow and distracting. Everything you do rewards you with loot boxes to open for more ingredients — or even cosmetics. I don’t need a new hat or apron every five minutes, but the game thinks I do. There’s just so much clutter that makes the game feel cheap. It looks and feels like so many other cheap free-to-play mobile games instead of a quality game I would expect on Apple Arcade. Had the gameplay been presented in a more mature and less tacky package, I might have actually enjoyed it. But it’s basically free-to-play without the IAPs and I just don’t need that in my life.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week! I also finished the third season of Manifest. It was dumb and infuriating most of the time but still so watchable that I binged the whole thing. As annoyed as I was with it, I’ll be watching the fourth season whenever it arrives. I also started watching Clickbait, which is another guilty pleasure. I can tell I’ll probably be screaming at it by the end, but I can’t stop watching. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’ve been playing and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!