My Week Unwrapped: May 10, 2020 – Kingdom Two Crowns, AE The Covenant, Hello Human, Through the Darkest of Times and More

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Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. I spent much of this week in a Kingdom Two Crowns (KTC) stupor, but I still managed to squeeze some time in for other games. I also think I’m ready to take a break from KTC after spending over 40 hours playing it in the two weeks since it released on mobile. I don’t have a review yet, but I am working on one that will hopefully be ready soon. Anyway, there’s plenty of time to talk about my Kingdom addiction, so let’s move on to the games!

Kingdom Two Crowns

Last week I already meant how I was loving the sequel to Kingdom even though I bounced off the original. That’s mainly because this new one doesn’t force you to restart from scratch if you die. It’s much for forgiving, and that allowed me to learn more as I play and get a better feel for what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong. I still restarted a few times and have three separate save slots in progress. But it was my choice to restart when I didn’t like how things were going. This past week I made a lot of progress with my Shogun campaign and even destroyed some cliff portals. But I think I messed up and built to close to the portal on the first island, as my men kept dying. I decided to start a new Dead Lands game and actually thought I might stand a chance at completing the game without dying, but then I got stuck in winter without any berry bushes and wasted too much time making no progress while waiting for winter to pass. Eventually, I died on returning back to the first island and got overtaken by the Greed, the enemies in the game. Around then, I decided I need a break, as it’s been consuming my entire life. So for now I’m done playing, but as I said above, keep an eye out for my review. I also compiled all my videos in one place, so check them out here if you’re interested.

Adventure Escape Mysteries – The Covenant

Haiku Games slowed down their Adventure Escape releases, as the last one was back in December of 2019. I was wondering when we’d see another, and that day is today! The latest game is called The Covenant and it’s part of their Adventure Escape Mysteries app. It’s meant for mature audiences and feels a lot like a cheesy horror movie. I’ve so far completed the first two chapters and I like how you choose both who you pair up with on tasks and who to get rid of at the end of the day. I’m not sure how it affects the story, but each character does seem to have their own personality and even some information they can share with you. My favorite at the moment is Turner, as he’s got some great one-liners. Overall, I’m enjoying the story and the puzzles have had a pretty good balance so far, with nothing too annoying. I’ll be sure to give more impressions once I finished the game, but for now you can check out my walkthrough guide if you get stuck.

Through the Darkest of Times

HandyGames’ Through the Darkest of Times is a strategy game set in 1933’s Berlin, as Hitler rose to power. It made its way over to iOS this week and is a perfect fit for iPad. The idea is that you lead a resistance group that’s trying to save people who are being persecuted during the war. It aims for historical accuracy, so you’re not going to change the outcome of the war, but you can make small differences. It’s obviously a dark game with very little humor, but it handles the topic with the reverence and respect it deserves. There are two ways you can play — one is harder and forces you to start over if you fail. The story mode, on the other hand, has checkpoints and is a lot more forgiving. I chose that and I still see things are starting to go wrong with my resistance members nearly getting caught a few times. I’m only on the first of four chapters, too, so there seems to be a decent amount of content. Overall, I’m impressed with the game and hope to spend more time with it once my plate is a little emptier.

Democratic Socialism Simulator

Molleindustria’s Democratic Socialism Simulator is a Reigns-like that released on other platforms two months ago, but got held up on iOS due to Apple’s bureaucracy. It was meant to be out while Bernie Sanders was still running for President, partially to explain what democratic socialism is to the masses. Rather than hold it up any longer, the developer just released it for free this past week. I only played one game of it and failed to get re-elected, but I’d like to give it some more time when I can. The artwork is stylish, with each character being depicted by an animal. I actually laughed out loud when I saw Fox News represented by an actual fox. While it might seem at first glance like the game is meant only to push a very specific political stance on you, it’s actually quite informative. It doesn’t pretend that government is as easy as giving everyone what they want. But it does show how a government working for the people and not for corporations can pay off in the end, even if it causes a deficit at first. Anyway, go play it to broaden your mind a bit while having fun in the process. We may have gotten it late, but now you can enjoy it for free!

Hello Human

I mentioned Kinoro Games’ Hello Human last week after playing the first twenty-odd levels. I liked the snarky AI that’s testing you with different puzzles and mini games. He’s certainly entertaining and the best part of the game. But I was already getting frustrated with some mechanics, like a ball that has intentionally bad physics and is hard to control so you keep dropping it before you get it to the goal. Another issue I had was with the turret you use to shoot little enemies. The gun is hard to control and turns all the way around too easily. It’s also very small, considering how big my iPad is. I can barely see it at all while my finger is on it. I still managed to get past those issues in my first session. But when I came back to complete the game — only forty levels total — I almost gave up near the very end. The mechanics I hated before got turned up to 11 and I was so close to throwing my iPad at a wall. This time, I had to drag that wonky ball down a long track without messing up. There were checkpoints, but it was still painful. The other level that made me angry was another shooting mini game, but this time you need to change back and forth between orange and blue bullets while still shooting. Tapping the gun makes it change colors, so I would often change it unintentionally. It was, quite frankly, torture. Those two levels soured an otherwise enjoyable experience for me, unfortunately. I’m not sure I would recommend it unless you have a lot of patience for intentionally wonky controls. Anyway, you can watch my video below to see if it’s something you might still want to take a chance on. I also have a walkthrough guide here if you get stuck.

BE-A Walker

BE-A Walker starts off with a very strange premise. You’re basically invading a planet called Eldorado — one very similar to Pandora from the movie Avatar — and the natives aren’t thrilled by your presence. They fight back, and their weapons are able to pierce the soldiers’ armor. They even manage to take down some mechs. This is where you come in. You control a mech, the only things that stand any chance of defeating the “savages.” You control the mech using a button for each for each leg and a slider that controls how far forward or back you move the leg before dropping it down. This is how you walk and stomp on natives that are attacking you. You also have some guns at your disposal, but at least early on they have very low ammunition and long cooldown periods, so you’re going to have to rely more on stomping. You also lose oxygen the longer you’re out, and you can’t survive on the planet’s atmosphere. Overall, despite the odd story, it does sell like an interesting gameplay concept. Unfortunate, the controls are so poorly placed on iPad that I gave up after just a few minutes. Instead of letting you swipe left and right anywhere on the left side of the screen — or even just a few inches higher — the slider is all the way in the corner, making it very awkward to reach. The buttons on the right side are just as poorly placed, and I just couldn’t get comfortable enough to actually stand a chance at completing even the first mission. It might be better on iPad, but then you have buttons covering half the screen. The game looks like it should be a great fit for iPad if someone actually tried playing it on there instead of just slapping some buttons in the corner and calling it a day. If it ever gets updated to fix those controls, I might give it another chance. But for now I’m staying away and would recommend the same to anyone who planned to play on an iPad.

Worm Jazz

I spoke highly of Worm Jazz a few times since its release and was even working on a walkthrough guide. This week, it got a huge update with a completely redesigned map and some changes to certain mechanics, like the boulders. Instead of only using explosions to move them, your worm can now push them, as well. They also can’t go through food or bombs anymore. Because of this, some existing levels changed and were reset so you know to revisit them. I’ve been playing some more and now have over 100 stars, but I’m probably not going to continue with my walkthrough at this point. I still want to review it, as I’m enjoying it immensely, but it’s too much to remake my walkthrough now. Anyway, definitely check it out. It’s free with ads and a one-time IAP to remove them. I believe this update also made the ads less frequent. It also added iCloud sync for those who like to play on more than one device.

-Revolt-

Last week, I wrote about Ciro Manna’s -Revolt- and complained that I couldn’t control my character with any precision. it turned out that I missed the text in the tutorial that said “tap and slide” and instead just followed the giant finger that looked like it was telling me to swipe. So I kept swiping and never landing where I wanted. But what you’re actually supposed to do is tap and hold, then swipe in a direction until the tile you want to move to is selected, then let go. It definitely works a lot better, though I’m not 100% sure why it couldn’t just be tap-to-move to simplify things. Still, I managed to get to floor 5 before dying. The controls seem serviceable now, though I sometimes ran into trouble where it wouldn’t let me move up, only in the other directions. I’m still not super impressed with the game, as it doesn’t have that “one more round” pull to it that good roguelikes have. Anyway, I recommend checking out my new gameplay video to see if it’s something that might appeal to you.

Sky: Children of the Light

And last, we have yet another colored light to chase in Sky, this time Cyan. It’s part of the latest Forgotten Ark quest and makes permanent changes to it. There’s another tomorrow, so make sure not to miss it!

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this past week! I’m going to get back to working on my walkthrough for The Covenant and hopefully get some sleep now that I’ve broken off from my Kingdom addiction. Let me know in the comments section what you’ve been playing and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!

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