Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. First off, happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate. I once again spent most of my week with Genshin Impact, but there were a lot of new releases so I tried to play a few of them, as well. There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s get to it.

Space Intern

Space Intern is a puzzle platformer with — at least so far — fairly bite-sized levels that make me more willing to try again when I fail. I’ve only played through the first six levels so far and the difficulty did start to ramp up on the next one, where I decided to take a break. I have been enjoying myself with it, especially trying to collect both stars in each level, which usually requires a little extra effort and forethought. I also appreciate the checkpoints so when I do mess up, I don’t have to backtrack that much. I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it through the end, as I get frustrated easily by platformers. But from what I’ve seen so far, it’s well-made and the controls seem to work well. It’s also free to play with just one IAP to remove the ads. So try it for yourself and see how you like it. I also have a Twitter giveaway going on right now if you want to try to win a code for the full game.

Coromon

I tried Coromon three years ago during its beta and I noticed it was basically a Pokémon clone, which is exactly what it’s going for. I noticed back then that I didn’t really have much patience for monster-catching and monster-battling games anymore, so I didn’t continue with it. But the game released this week and I wanted to give it another go and see how much it evolved. While it does seem overall high quality, I can’t say my opinion changed. It still feels like a slog to me and I just can’t get excited about catching monsters in this way anymore. I did play longer this time and got further. But then I accidentally agreed to a battle I wasn’t ready for. I forfeited when it wasn’t going well without realizing what that meant. Then the game made it sound really bad and offered to revert to an older save. So I did so, thinking it wouldn’t set me back too far. But it set me back to a point before I even caught my last few monsters! That left a really sour taste in my mouth and I just quit on the spot. I don’t know why it couldn’t let me just go back to right before the battle so I could fight again after healing my monsters. At the very least, it should have been more clear about what I would lose by not going back to an old save and how far back that save was. I’m also a little wary about the IAPs. You can download the game for free and play the demo, but you’ll eventually have to buy the full game to continue. That’s fine. But on top of that there are consumables you can buy, and I’m not sure if the game is balanced without them. I guess I’d have to play longer to find out and I won’t be doing that. So you’ll have to see for yourself.

Par for the Dungeon

Speaking of IAPs, Par for the Dungeon has some of the worst monetization I’ve seen in a game. But first let me tell you about the game itself. It’s basically golf but with enemies that get in your way that you have to clear before being able to access the hole. You also pick up coins that you can use to buy things — like an arrow — during your run. Each level has a certain number of moves that counts as par — basically, the minimum number of moves in which it can be completed. I was actually enjoying trying to get par in each level. But sometimes I’d mess up and need to restart. Not a big deal, right? Except, you’re only given three restarts and then have to either watch ads to get more or use actual cash to buy more. There’s no way to make the game premium and get unlimited restarts. In fact, the only unlimited option lasts just 30 minutes! So for $2 you can play unhindered for a half hour. Or you can buy the game on Steam for $2.50 and restart as much as you want. It really stings the way they decided to monetize the mobile port while PC players just get the complete, unhindered game for about the price of one IAP. I really can’t recommend the game in this state, but I am hoping they might listen to criticism and add an IAP to make it fully premium.

DOMINO: The Little One

DOMINO: The Little One is a completely free that’s meant to educate players about global warming and pollution to try to get people taking action before it’s too late. I think it’s a great idea, and I love the art style, the soundtrack, and the voice acting — even if it was overly preachy at times. Unfortunately, I found it extremely frustrating to play, thanks to a combination of a very unresponsive joystick and a bizarre timer. The joystick worked fine if I was holding it in one direction for a length of time. But if I needed to stop and go, it wouldn’t always do what I was telling it to do. On its own that would be frustrating enough, but it’s made worse by the main mechanic you have to deal with throughout the game. You have a health bar that slowly drains over time. You can pick up orbs to replenish a little bit of health, but if you’re not moving fast enough, or if you mess up and waste time where you’re not picking up new orbs, you’ll end up dying and having to start back from the last checkpoint. I was expecting a much more relaxed experience, so this really threw me. But I might have still enjoyed it if the controls weren’t so bad. I also experienced some bizarre bug-like behavior in the later half of the game. Like, I’d land in the water and have a really hard time getting out and just die. The game seemed to expect me to get out but it was next to impossible. At one point I even started walking at the bottom of the ocean and it did not seem like I should have been able to. Again, the game is completely free so you won’t lose anything by trying it out. I’m just disappointed that the controls and odd mechanics distracted me from what should have been an impactful message. Instead of learning something, I just came out of it annoyed.

Genshin Impact

And last, I spent perhaps too much time playing Genshin Impact this week. I finished a bunch of world quests I was in middle of and then went through the whole archon quest, which took nearly four hours. I decided from it that I wanted Furina and then I got her after a few single pulls (I was already near soft pity). I then did one single pull after that and got Charlotte! So I’ve been having fun building them and messing around with them. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like Furina because she causes health drain to the entire party, but she’s so strong that I think it was a good choice. There’s also a new event going on with Freminet and I still keep finding new world quests to do. So I don’t know if I’ll ever fully catch up. But I am enjoying it still, so that’s what matters.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week. I’m also almost finished watching Invasion and have mixed thoughts on it, but I’ll wait until I’m actually through it all. I also watched Slotherhouse, which was good silly fun. 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!