Category: Mobile Game Releases

Games like Pokémon GO aren’t for anyone, but I’ve always quietly admired Niantic’s marriage of a popular IP, AR tech and incentive design. Sure, its grindy in the way the worst F2P games could often be, but I explored so many parks and places I’d never seen before when I dabbled in Pokémon GO a few years ago, and the game in general never made me feel pressured into spending money. Plus, you know, Pokémon!

Niantic’s latest foray into IP-based AR will be Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. You get to rock around being a wizard, basically, which I imagine is going to make some people unreasonably happy come the end of the week as the developer have just announced that the magic will start on Friday, June 21^st, 2019. For US and UK-based gamers, that is.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyZpNZbuEF8?controls=0]

We will be joining the ranks of the Australians and New Zealanders who’ve already been enjoying a soft-launch period for a while, and more regions are due to come online although we don’t have any details on the timetable.

Harry Potter is not my favourite IP – I think I’m actually a bit more excited about the Minecraft one – but I’ll probably jump into this for some tinkering on my shiny new Pixel 3XL, and you can expect more coverage from us going forward as this is something we want to keep on top of, at least for the short-term.

Harry Potter is due for release at the end of this week on iOS & Android.

By Josh Brown 18 Jun 2019

Another year, another E3 down. There was a bit more mobile love than I was expecting, all things considered, but still not so much that it prevented this week from being a bit on the slow side. Hopefully things will pick up again now that the madness is over. Make sure you check up our round-up of interesting tid-bits from yesterday because, one way or another, we’ve got some exciting things coming to mobile over the rest of the year!

Meanwhile, in the world of mobile gaming…

Out Now

We appear to be in a bit of a draught right now In terms of new releases that have really grabbed our attention. For once there isn’t a new rogue-like card game hitting the market, but neither is there anything else we like to see either.

However, there have been a couple of RPG releases that warrant further inspection, which we’ll summarise below:

Knights of Tartarus (iOS & Android)

This is another Crescent Moon Games release that harks back to the nostalgic days of 8-bit consoles and classic RPGs. It’s a bit on the pricey side, but it’s supposed to feature an vast open world, challenging puzzles and boss fights.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KfgeGOv6AE?controls=0]

Dark Quest 2 (iOS & Android)

A more tactical-based RPG along the lines we’re used to, this game is inspired by Hero Quest and has been out on PC and Consoles for a while. It features a vast single-player campaign, party-based gameplay and the usual trappings of a game of this nature. There’s some question as to how stable it is right now, so we’ll try and investigate as soon as we can.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYuo6ZOQKHY?controls=0]

As a final note, it seems Call of Duty: Mobile has soft-launched on iOS in Australia, if anyone was interested in checking it out and knows their way around a VPN (or is Australian). It’s also out on Android in certain parts of the world as well.

Updates

Nothing much to ‘headline’ this section this week, but there has been a round of updates from usual suspects. Star Traders: Frontiers continues to put all other devs to shame with a couple of minor content drops, AutoChess has made improvements to its Chess Pass along with some tweaks, and Evolution has updated again, although the description reads exactly like it did last time, so not sure what’s going on there. There’s a Reigns: Her Majesty update as well, but we don’t know what it’s done as of yet.

Deals

A few deals worth nothing this week:

Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!

By Joe Robinson 14 Jun 2019

By Joe Robinson 13 Jun 2019

Any reviewer will tell you that the fun of Cultist Simulator is the mystery. The obscure mechanics and gradual process of discovery are precisely what make the game such an evocative simulation of delving into the chthonic world of esoteric knowledge. While true, what they don’t tell you is that you can also get easily frustrated managing the game’s earlier, more mundane tasks. Cultist Simulator is one of the few games where you can starve to death in the first ten minutes from pure ignorance.

Whether you are brand new to the game or just someone who googled ‘Cultist Simulator Tips’ after staring blankly at its virtual table, this guide is for folks who want a softer landing when they’re getting started, but don’t want the cool stuff later on spoiled. Feel free to stop reading once you think you have enough to get going on your own!

The most important rule is this: pause the game. Don’t leave the timers running while you are trying to figure out what to do. Run time with a purpose and keep track of everything that is happening. Stop time when you need to check up on something, read some tooltip text, or sort your cards. It’s easy to get pulled into a complicated task without realizing something terrible is about to happen.

This can be difficult because the playing field is larger than you might expect, especially on a tablet. When you pause, be sure to zoom out and check the state of all your Action timers, and make sure no unexpected new ones have appeared. In addition to your standard Actions like Work, Study, and Dream, temporary ones will appear and are often an emergency you’ll want to deal with right away, like Sickness.

The most important one to keep track of is Time Passes, which consumes one Fund every minute and spits out a new Season that keeps things interesting. When Time finishes Passing, pause the game and check what new hell has been dealt to you so you can try to take it on. Once you are familiar with the Seasons, you can preview the one on deck by opening the action, giving you a chance to plan ahead.

Daily life

Your first priority is to acquire the Funds that are necessary to feed the Time Passes timer. For this task of course the Work action is what you need. Each of your basic resources, Passion, Reason, and Health, can feed Work. Using Health will spit out a single Fund for menial labor, plus a Vitality. Passion lets you try painting, which is unreliable in terms of Funds and generates Mystique that may be used against you but is good for your mental health. The most reliable is using Reason to get an office job. This generates a steady stream of Funds, but the job card will decay, so you have to show up to work constantly. This will continuously occupy the Work action, preventing you from using it for anything else. It’s hard to be a cult leader when you have a day job.

Mental health

After going destitute the next easiest way to prematurely end your life as a master of secrets is by going mad. There are a few cards you’ll want to keep track of here. Dread is one you’ll pick up frequently, and if the Despair action appears on the table it will draw Dread into it—three Dread will end the game. Contentment is what you need to counteract that, and the easiest way to obtain it is to use a Fund on Sleep to buy opium. Painting also generates Contentment on occasion, and painting can consume the Restlessness cards before they decay into Dread too. Fascination is the opposite of Dread and accumulating three of those can also doom you to madness. Luckily you can actually use Dread to consume Fascination through Sleep. Dream is also the action you’ll use to care for your mundane health, helping you clear any Afflictions with Funds (medicine) or Vitality.

Self-improvement

One of your first projects can be upgrading your Abilities. All three basic Abilities have an Advancement that you can Study two of to give said Ability a boost. Two Vitality gets you more Health, a pair of Eruditions gain Reason and a couple Glimmerings net Passion. Studying any of your basic Abilities will get you the Advancement cards, but there are plenty of other ways too, so keep your eyes peeled. Each further level  will take more and better Advancement cards.

Baby’s first cult

Eventually you’ll pick up your first piece of Lore, probably from reading a book you really shouldn’t have. These are the color-coded cards with inscrutable descriptions that are your first step to the deeper mysteries. One of the first things you can do with Lore that you might not have thought of is put it on the Talk action. This sends you out proselytizing to the streets and will probably get you a new Acquaintance that can easily become your first cult member.

That should be enough to keep you playing for your first hour without dying in a gutter. After that you’re on your own. I fear I have written too much of the deeper mysteries already. Remember: “The Wood grows around the walls of the Mansus. As any student of Histories knows, the Mansus has no walls.”

Do you have any tips or tricks for getting through the early stages of Cultist Simulator? Let us know in the comments!

Feud has one of the most irreverent app store descriptions that I have ever had the pleasure to read. Not only does it make for a refreshing change from the usual shameless hyperbole but it also provides some potentially life-saving health and safety advice concerning the perils of open manholes. The game itself is a two-player strategy game in which each player takes it in turns to move their pieces around a chequered board with the aim of capturing their opponent’s king. As you may have already guessed, Feud shares many of its sensibilities with the granddaddy of all abstract board games. It follows in the quirky footsteps of the slurred-sounding Chesh and the really rather good Really Bad Chess, by messing with the established rules of Chess to create a fresh new challenge.

A few quick calculations reveal that the board in Feud has only sixteen spaces and that there are a total of sixteen pieces. As a result, the pieces are packed tighter than Tokyoites on a commuter train. This means that the only way to move around the board is to swap places with orthogonally adjacent pieces. The crammed board is viewed from overhead in either a portrait or landscape orientation. Before the game commences, each player will place their king on one of the four spaces in the back row. This will determine the starting positions of all of their other pieces. Each turn a player must first switch the positions of one of their pieces with an adjacent one and they then have the option to carry out a single action. You do not have to take an action but if you fail to take an action for three consecutive turns then you automatically lose the game. The space constraints may mean that there are fewer movement possibilities than in Chess, but these special actions go some way to making up for this.

The King is the most important piece; he doesn’t have a special action and if he dies you lose the game. Wizards can teleport, which allows them to swap places with any other friendly piece, not just adjacent ones. Archers can make a ranged attack in a straight line, either horizontally or vertically. Shields cannot be moved by the opposing player and their positioning will block an archer’s line of sight. Knights get an extra attack and medics can heal up to four adjacent friendly pieces for one health point each. Kings and shields begin the game with four health points, whilst all other pieces have three points. When a piece attacks an enemy it will inflict a single point of damage. Reduce an opposing piece to zero health points and it will be removed from the board.

The combatants are a rather insecure bunch, feeling the need to be adjacent to other friendly pieces in order to function. An isolated piece is therefore useless, and if at any time all of your remaining pieces are isolated, you will lose the game. It may sound simple enough – until you start playing that is. The chain of repercussions that accompany each and every move will soon have you turning mental somersaults. Things get even more fraught as players begin to lose pieces and the board opens up. Now, the problem of leaving your pieces isolated becomes ever more pressing. In a face-to-face match, Feud can really put you in a state of analysis paralysis, which will often leave your opponent twiddling their thumbs and wishing that the developers had included a timer in order to speed things up.

Let us take a look at the aesthetics, and I should make it clear that I am not talking about the apparent dashing good looks of Feud’s developers. I love how the cute buttoned-eyed characters stop blinking when they become isolated. The top-down view means that the pieces are easy to distinguish and the interface is both clean and smooth. However, not being particularly good at thinking ahead, I do miss the opportunity to take back a mistaken or disastrous move. Although games do not take long, I would still have appreciated the option to save a game that is in progress. As it is, returning to the main menu will cancel your current game.

Feud definitely falls into the easy to learn, difficult to master category. The tutorial is nicely presented and will have you ready to play in no time at all. There is a hint system that will recommend a move when you are hopelessly stuck but it would have been nice to have an advanced tutorial to take you through an actual game and explain the thinking behind some of the moves. As it stands, I found myself initially feeling a bit clueless as to what approach to take and how to formulate a strategy. I did quickly discover though that the starting player usually snatches the impetus, giving them a distinct advantage. 

There is a hot seat mode, which allows you to take part in a face-to-face battle, or you can challenge an AI opponent.  The AI has two difficulty levels and three different play styles. An aggressive opponent will throw everything into recklessly pursuing your king, a defensive AI focuses on protecting their own king, whilst a sneaky challenger will try their best to isolate all of your pieces. The easy AI isn’t up to much, but the hard one gave me a decent challenge. I have always been a bit rubbish at these types of games and so a more capable player may have a different story to tell.

There is always the option to find an online opponent and you can play cross-platform against iOS, Android, PC, Mac and Linux users. Currently, online games are limited to asynchronous games with a 24-hour turn deadline. This does mean that games can drag on and the option for a quicker turnaround would be much appreciated. There isn’t a ranking system either, which can lead to some one-sided games that are not much fun for either player. Aside from a few negatives, Feud is a clever and compelling abstract game and better still it is entirely free to play. So you have nothing to lose by giving it a try.

I confess I have been somewhat lax in my boardgame-fanboy duties as of late. We are inundated with all and sundry new releases each year (mostly clustered around the fall conventions) and generally get served more new games than we know what to do with. This inevitably means some worthy releases pass by without enough notice. Mystic Vale is the latest to cross-over from cardboard to the app store(s). The result is a surprisingly punchy lightweight, rapid-fire push-your-luck game, remixing relatively new trends in mechanics (deck-building & customization) with the tried-and-true (set collection, engine building). It is a good game and faithful app, but a little flat and perfunctory as well. Mystic Vale is generally a worthy super-filler, and the digital app gets the job done.

To cleanse the land of corruption, competing tribes of druids graft on ever-more-potent magical allies, animal spirits and the like to turn the tide. Every player starts with an identical deck of cards and takes turns drawing from the land’s energy to fuel more magical improvements. But the tainted land is strong as well and will leave greedy players empty-handed.

There’s a Mario Party minigame where the players take turns inflating a comically oversized balloon until it pops, exploding with (again, comedic) force and knocking out contestants one by one until there is only the winner left. The spirit, if not the mechanic, of push-your-luck, is crystallized into this image. Players can calculate the risks and independently decide how far they want to push their luck for a greater reward. Mystic Vale does this with its Spoiled Lands, drawing every turn until three corrupted symbols appear. The player can choose to draw more cards, one by one, increasing their rewards in the process, but also risk busting and ending their turn prematurely with nothing to show for it. Push-your-luck is so satisfying because it breaks a large risk down into delicious increments. It’s difficult to do well, aside from very pure, refined implementations (e.g. Can’t Stop).

To its credit, Mystic Vale make it  one of the central decisions of each turn, and then tasks successful players with spending their mana & spirit symbols to further enhance their decks. Each deck cycles through 20 cards with a top, middle, and bottom region which can each be enhanced with purchases from a common pool of cards. The game’s iconography is crystal-clear, and its elements as stripped-down as can be.

In addition to the primary resource, mana, there are four elemental symbols as well as a ‘guardian’ subtype with tribal synergy. Most purchases simply enhance a deck’s mana and victory point yield during the harvest, but the bigger swings in ‘tech’ improvements come from the vale cards. These are also purchased after the harvest, but instead of using mana, players must have a match of the symbols of the vale. A few give straight-up victory points, but the more interesting offerings give unique effects (bonus mana, avoiding spoilage, wild symbol conversion) to dramatically accelerate the game’s pace.

The game feels aggressively midrange for such a naturalistic-shamanistic setting, for the whole affair is over in under twenty turns (Which passes in no time at all on the app). It ends just as things really start taking off for the players, kinda like with Splendor. It has achieved an amazing balance of brevity and strategy, for players must constantly assess which engine to build and how. Pretty much every card is viable and competitive, some with niches smaller than others. Mana and timing constraints mean that even winning decks often have jury-rigged, rag-tag elements mixed in with the rest.

The endgame comes so quickly because the pacing is up to the players. Instead of a set number of turns, the game is scaled around a victory point pool. Once it is completely divvied up amongst players, the game is over. More involved multi-card synergies will generate gonzo points in a single turn, but are they worth the lengthy set-up? Alternatively, is it worth scrimping a few victory points each turn if everyone else is planning for a deferred late game? It’s a simple but elegant change which turns game length into another strategic element to be decided by the dynamic equilibrium generated by the players.

The app makes the art look inorganic and forced, as if the graphical assets were used to recreate the tabletop visual as literally as possible. (They also appear to scale poorly). Functionality and legibility are top-notch. Music and layout are both serviceable, and the app has a touch of whimsy about its loading-screen text, but generally this implementation is a by-the-numbers affair. It is good but not to be oversold, like when the game boasts of its ‘card crafting system’. Lastly, Mystic Vale has both an in-game rule reference, a card compendium, as well as the obligatory introductory tutorial series, so props for thoroughness on that front.

Now for the bad news. Everything Mystic Vale does well recalls a stronger instance in another game. As an experience or an instruction in game design, it’s masterful. But there are other lightweight games I love more, and other quick-playing games with a little more control or strategy on tap. The game itself couldn’t be further than kitchen-sink, but in terms of gaming niches this is precisely the trap it falls into. Maybe this is the hobbyist curmudgeon in me, but it feels as if Mystic Vale’s strengths do not actually further its appeal.

Mystic Vale is refined and sharp, better than most of its kind, that of a mid-range, easy-to-learn, decently competitive multiplayer deck builder. Its individual components are better represented by other games, and honestly it isn’t really that strategic, but it is extremely well-made and fun. The app is a fairly priced way to experience it, with decent AI and timed multiplayer. Good, but not excellent.

It’s good to be back, hope you all managed to survive with out me. This week I’ve been making a concerted effort to be pro-active with smaller, news-y bits to break-up the Reviews/Reposts/Weekender cycle that nominated much of May, hope you’ve enjoyed the wider variety of topics. Next week we’ve got a gameplay guide, at least one review and then some other goodies in the pipe for later in the month.

It’s E3 next week but I’m not expecting much mobile-specific news unless it’s platform related (like Google Stadia from this morning).

Meanwhile, in mobile gaming…

Out Now

Mystic Vale (iOS & Android) – Full review coming soon!

2019’s conquest of digital board games continue, with Nomad Games bringing another popular table-top experience to mobile. Deck-building is starting to become a crowded genre with Mystic Vale’s Druidic offering, although new twists in the form of card crafting and a ‘decay’ system that can end your turn early promise to keep things fresh. Michael’s already on the case with this review, so look to the East next week for our own verdict. The mobile version comes with the Vale of Magic expansion included at no extra cost, although it’s listed as a separate IAP.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsvjUY9p0WE?controls=0]

Also on our Radar:

Infectonator 3: Apocalypse (iOS) – The third instalment in a franchise where you play as the zombies trying to destroy the world, this one looks like it could be interesting but early reports suggest it’s quite buggy, so we’re going to wait and see.

Lovecraft’s Untold Stories (iOS) – Lovecraft x Roguelike makes for an interesting, if slightly overdone combination, but the price-tag means this will have to work pretty hard to impress. Take one of five heroes across randomly generated worlds, fighting unspeakable horrors.

SSC 2019 (iOS) – Uprising Games returns with the 2019 version of their free-to-play retro-themed soccer game. Mentioned only because sports releases are so rare, but beware the F2P trappings. New additions include improved AI, Online 2 player matches and a data editor.

Updates

Evolution: The Video Game (iOS & Android) (Review)

While the digital adaptation still doesn’t have async play, the recent update this week now means you do pass and play for up to four players. You rotate the device between players when picking traits but feeding happens simultaneously from multiple edges of the screen. There’s also been some extra optimization work and larger text for tutorials and cards.

Star Traders: Frontiers (iOS & Android) (Review)

Those mad bastards known as the Trese Brothers have updated Star Traders: Frontiers twice this week. The first on added a new Bounty Hunter vignette as well a host of other fixes and clarifications, while the second update added new Steel Song faction modules, a new starting ship that’s great for spying, and some balance tweaks around strike craft.

Auto Chess (iOS & Android)

The beta for the official mobile version of DOTA Auto Chess is well underway, with the app now in the iOS app store under the name Auto Chess: Origins. There’s been an update this week although I’m not 100% sure on the details, but recent big changes include the official introduction of a Season system, a Battle Pass, various Account improvements and optimisations and bug fixes.

Sales

Only a couple of sales of note this week – Ironhide’s sci-fi RTS Iron Marines is down to $2.99 on iOS & Android, while award-winning puzzle game Monument Valley 2 is also $2.99 on iOS.

You may also have spotted that Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lion is discounted on all mobile platforms, although the price is not as good as it was during the Black Friday sale last year. Also, playing that game on mobile kinda sucks. Don’t @ Me.

Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!

By Joe Robinson 07 Jun 2019