Flewn By: Gabriel Smetzer It's hard not to be instantly captivated by the screenshots advertising Gabriel Smetzer's new interactive story called Flewn about an old whale on stilts searching for the ocean. The artwork is definitely the game's strongest point. It looks almost like something out of a Tim Burton movie. While it is advertised as a game, there isn't much game here. It's primarily an interactive storybook in which you swipe…
A Good Snowman is Hard to Build By: Draknek Limited **Note: I edited parts of this review on December 12 to reflect some new information that came to my attention. I'm big fan of relaxed but challenging puzzle games, so I'd been looking forward to Draknek's A Good Snowman is Hard to Build ever since I saw the trailer for it. It finally made its way from PC to mobile and, while…
Star Billions By: James Cockerham (Catch & Release) I seem to be playing a lot of interactive fiction games lately. Star Billions by Catch & Release is the latest one and it's a notifications-based game that takes place in real time. It's about four robots with artificial intelligence that were sent on the spaceship called the Little Brother to find a hospitable planet for four million humans who left the dying Earth…
One Button Travel By: TheCodingMonkeys Let me say this right up front: I haven't played any of these "chat" games before, such as Lifeline or The Martian. I don't have an Apple Watch, and I didn't think the experience would be quite the same on an iPhone. But One Button Travel looked intriguing enough and the art style grabbed my attention. So I wanted to give it a try. It immediately made…
This year, I started writing monthly round-ups of everything I've been up to here on Appunwrapper. November was a really busy month for me so I missed the October roundup. Instead, you get a combined one for both October and November. It's a big one, so make some hot cocoa and cozy up by the fire! I'll start with what I consider the most important information and move down from there. Enjoy!…
Lumino City By: State of Play Games State of Play's Lumino City checks off so many boxes that would make for the perfect iOS point-and-click adventure game. Obviously, the part that stands out the most is its artwork. The scenery and puzzles were built by hand and then recorded using stop motion animation. So just about everything you see in the game is real, not CGI. That's a lot of effort to…
Dark Fear By: A Majothi (Arif Games) I'm not the biggest fan of pixel art, and I almost ignored Arif Games' Dark Fear because of its art. That would have been a huge mistake, as there's a really solid, enjoyable game here. I think in this case the pixel art works really well to capture that old school, retro feeling, as well as some uneasiness invoked by the dreadful atmosphere of the…
The Room Three By: Fireproof Games I didn't have an iPad when Fireproof Games' original The Room was released as an iPad-only game. I finally got to play it, but only the Pocket version on my small iPhone screen. The Room Two was also released first for iPad, then got a universal update a bit later. So while I played and thoroughly enjoyed both games before, I never got to experience them…