Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. It’s been a pretty dry summer but this week made up for that with a whole bunch of solid releases. Arranger is the highlight for me, but there’s others that are worth checking out, too. I also played through a lot of the Genshin summer event, so there’s plenty to discuss.

Arranger

Arranger is being advertised as a “role-puzzling adventure,” which is a genre I can get behind. It’s basically an open world puzzle game where you complete quests for townsfolk. But what makes it stand out is that you don’t just walk around this world. You move the floor to move your character along with it. So everything is laid out on a grid and you swipe up/down or left/right to move the row or column that your character is standing on. I wasn’t sure what kinds of puzzles to expect from this, but there have been lots of fun surprises in my first hour with it. I finally made it out of the town (I think something bad is going to happen there while I’m gone, though) and into the wilderness, where things have gotten even more chaotic. I look forward to spending more time with it, especially since the characters are all quirky and full of charm. You can either buy it on Steam or play it on mobile with a Netflix subscription. But I recommend playing it somehow if you’re a puzzle fan.

Kingdom Rush 5: Alliance TD

Kingdom Rush 5: Alliance is the latest in the Kingdom Rush franchise and this time it has the good guys and the bad guys teaming up together. That means you get to use heroes and towers from the Linerean side as well as from the Dark Army. You also get to take two heroes with you for each battle. It plays very similarly to Vengeance, as you can take up to five different towers with you into each battle and you can level up your heroes and also build out your upgrade trees. As with all their other games, the idea is to build towers to defend against waves of enemies. But you can also use your heroes and their skills to help out in a pinch. The formula works and it’s still a lot of fun, though I find I often have to replay levels to get three stars since it’s hard to plan without really knowing what to expect. The animations and overall feel of the game are just as polished as always. What I don’t love is that so many of the heroes and towers are locked behind IAPs. I didn’t love that about previous games either. But I only realized this time that the game is on Steam for $20 and includes everything. There are no microtransactions at all. If you want everything the Steam version offers on mobile, you have to pay $7 for the base game, $20 for the extra heroes and another $15 for the extra towers. So it’s more than double the price. I didn’t realize at the time that they did the same thing for Vengeance or I might have mentioned it in my review. I did manage to best Vengeance without the extras, and my understanding is that the games are designed to be beaten without them. But it still doesn’t feel great that mobile is treated like this. I’m on a version that gives me access to all the IAPs for free so I unlocked all the heroes and towers and I have to say I do enjoy using the dragons as my heroes. I’m not sure if that’s some form of cheating, but they are fun to use. In any case, if you’re a fan of the series and not bothered by the IAPs, it’s worth picking up. Just keep in mind that there’s currently only 16 levels to play through. I’ve beaten all but three so far but it took me a few hours so it’s still got some good bang for your buck if you just go with the base game. I also have more videos on my YouTube channel showing off some of the premium towers and heroes if you want to see them in action.

Sonority

Sonority is a musical puzzle adventure that released on PC in 2022 but just got an iOS port this week. From what I can tell so far, the puzzles mainly consist of using musical notes in a specific order to raise and lower platforms, as well as turn them when necessary. But it seems to be more mathematical than musical, as you’re basically adding and subtracting to make a platform drop, for instance, two levels. You can even change the music notes to numbers so it feels more straightforward. I’m enjoying it so far, though I think the touch controls could have been explained a bit better. I didn’t get that the black hand pointing meant simply “tap on the right side of the screen.” I kept looking for a button with a black hand on it and it confused me quite a bit. Once I figured out what it was trying to tell me, though, the controls are actually pretty straightforward. And I’m enjoying the puzzles, though I can see how they might get repetitive after a while. I’m not sure I like it as much as Arranger, but it still seems like a solid puzzler. And I do love the talking raccoon and singing stone heads. I recommend watching some of my gameplay videos to get a better sense of what it’s like.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Purgatory

I don’t know much about the Werewolf: The Apocalypse or World of Darkness series, but I’m still finding this choice-based role-playing game intriguing. You play as a werewolf named Samira as she navigates the world of her fellow werewolves. She can shapeshift and take on other skills that you decide. It’s primarily a game book so it’s heavy on reading, but it’s written well so far. I’ll have more impressions once I’ve spent more time with it, but I recommend watching some of my gameplay video to see what it’s like.

Genshin Impact

And last, I’ve been playing through the limited summer event in Genshin Impact and have already played through the main story. Sadly, my video of the best part got corrupted and didn’t record. Still, I enjoyed it and I’m having fun exploring the temporary area. I still have some world quests to complete, as well. I’m trying to pace myself so I don’t finish it too quickly. This is my favorite kind of content, so I want to savor it. I highly recommend playing now if you took a break from Genshin, as the area will disappear in about a month.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week. I also started watching The Bear and am now on the second season. I just finished the chaotic flashback episode about their dysfunctional family, which made me very uncomfortable. But I think that’s a common theme with this show. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re playing and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!