The Almost Gone By: Happy Volcano / Playdigious There are some games you know are made for you just from a couple of screenshots or GIFs. That's how it was with The Almost Gone from Happy Volcano and Playdigious. I'd been eagerly awaiting its release since I first caught glimpse of it, with its single-screen dioramas and low-poly art style. After playing through it, I can tell you it was certainly worth…
Little Orpheus By: Sumo Digital / The Chinese Room Sumo Digital and The Chinese Room somehow managed to keep a tight lid on their latest Apple Arcade title, Little Orpheus, until the very last moment, so I hadn't the slightest clue what to expect from it. Their teasers in the days leading to its release included cryptic quotes and two-dimensional artwork that turned out to be from the game's opening theme, but…
ALTER: Between Two Worlds By: Crescent Moon Games / Fivestones Games Fivestones Games made quite the first impression this week when they released their debut mobile game, a hand-drawn puzzler called ALTER: Between Two Worlds. It has you playing as Ana, a woman with the ability to warp between parallel dimensions that occupy the same space. By pushing cubes around, hitting switches and manipulating lasers, she can prove her mastery over enemies…
High Rise - A Puzzle Cityscape By: Florian Grolig Match-three games are one of my favorite genres to play on my iPhone when I have a few minutes to kill here and there. But I'm not talking about the free-to-play Candy Crush or its myriad of knock-offs. When a match-three game sucks me in and holds my attention, it's because it pushes the genre beyond what we're all used to. Match Six…
Kingdom Two Crowns By: Raw Fury Back in 2017 when Kingdom: New Lands (KNL) made its way over to iOS, I was impressed with the gorgeous pixel art, eerie soundtrack, and even the core gameplay loop. I liked the combination of actively running around to manage a kingdom, but not having to micromanage every worker. And while the short day and night cycles could be stressful, it kept the game moving at…
Worm Jazz By: Inconspicuous There are so many puzzle games in the App Store that I start and forget about long before completing them. But just a few minutes into Inconspicuous' Worm Jazz, I knew that wouldn't be the case here. Though I got interrupted by other games and didn't get to spend as much time with it as I wanted when it first released, I chipped away at it over the…
Hue - A Color Adventure By: BadLand Publishing / Fiddlesticks A while back, Fiddlesticks' Hue appeared in the pre-order section of the App Store without any warning. I had heard good things about it on other platforms, but never knew an iOS port was in the works. As a puzzle fan, I was excited about the news, especially since the game features a unique mechanic that has you messing around with colors…
A Fold Apart By: Lightning Rod Games Lightning Rod Games' paper-folding puzzler, A Fold Apart, was one of the Apple Arcade games I was most looking forward to. It has you folding photographs of a couple dealing with a long distance relationship, in order to connect broken paths and allow them to get to their destination. The idea of folding paper to solve puzzles isn't brand new, but it's rarely used and…
