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 was a bit of a quiet week as far as new games go, so I spent most of my time catching up on games from last week. I finished a full playthrough of Poe and Munro, as well as Jessika. I also got sucked into the Stranger Things game, even though I swore I was done with it. Anyway, there’s a lot to cover, so pull up a chair and let’s begin!

Bloodshore

These last couple of weeks have been dream come true for FMV or interactive movie fans, and Wales Interactive’s Bloodshore is the latest release. It’s a tongue-in-cheek look at what would happen if battle royale games like Fortnite or even The Hunger Games were real. It takes place in a future where the most popular series is a reality show where fifty competitors are dropped on a remote island to kill each other. The last one standing get $10 million. It started off just for death row inmates, but in time they started letting anyone join. So it became a way to exploit those desperate for a better life. I played through the game once so far and it’s good campy fun with a message. I’m not sure it lives up to everything it could have been, but I do want to play through it again to see if I can get a different ending. Overall, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to FMV fans who don’t mind a little gore — and some groan-worthy jokes.

Petal Crash

Petal Crash is a matching puzzle game with a twist that first released on PC last year but just made its way over to mobile. I really like the gameplay, which consists of sliding colored flowers in one of four directions until it hits a wall or another flower. The goal is to match two or more of a color, but they have to actually hit each other, not just land next to each other. More flowers keep coming and could get in your way, so you have to be careful not to let the whole board fill up. When a match clears, it also pushes the flowers next it away from it, so you can try and use that to set up chain reactions. It’s an interesting variation on the matching genre with a lot of room for strategy. So far, I played through the story mode with one character, but I was not impressed with the writing. Combined with the overly dramatic pixel font that bothers my eyes, I basically just skimmed through the story to get to the puzzle part. Luckily, there are several different modes, some with a timer and some with a move limit. I appreciate that, because the controls can be a bit finicky when you’re trying to move quickly. My favorite is the puzzle mode, though, which gives you a specific layout and goal and a set number of moves to complete it in. Each character has their own set of puzzles and I’ve almost completed the first one. I’ll definitely be back to play more of those. I do wish it had iCloud sync, though, because I started playing on my iPad and it’s the perfect one-handed game. Anyway, check out my gameplay video below if you want to see it in action.

Dark Nights with Poe and Munro

I started playing Dark Nights with Poe and Munro last week and was able to dedicate more time to it this week so I could finish all six episodes. I’m not sure how much of a difference your choices make in the outcome of each episode, but since I’m missing most of the achievements, I do want to play through it again and see what I can change. I liked how each episode switched things up and some even pay homage to the developer’s other games. I recognized characters from The Shapeshifting Detective and there was an episode that put Munro in Doctor Dekker’s office, the same one from The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker. Sadly, that’s not on iOS yet, but it was nice to get a small taste of it. I really enjoyed spending more time with Poe and Munro and I hope replaying the game will prolong the fun. I’ll be sure to let you know how that turns out. But even as is, it’s an easy recommendation especially if you’ve played The Shapeshifting Detective.

Jessika

I already mentioned last week how Jessika took a turn I didn’t expect. I finished the game now and there is a lot of a value to it, though I found the ending a bit confusing. It’s hard to talk about it without spoiling things, but I didn’t really understand the motivation. I also couldn’t unlock a few of the files after I watched a video that is basically considered the end. So I’m not sure if there are some details I missed. Overall, it was a well-made game in the style of Her Story, but it stumbled a bit in the chat feature. I discovered some surprising things about Jessika, but then found less surprising things later and the characters seemed to forget about the more surprising stuff. It’s still worth playing, and it’s easy to get sucked into looking for keywords. Just beware that there is some disturbing content.

Adventure Escape Mysteries: The Sultan’s Inventor

I also finished the new Adventure Escape game, The Sultan’s Inventor. I made a full walkthrough, but I still need to add a lot of photos and then make videos for it. So please bear with me. Overall, it was one of their better games, though the story was a bit predictable. I’m glad there weren’t any truly annoying puzzles and everything was logical. If you’ve already played the other Adventure Escape games, I’m sure you plan to play this one, too. If you haven’t, this is still a fine place to start since the characters are all new.

Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales

I started playing the new Stranger Things match-three game last week and swore off it when I got stalled because I couldn’t level my characters to get past the next wave of enemies. But there was something compelling about it and I stuck with it. I find that it helps to take a day or two off from actually playing and just collect the idle rewards. It helps with leveling characters. I’ve now got two 3-star characters and a full team of level 60 characters with one at level 80. So it’s been manageable so far as long as I take breaks. That said, the gacha system is still obscene. It takes so many copies of a rare character to level it up that I’m not sure it will ever happen. There’s still something pulling me to the game, though, so I’ll play until it stops being enjoyable.

Genshin Impact

This week in Genshin Impact, Childe’s banner ended and Hu Tao’s arrived. I didn’t want Hu Tao, but I did want two of the 4-star characters on her banner. So my plan was to make 10 – 20 wishes and stop. But I got neither character I wanted, only junk. So I kept going to a bit over 30. Then I wanted to try my luck on the weapons banner, so I threw 13 wishes at it and also got junk. Now I feel bad for spending so many on these two banners and I’m going to hold firm and wait for Itto’s banner. There’s also a new event this week called Shadow of the Ancients, which is a bit of a treasure hunt. I like those types of events, but it does feel a bit sparse since there’s only three days of four locations. Hopefully the next two days are more involved. And I’m sure there will be other events coming soon.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to for the last week. I also switched back from HBO to Netflix and started watching season 2 of Locke & Key but couldn’t even make it through the first episode. I switched to season 3 of You instead and then I’ll finally watch Squid Game after that so I can be up-to-date with all the memes. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re enjoying and I’ll see you back here next week with more of My Week Unwrapped!