Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. Much of this week has been spent playing Genshin Impact, since the new content update arrived on Tuesday. But I also played some more Dungeons of Dreadrock and even my first Apple Arcade game in five months. There aren’t a ton of games to talk about here, but they’re all worthwhile. So don’t miss out on them.

Dungeons of Dreadrock

I got an early copy of Dungeons of Dreadrock and have been making my way through it over the last few weeks. I’m still only about halfway done, but now it’s available on the App Store for all to play. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s a brilliant action puzzler that’s tailor made for mobile. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. In fact, the reason it’s taking me so long to finish is that I haven’t been getting enough sleep and I feel I need to be much more alert to pull off some of the trickier levels that involve tight timing. I have every intention to play through to the end because it’s one of my favorite games in a while, but I don’t want to force it when I’m not at my best. I also compiled all my gameplay videos here, which can help you if you get stuck on any of the levels. The game is free and supported by ads with a very reasonable price to remove the ads, so I highly recommend at least trying it out to see if you like it.

Wylde Flowers

I had been disappointed with Apple Arcade ever since The Artful Escape got canceled on the platform. Most of the releases in the past few months have been games I already owned and the new ones just didn’t appeal to me. So the last Apple Arcade game I played was the Castlevania one five months ago. But with the anticipation of Broken Rules’ Gibbon coming next week, I renewed my subscription this month. It turns out it was good timing, as the latest release, Wylde Flowers, is actually quite good. At first glance, I thought it would just be similar to Stardew Valley, and I’m not really a fan of farming sims. But the script and voice acting sucked me in right away. You play as Tara who visits her grandmother to help her manage her farm. Yes, it sounds like the usual cliche. But it’s very self-aware and the humor is spot-on. Not only that, but there’s a few tricks up its sleeves. It turns out Tara’s grandmother is a witch and wants to teach Tara how to be one, too. I only spent a little over an hour with it and just got my magic wand, so I can’t really say much about the magic yet. But the story and writing is enough to keep me playing at the moment, so I should definitely have more impressions next week. My only real complaint right now is that it takes too long to walk back and forth across the map. I don’t see any option for faster travel, but I’m hoping something is introduced later. Anyway, if you have an Apple Arcade subscription, I recommend giving Wylde Flowers a try.

Kaiju Attack

Game Spew has been making mobile games for years, but I’ve never tried any because the IAPs for currency turned me off. Their latest, Kaiju Attack, doesn’t have any IAPs, so I was willing to give it a try. I’m also a fan of match-three games, so it looked right up my alley. And I do like the core idea. You need to defend each country against a different Kaiju by matching up buildings, weapons and people in order to upgrade them. Each round, you get to swap three tiles before both sides take turns attacking. The goal is to take the monster to zero health before he does it to you. Each time you beat a map, it increases by a level and gets harder. If you beat level 1 of a map, you earn a special unit that can be deployed to help you out. There’s a lot of strategy involved and it is quite fun. But it also feels grindy and repetitive. You earn coins from each win based on your score and then use those coins to upgrade all your units. But the upgrades cost a lot for very minimal improvements. On top of that, the game feels very slow due to all the animations. I would love a way to speed it all up. After a couple of hours with the game, I’m kind of feeling burnt out already on it. So I’m not sure I’ll keep playing. There’s something compelling here, but it needs to feel snappier and less time-consuming for what it is. You can watch some of my gameplay video below if you want to see what it’s like.

Inua – A Story in Ice and Time

I started playing Inua last week, and earlier this week I completed it. It follows three characters in the same locations over different time periods. It’s mostly linear, but their are achievements you can miss based on the order you do things. Overall, I enjoyed my time with it and appreciated that it also taught me about history I wasn’t familiar with. It’s a short, narrative game that won’t be for everyone, but check out some of my videos below to see if it’s something you might enjoy. I have more videos here if you want to see the earlier ones instead.

Genshin Impact

And last, update 2.5 arrived in Genshin Impact this week. It brought a new playable character names Yae Miko, who I had been excited about ever since she was introduced in a story quest months back. I had saved some primogems for her but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get her day one. Then she ended up being my luckiest pull, as it only took 38 wishes to get her. I’m still getting used to her playstyle, but hoping I can find a place for her that feels good. Either way, I’m glad I got her because I love her trickster personality. I also played through her new story quest, as well as Raiden Shogun’s, and fought the new weekly boss. There’s also a new event that lasts 40 days and adds a sort of second Enkanomiya to explore. I only just started that, but exploration is my favorite part of the game, so I’m thrilled to have more. You can see all of this in my videos below.

And that’s everything I’ve been playing this week. I also started watching Inventing Anna, which would be so hard to believe if it wasn’t based on a true story. It’s about a con artist who scammed banks and hotels out of tons of money. It started off a bit slow but now I’ve been glued to it and am already on episode 7. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re enjoying and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped.