Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. Once again, I spent a lot of time with the new Genshin Impact content, but I also worked my way through some more Railbound puzzles and tried out some newer games. There’s a fair amount to discuss, so let’s get to it.

Railbound

I previewed some of Railbound for you last week and was impressed with yet another game from Afterburn that’s easy to play on a touchscreen but still offers a hefty challenge. The game is out now and I’ve made more progress and started my walkthrough guide. I’ve finished all of the first three chapters and the the main levels on several others, but I’m still hopelessly stuck on one of the bonus puzzles in Chapter 4. I’m still working at it and chipping away at other levels, but I’m trying to pace myself so I don’t get burnt out. Overall, I’m really impressed with the game and how the different mechanics shake things up. If you’re a puzzle fan, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’ll enjoy this one.

Lucky Luna

Lucky Luna is the latest game from Snowman, the Alto’s Adventure developers. It’s available only with a Netflix subscription and — at least to me — is a lot more difficult than the Alto games, but perhaps I just need to get better acquainted with the controls. You see, Lucky Luna is a platformer without jumping. Instead, you spend a lot of time falling. The only controls are to swipe left and right to move, so once you fall down a path and miss something, you can’t get back unless there’s an environmental mechanic that will push you back up, like geysers. You’re scored on each level based on how many gems you collected, how long it took you to complete the level, and how many times you died. There are also hidden paths and collectibles to find and I can see there’s a ton of replay value unless you manage to perfect everything on your first run. I’m not particularly good at the game, but I’m still enjoying it and will attempt to keep making progress. If you have an active Netflix subscription, I recommend just giving it a try for yourself. If not and you’re curious about it, you can watch some of my gameplay video below.

Iron Marines Invasion

I enjoyed what I played of the original Iron Marines but never completed it, possibly because I found it too hard. I still wanted to try the sequel, though. Iron Marines Invasion released this week and I haven’t had too much time to spend with it, but it seems a lot like the original with different troops and heroes. What I played so far wasn’t too difficult, but I surprisingly am having a bit of trouble with the fourth planet. My troops get overwhelmed to easily and I just don’t feel like I stand a chance. It’s also the first level that’s on a timer. Hopefully it’s just a matter of choosing better troops and not either grinding or buying the premium characters. That’s another issue I’ve had with these games — it’s hard to tell how balanced they are without buying extra stuff. I am going to give it another try this weekend, though, before dropping the difficulty down to Casual. I’ll report back with more impressions if/when I make more progress.

20 Minutes Till Dawn

20 Minutes Till Dawn is a survival twin-stick shooter in which you try to survive twenty minutes against swarms of Lovecraftian creatures trying to kill you. I love the look and feel of it, especially the fact that the touch controls can be used blindly — floating joystick on the left for movement and floating joystick on the right for directional shooting. It’s a tense game, especially as large crowds of alien-like monsters close in on you. The idea is to pick up little bits of experience that enemies drop so you can level up and earn new power-ups. The problem is, I find it very difficult to pick up the experience while also running away from enemies. I think it would be a smoother experience — for me, at least — if you just got experience automatically for killing them. As is, it gets overwhelming pretty fast and I’ve never made it much more than 6 minutes, even after unlocking a character with more health. I also don’t like how much it takes to unlock new characters and weapons, as well as permanent upgrades. Since it’s a roguelite, it feels like it’s designed to be impossible to beat until you’ve unlocked a bunch of permanent upgrades. And it feels way too grindy in its current state, with the small amount of currency earned from each 5-6 minute run. I just don’t think I have the patience to keep playing the same 5 minutes over and over until I’m strong enough to last longer. But again, check out my gameplay video if you want to get a better idea of what it’s like in action.

Timewreck Tales

Timewreck Tales has been out for a little while already, but I only just got to playing some of it this week. It’s also a roguelite, but it seems more focused on story and dialogue than anything else. I’m not even 100% sure yet how the roguelite aspects work yet because I didn’t die in the time I was playing. I am enjoying it so far, especially the humor. It’s very tongue-in-cheek and has a silly time-traveling premise that it doesn’t take too seriously. Hell, one do the first quests I went on was called The Big Cheese and had me hunting down some stolen cheese. I think I’ll have a good time with this game as long as the roguelite aspect doesn’t involve a lot of repeating the same content over. Again, I’ll have to report back after I make more progress. But the game is free and supported by ads with a one-time IAP to remove the ads. So try it for yourself and see what you think.

Genshin Impact

And last but not least, I made more progress with the Sumeru quests in Genshin Impact and also played through Tighnari’s story quest. There was also a treasure hunt event that I completed and got a green seelie pet as a reward. Now there’s a battle event going on where you use a camera to identify enemy weaknesses, which is pretty interesting. Mainly, I’m just enjoying exploring Sumeru and preparing for Cyno’s arrival in a few weeks so I can build him as soon as possible. I am trying to cut down on my Genshin time now that I’ve done all the major story and world quests and just find what I’m missing at a relaxed pace. I’m still impressed with the game and especially love what they did with the Sumeru soundtrack. This is no cheap cash grab.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week. I also caught up on the second season of The Great and saw NOPE in theaters. NOPE was fun but also left me with so many questions. 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.