Category: Mobile Game Releases

As Nick mentioned last week, The Weekender is dead. Long live the Weekender! Or rather, long live whatever will rise to take it’s place. He’s not leaving us, and we still want to let you know what deals crop up, what new games are out etc… it’s just that we may change-up how we do that.

For starters, I’m going to be handling a lot more of it myself which will free up Nick to work on bigger and better things. We’re going to be trying out a new monthly column, and I imagine he will return to reviewing & feature work as well. His first entry of the new column will drop on Friday, November 30th.

For the sake of easing the transition, I’ve put together a weekend gaming guide myself this week along the lines you’re used to. This will probably start changing over time as we figure out how best to deal with the various elements that made Out Now/The Weekender so valuable.

What We’ve Been Up to

As far as the week goes, we kicked things off with our belated review of Stardew Valley, and then followed up with an even more belated review of colourful puzzler ELOH. Yesterday we put up a guide to some quality free games on iOS, and C&C Rivals’ release date was revealed.

What do we have coming up? Well our writers are hard at work, and over the next week (or so), you may see the following:

• Reviews of Element RTS & Love Letter.
• An in-depth look at C&C Rivals.
• Another round of updates to key guides (although I’ll try not to do as many, as soon).

We’re also interested in looking at some of the games below, but those articles are unlikely to be turned around in time for next week.

Meanwhile, in mobile gaming…

Out Now

For now, unless otherwise stated, assume that we haven’t managed to get any hands-on time with these games. As we transition to this new world order it will take a while before I can start testing out games as Nick did. Thank you for your patience.

Old School Runescape (iOS Universal & Android) – Full review planned!

One of the headline releases for this week – this classic version of iconic MMORPG Runescape has made the jump to mobile. I remember playing this game back in the early early days, before World of Warcraft came out (Runescape was first launched in 2001, WoW dropped in ’04). ‘Old School’ Runescape is based on an older version of the game from 2007 which was released in 2013 as a stand-alone experience.

It’s a free-to-play game with a subscription option (check the store page for details on what you get), and the development is entirely community driven. For new content to be added to the game, it needs to pass a 75% vote. This mobile port also has cross-platform enabled, so you can play it on any device. Unlike a lot of MMO/RPGs, there’s no central narrative – it’s a wholly sandbox environment, with both PvE and PvP content. And FAQ with more details can be found here.

[embedded content]

Football Manager 2019 Touch (iPad & Android)
Football Manager 2019 Mobile (iOS Universal & Android)

Football Manager’s annual release is upon us, and this time it’s come with a slight name change. I’m not sure what the significance is in not having the year at the end, but I’m sure it was super-important.

As a reminder, FM Touch is a streamlined version of the PC game that only works on tablets, where-as FM Mobile is a bespoke game, offering a slim-downed version of Football Manager to account for the fact that it also works on phones. We reviewed FM Touch 2018 a couple of months ago, and changes in the 2019 version include new tactical styles, the inclusion of the German Bundesliga and a new UI interface

New features in FM 19 Mobile include the introduction of licensed kits, new leagues from Russian and China and similar UI enhancements. We’ll get you a review of at least one of these as soon as we can.

[embedded content]

Farabel (iOS Universal & Android) – Full review planned!

Another one for the review pile, Farabel is a turn-based strategy game where players start at the end of the story, at maximum power. As you progress through the campaign, you jump back in time and you and your get weaker and weaker as you try and fight to save your city.

It’s an interesting twist on the typical design of a strategy game campaign, and I wish I’d been able to give you some hands-on thoughts. Other features include a challenge mode, a ‘classic’ mode that has you build an army via a points-buy system and see what you can do with it and a ‘defence’ mode.

[embedded content]

Squids Odyssey (iOS Universal & Android)

Something different to round-off our new releases – it’s another premium turn-based strategy game, but one with a colourful and unique aesthetic. Squids Odyssey has you building a team of heroic squids to take on crabs and other pesky crustaceans across 90+ missions and a variety of classes and squad combinations.

I’m afraid all we can provide is the trailer, but this might be an interesting break from the usual turn-based tactics games we get… although, you’ve got to really like sea creatures, I guess. We might take a look at this one ourselves at some point.

[embedded content]

Updates

Pocket City (Review) (iOS Universal & Android)

One of our favourite releases of the year, Pocket City has received a major content update that includes a larger map option for new cities (inc. sandbox), some UI improvements on the new iPhone XS, XS Max & XR and a new ‘Zoo’ structure, to name but a few things. It’s always great to have an excuse to jump in to an excellent game.

Stardew Valley (Review) (iOS Universal)

The seminal farming/rpg sim has had a string of mobile updates since it’s release last week, the latest of which including some stability fixes for mine levels, and control improvements for fishing. Anyone using an iPhone XR will also now have the correct resolution displaying.

A lot of the updates deal with minor bug-fixing and QoL improvements but keep an eye out for the major overhaul coming to the game’s control schemes on mobile. The developers have confirmed these are in the works, but we don’t know when they’ll land. We do know some of the details though, as this updated wiki page highlights. A lot of options there!

Sales

Zombie Rogue (Review) (iOS Universal & Android) – $1.99

We weren’t a fan of this one, but plenty of people came out in its defence in the comments so it’s worth highlighting that this has been discounted. Zombie-themed survival horror with a twist.

Heroes of Steel RPG Elite (iOS Universal & Android) – $1.99

One of the Trese Brother’s games, Heroes of Steel is a turn-based fantasy RPG that takes you through a winding, epic adventure as you try to protect the last remnants of humanity. Like most Trese games, there’s a free version you can try, but the premium game is now discounted to just a couple of bucks. Please note, you can’t transfer save game data between the free and premium versions.

Reiner Knizia’s Modern Art: The Card Game (iOS Universal) – $0.99

Another Knizia game, we’ve not actually taken a look at this one before, but it’s only a dollar if anyone wants to speculate. It’s described as a card game of management and valuation. You must drive up the prices of your favourite artworks, holding out for the best price.

Age of Rivals (Review) (iOS Universal & Android) – $1.99

A PT favourite, Age of Rivals is discount again to only a couple of bucks. It’s been cheaper but not since June 2017 and that seems like a one-off so far. This is still a fair price for an excellent strategy boardgame.

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

Apple’s walled garden approach to their app store means that a lot of the worst of the internet gets filtered out, but you lose a lot of freedom too. Android may be the platform of pirates and hackers, but it’s also where the craziest indie developers can go wild. In the end, that wall only protects users from creative, ardent, independent makers, while letting the worst of big money gatcha trash through.

Are you one of our Android readers? Fear not, we have a guide to the best free games on Android as well!

But, whaddya know? I did some digging and some generous souls have released a few truly free strategy, board, RPG, and puzzle games on iOS, supported only by free donations. Not freemium, no ads, no IAP, no loot. True freeware! It’s enough to restore your faith in humanity. Oh, of course, these are (almost) all available on Android too, obviously.

This passion project brings Civilization to your mobile phone. The interface is a bit goofy looking, using sometimes disparate icons and cartoony skeumorphic buttons. The gameplay, though, is all there. It has all the features you would expect from Civ, including random and historical maps, way too many starting civilizations, the whole Civ tech tree with all your favorites, Gandhi threatening you with nukes, everything.

The AI is okay, but there is also the option to play on LAN or online. If you like it, there is a donation button and totally optional ads that you can watch to support the developer. Also on Android.

There’s not a lot of RTS on iOS to begin with, so you may be shocked to learn that one of the best examples of it is totally free. Warfare Incorporated is a time-tested game going back to the heyday of real-time strategy, being originally built for PalmOS in 2003. It’s mastered touch controls for RTS, with an interface that appears when you need it and goes away when you don’t, and a smart multi-touch box for selecting groups of units.

The graphics are dated, but it’s easy to tell units apart and tap on the right spots. The game has a classic sci-fi setup, with rival corporations competing over an alien planet in its campaign mode, but the real star are the hundreds of user-created missions you can download and the online multiplayer, making Warfare Incorporated a stock that will never crash. Also available on Android.

Or, if you disparage real-time strategy as shallow “micro” tap-tap-tapping, one of the deepest and most venerable wargame franchises is also available for free on iOS. Open Panzer is basically the classic Panzer General II on your phone with controls exceptionally well-adapted for mobile play.

Set in World War II, as all the best wargames are, Open Panzer charges you with commanding historically “semi-accurate” troops through over seventy different scenarios. These troops number in the thousands, so think carefully and try the tutorial first if you’ve never played a General game before. That said, if you’re a newcomer to wargaming, Open General is a great starting point. Also available on Android.

This boardgame-like strategy game has a lot of really interesting ideas underneath its minimalistic exterior. You build farms and towers to support a small army of troops. The trick is that each soldier has supply requirements, so if your development isn’t balanced or you are over-extended, your opponents will quickly cut you down to size.

All the math can be done on one hand, leaving you to focus on predicting your opponent’s moves. It’s thoughtful in much the same way chess is. Also, you have to deal with rapidly-growing forests eating up your farmland, which I don’t remember being a feature of chess, but I might be forgetting. Also available on Android.

This is basically Card Crawl but free, so go get it. In this card-based dungeon-crawler, you have to clear the deck of cards by using potions and food to keep your strength up while you kill monsters. Food acts as energy, monsters drain your health, potions restore it, and gems are needed to draw a new board. Manage your resources well, and you’ll get new special ability cards that add whole new twists to the basic gameplay. Mind Cards’ simple cycle adapts well to new abilities, which keeps it exciting as you learn to master new cards and push yourself further into the card dungeon.

Occidental Heroes scratches a similar itch as indie hit Battle Brothers, albeit in a much more limited fashion. You take command of a group of three mercenaries in a fictional medieval (not magical) world seemingly influenced by Darklands. You’re responsible for company management and battlefield tactics. The tactical layer is interesting enough since each unit type has quite distinct abilities. A lot of the game is procedurally generated and there is permadeath.

Though there’s no overarching story, there’s lots of little touches to make the world feel more alive. Each mercenary has a background that may come into play on the battlefield or may help you avoid conflict by parlaying with enemies, and they can retire and complete their tale if you can get them enough reputation. The developer is still adding more to the game, but right now the gameplay is solid and the rewards compelling. Also available on Android.

Pathos is a very successful attempt to bring a streamlined form of Nethack to iOS. It takes the basic roguelike classic design and cuts away all the fat. Moreover, it keeps the controls and interface super-smooth so they stay out of the way of your goblin-slaying. There’s still lots and lots to do and think about, unless you want to die horribly. You have thirteen classes, pets, potions, a wide variety of monsters, the whole shebang.

A lot of the stuff that was removed was more annoying details of Nethack, like rusting weapons, and good riddance One of the best (worst?) parts of Pathos is the default graphic set, which looks like it was copied from the first page of Google Image Search results for “fantasy sprites”. If you are less charmed by the kitsch, there are several more traditional sets. Also available on Android.

On the other hand, if you want the full-fat roguelike experience, the true form of Nethack is playable on iOS as well. Nethack is an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink (no really, you can die by hitting your head on a kitchen sink) take on roguelikes and its thirty-year development has resulted in some delightful bloat. That said, the iOS port iNethack2 uses the system keyboard and suggested commands to give you full access to the systems of the game while keeping things manageable on mobile. It has sprite sets too, if you are one of those people who just can’t see a purple ampersand as a demogorgon in your mind’s eye.

Jumping into Vampire’s Fall, you will be instantly transported back to 1996 and the town of the original Diablo, down to the identical (?) fonts. You are a vampire and the king is dead (oh no!) and the big bad Witchmaster has returned so it’s time to kill some rats and level up until you can kick his ass. Unlike Diablo, combat plays out in turn-based form rather than action real time.

It’s not the deepest, but you do have multiple skills and the ability to pick up and use new gear. It’s a straightforward but fairly polished traditional RPG experience. Like World of Empires, it does have IAP and ads, but they are both meant only as voluntary donations–you have to seek out a certain character in town to either pass the developer some cash or put some eyeballs on his ad buys. Also available on Android.

Finally, a puzzle game. Mekorama looks a lot like the iOS instant classic Monument Valley or the indie game Fez, but it’s not quite so devious as those games–its three-dimensional environments are really three-dimensional, no tricks.

There’s an adorable robot that needs to get from the start to the finish, and you can rotate the mazes, drag parts of the environment around, and tap to guide the little guy to the finish. There are mountains of levels, and a level creator that outputs QR codes, making it a snap to share and download new mazes. The IAP are purely for donations. Also available on Android.

Any other iOS games you’ve discovered that are really freeware? Remember: no ads or IAP that aren’t totally donations.

We were just as sceptical as you guys were when we first heard about the existence of Command & Conquer: Rivals. It IS a pretty cynical use of a much loved franchise that hasn’t had a decent try in years, after all.

At the same time, looking at what we’ve seen so far (including Dan’s hands-on time with the game at E3), I still think there’s room for Rivals to surprise us all. Plenty of people who’ve actually played the game have suggested that it’s actually pretty decent. Behind the abused license seem to lurk a paced, deep tactics game that just wants to be given a chance.

[embedded content]

Which you can do come December 4th, when the game releases worldwide on both iOS and Android devices.

As EA themselves point out, this isn’t a “drop-and-watch” game like other competitive strategy tiles on mobile. You do have control of your units through all stages of a match. EA are also pretty serious about making this a major mobile title for them, as indicated by their yearly earnings report:

It will also be our next official EA competitive gaming franchise, with a complete ecosystem beginning to roll out in Q4, including community tournaments and a championship pro scene. This is a fast-paced, head-to-head strategy game that is easy to play, a lot of fun, and perfect for competitive play. We’ve had great engagement and feedback in our soft-launch testing, and strong interest from competitive players. This is our first entry into mobile esports, and we’re excited for Command & Conquer: Rivals to expand our global audience of players and spectators.

What is currently unknown, and what we’ll be looking closely at, is the monetisation systems. EA have a bad reputation in this space, and I doubt their overall strategy will shift dramatically for Rivals, but if we’re lucky, it may be just enough to make it worth-while. The influences of games like Fortnite also can’t be ignored, which subsist largely on cosmetic DLC – proof, of sorts, that you don’t need to resort to pay-to-win to engage your player base.

You can go to the official website if you want to try and get in on the pre-release activity on iOS, and on Android you can just register directly on the Google Play store.

Command & Conquer Rivals will release world-wide on iOS and Android December 4th, 2018.

By Joe Robinson 31 Oct 2018

What is ELOH? An acronym? Is it the god of the Hebrews? Is it HOLE backwards? In a world where words no longer have stable meanings, perhaps it is simply the best (and most Googleable) name for a chilled-out puzzle game with an elegant musical twist.

Essentially, what we have here is the classic light-and-mirrors puzzle, but instead of light, you have bouncing balls and instead of mirrors you have blocks in the shape of animal heads. That sounds strange, but the aesthetic really works, especially coupled with the sound design. ELOH has a jungle theme with animal noises and drumbeats, plus a smooth, flat, totemic animation style that will look familiar if you’ve played any mobile puzzle game of the last five years.

At the most basic level, you’re moving blocks into different set positions to bounce balls around the field from set sources into set holes. Tapping the speaker will start the stream flowing, and as the balls successfully land in the cup, a pedestal will rise from the bottom carrying your prize: the button to continue to the next level.

As the puzzles get more difficult, you get more options and tricks to work with. Some blocks can only move from one end of a track to the other and need to be carefully positioned by impeding their movement with other blocks. Others change the color of the balls, making them only able to exit the arena through the matching-colored hole. Gates allow one color of ball through but reflect the others back in another direction. While each is introduced individually, the different abilities each block brings build upon each other in natural and intuitive ways to gradually increase the difficulty and complexity of the puzzles. Each puzzle uses the building blocks in a slightly new way, keeping the game challenging but progressive.

It takes some experimentation to solve each puzzle. Some of the easier ones may be unexpectedly brute-forced, since there’s a relatively limited number of states the game board can be set to. A more complicated game would give you more freedom in setting up the board, but we’re dealing with a nice relaxing mobile puzzler here. It’s fun to start shooting balls around at first, then deduce some of the limitations you are working with, and finally work each piece of the puzzle into its proper place. It’s not too mind-twisting, but you do get nice aha moments every few puzzles. 

None of the puzzles should take longer than a few minutes to bounce your way through, but there’s over eighty of them, so you’re looking at a few good hours of gameplay for your minimal upfront investment (No ads or IAP to be found). Since the design of the puzzles is so straightforward, it’s a little disappointing there’s no option to create and share your own designs: with infinite user-made levels to try, this would really be a must-buy for puzzle fans.

There’s a musical element to the game, but the rhythmically-challenged can have no fear. The balls that fly around the level pop out of their trumpet to the beat. Striking each block produces a different percussive sound, and forms complex polyrhythms as a series of balls clang pop and bump off of each surface. Combined with the relaxing ambient animal sounds, the overall effect is soothing, yet also culminates in a very satisfying groove by the time you finish each puzzle. That said, there’s no absolute need to play with headphones if you don’t want to.

What really makes the game a pleasure to play is the amazing attention to detail. For instance, the gradual but insistent movement of the prize pedestal as you solve a puzzle feels very satisfying in a way a simple “you won” would not. Partial solutions will only raise the pedestal partway, encouraging you to try again. Also, each block seems to have its own personality. They sleep at the beginning of the puzzle, but as you bounce balls off of them, their faces pop and contort delightfully. Enigmatic splash pages introduce each set of puzzles and the new blocks that will join the line-up.

It’s not revolutionary, but ELOH is a good puzzle game that develops its central ideas well and puts them in a very attractive package.

Stardew Valley, the Herculean effort from sole designer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone, is massively popular across every platform it’s been ported to – and that’s practically everything, including PS Vita and Nintendo Switch. Now you can cross iOS (with Android coming soon) off the list at long last, with the long-awaited mobile version of the indie farming sim/role-playing game finally out on the market. It’s available now for just about anyone who wants to carve out some time to try the accessible yet challenging sim game, and its mobile iteration is its most ambitious yet. It succeeds at making farming and everything that goes with it a fun and intriguing adventure for just about everyone, too, albeit with a few small missteps that come with the mobile territory.

The game invites you to take on the mammoth responsibility of caring for your late grandfather’s farm, which is a sizable plot of land that lays in disrepair. It’s your job to build up your plot of land to its former glory while getting on with the other citizens of Pelican Town, where the game all goes down. This includes growing crops, raising livestock, and performing a variety of important activities that all take place in day-to-day farming. Much like the very similar Harvest Moon series, you’ve got to take care of everything on your own, whether that means clearing your farming area of bushes and rocks to make space for crops, watering them, harvesting them, and collecting supplies to keep things running smoothly.

Planting crops and harvesting them means you’ll turn a profit, of course, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Crafting, raising livestock, and interacting with the NPCs around you play large roles in the game as well. There’s always something new to do, whether you’re getting to know the abundance of NPCs out in the world, learning to fish and selling off your hard-fought spoils, or heading into the mines to become a seasoned member of the Adventurer’s Guild. There really feels as though there’s no end to what you can accomplish, no matter if you’re just starting out or heading back in for round two, three, or four – no shame!

But despite all of these things being available for you at any given time, there’s no real push to try and make you concentrate on one thing out of it all. You can explore as you wish, at your own leisurely pace, whether you spend an entire day weeding your fledgling farmland or meet up with the locals before going to your in-game bed to advance time to the next day. If there’s a special someone you enjoy speaking to and getting to know, there’s even a chance you might marry them one day, which is a delight in and of itself.

There’s always something more to do around the corner, and the game reminds you of this at every turn. But it never forces you into completing objectives if you don’t want to. It continually introduces new optional quests to take on as it gently pushes you to dig deeper into the systems it’s already lavished you with. It’s difficult to believe all this content is the work of one man, as it’s polished and in fine form, and all here laid out for you to enjoy once more, even if you’ve clocked an ungodly number of hours on another platform.

Mechanically, Stardew Valley‘s iOS version is just as sound as ever. It’s the same fantastic, content-rich game you’ve likely played on just about every other platform. Unfortunately, the mobile version makes a few sacrifices to make it accessible for players on the go. You can tap on the screen to make your character travel to a certain point and tap and drag. It works well enough, but it can be frustrating when navigating tight quarters such as your farmland, which is lined with rocks and other obstacles at the beginning of the game.

What’s more, your tool line-up is set on the left side of the screen in the vertical position, which makes tapping or dragging your character to travel in that direction a pain when you’re forever accidentally hitting a tool instead of heading to the next screen. This is an issue those who play on other platforms won’t run into and isn’t a huge problem, but it’s massively frustrating sometime when you keep having to switch from tool to tool instead of moving to the next screen. Combat controls don’t get any better, but it’s serviceable. Again, these are minor problems in the grand scheme of things (such as the whole of Stardew Valley being available here on mobile), but it’s also enough to drive one to hope for MFi controller support in the future.

Additionally, there’s no multiplayer option available, though it’s not exactly the version I’d recommend playing with others on – it’s still something players would like to see eventually, though, myself included.

Stardew Valley on iOS is another excellent version of the popular farming title, and while it has its own platform-related peculiarities, it’s still very much the same fantastic product, with everything you love about the other versions packed in here. It’s a great and affordable way to experience the full game if you haven’t already, and while you might get a touch annoyed with its mobile-centric control scheme, it’ll still suck you in immediately for the long haul – better settle in.

Welcome to the final installment of The Weekender. Yes, this is the very last edition and for those who have checked in weekly, and swung by for Out Now before that, thanks much for your interest and support! I’m going out with a bang, by which I mean a full slate of great new games and sales to check out. Let’s get to it. 

Out Now

STARDEW VALLEY (IOS UNIVERSAL)

Legendary Steam game Stardew Valley has made, what has to be, one of the bigger leaps to mobile this year. It’s a farming-simulation game where you step into the shoes of a disgruntled office worker who leaves their job in favor of managing their deceased grandfather’s farm in Stardew Valley. The farm has fallen into disrepair and your job is all about prioritizing the tasks necessary to bring it back to flourishing.

[embedded content]

There’s a ton to do, both on the farm and in terms of the town’s social scene, and the game is a big sandbox where you really can do whatever you desire. Stardew Valley does a great job of setting up that short/medium/long term goal cycle so that you’re always after the next thing and time flies while playing. 

DARKEST DUNGEON: THE COLOR OF MADNESS (IPAD)

Gothic-styled roguelike Darkest Dungeon is a compelling, party-based, combat-centric game with a focus on the toll that adventuring in Lovecraftian dungeons has on the adventurers. It’s layered, entertaining, and more than a little frustrating. A new expansion, The Color of Madness, was just released for iPad and adds a new region called the Farmstead.

[embedded content]

Along with it comes a new enemy faction (The Miller and his workmen), three new bosses, new trinkets, new quirks your hirelings can become afflicted with, four new districts for your hamlet, and a new Endless Quest mode where you must face unending waves of enemies. As if things weren’t hard enough already! All this can be yours for a $5 in-app-purchase. 

LOVE LETTER (IOS UNIVERSAL AND ANDROID)

Love Letter is a game of bluffing and strategy where up to four players vie to get a letter to a princess shut in a high tower. It’s one of the most entertaining tabletop card games to play with a group, preferably over adult beverages. It’s also now a digital game on both mobile and Steam.

[embedded content]

I understand that everything is making its way to digital these days, and that’s all for the good, but so much of Love Letter is about reading the table that I can’t imagine it’ll be quite the same. Regardless, it’s available now and a great game. 

ELEMENT – RTS (IOS UNIVERSAL)

If you’re a fan of real-time strategy games but don’t like getting snowed in by complex details or committing to hours to get a game in Element – RTS by Flightless Games is for you. With civilization’s home solar system increasingly unfit for life a battle for the resources necessary to travel beyond is on. You travel across the system looking to secure control of each planet’s primary element.

[embedded content]

You have competition each step of the way of course and… well, that’s what your attack and defense stations and missiles are for of course. Gameplay is straightforward and tactically compelling. You need a strong strategy and to maintain a good mix of resource generation, element mining, defense, and attack capabilities. Element – RTS is well worth a look for fans of the real-time gaming genre. 

EUCLIDEAN SKIES (IOS UNIVERSAL) (REVIEW)

Three-dimensional puzzle-combat gem Euclidean Lands got a well-deserved five-star review when it came out in 2017. This week the game has a successor, Euclidean Skies, which maintains the same great turn-based gameplay, spatial problem-solving, and interesting architecture. Your goal is help the protagonist proceed through level after level by twisting and turning the setting to create a path.

[embedded content]

Obstacles and hazards appear and become progressively difficult as the game moves through its 40 levels. There’s no requirement to solve a level in a particular number of turns, though there are achievements for those who enjoy seeking the most efficient path. If you enjoyed Euclidean Lands, or like 3D puzzle games in general, Euclidean Skies is an easy buy.  

FIDEL DUNGEON RESCUE (IOS UNIVERSAL)

Fidel Dungeon Rescue is a clever pick-your-path puzzle/dungeon crawler freshly released on iOS after about a year on Steam. You lead Fidel, our puppy protagonist, through grid-based levels where you must squash bugs and monsters for XP, restore your health by grabbing med kits, grab gold and other loot, and earn enough XP to unlock the exit. You drag a path across the screen but can’t cross over where you’ve already been.

[embedded content]

There’s a brilliant undo feature where you can just retrace your steps to try again. Fidel is challenging and a great deal of fun for those that like to ponder the best way to proceed. 

SIRALIM 3 (IOS UNIVERSAL AND ANDROID)

Another mobile conversion, Siralim 3 is a dungeon-crawling light-RPG that focuses on taming and breeding over 700 different creatures to fight alongside you. There’s also a crafting system that makes use of the loot you find while adventuring. Siralim 3 boasts a ton of end-game content, an asynchronous player-versus-player mode, and cross-platform play and support.

[embedded content]

Unfortunately, the game also makes use of an awkward, giant, on-screen D-pad and virtual A and B buttons right there on your nice touchscreen display. This turned me off immediately, but, if you’re less picky about controls the game does sound promising.

Sales

DARKEST DUNGEON (IPAD): $.99

Tied to release of The Color of Madness expansion on iPad, the Darkest Dungeon base game is on sale for just a buck.  You can’t beat this price, so if you have any interest but haven’t gotten around to it, now’s a great time.

SPACE GRUNTS (IOS UNIVERSAL AND ANDROID): $1.99/$2.49

If you want to feel like you’re playing an action game—complete with camera-shaking explosions—within the safe confines of turn-based tactics Space Grunts is for you. It’s a must-own for any roguelike fan and is currently half price.

SIR QUESTIONNAIRE (IOS UNIVERSAL AND ANDROID): $1.99/.99

The latest game from the maker of Space Grunts, Sir Questionnaire, is an entertaining roguelike with a lot to explore. It’s on sale for the first time ever.

REBUILD 3: GANGS OF DEADSVILLE (IOS UNIVERSAL AND ANDROID): $1.99

Rebuild 3 might be the best colony management and zombie survival game on mobile. You recruit, manage, and level up a team of survivors who must to do all the things needed to survive: grow food, scavenge supplies, kill zombies, and construct shelter. It’s normally $5.99 and is currently three bucks off. Get it.

THE GAME – PLAY … AS LONG AS YOU CAN! (IOS UNIVERSAL AND ANDROID): $1.99

Tabletop card game The Game’s digital version is a one-player affair and is a lot of fun. It’s worth picking up for fans of solo card games.

ASMODEE DIGITAL SALE: $1.99

In celebration of the SPIEL in Essen gaming convention a whole slew of Asmodee Digital board games are on sale for two bucks on both iOS and Android, making it a great time to expand your collection.

D&D LORDS OF WATERDEEP (IOS UNIVERSAL AND ANDROID): $3.99

Dungeons & Dragons-based board game D&D Lords of Waterdeep is available for a solid discount on both the App and Google Play stores. You play as a masked Lord of the city and must out wrangle your opponents to recruit adventurers to complete quests and thus increase your political power.

I don’t know if Erno Rubik would be proud or distraught if he ever laid his eyes on Euclidean Skies. It could not have existed without him, his dedication to mechanical logic puzzles, and the proliferation of his Cube into the ’80s smart guy scene. But it doesn’t at all resemble the tactility of the Cube itself. To him, the Cube represented a more spiritual and elemental connection to nature’s perfection. The leyline between mathematics and the human condition lies in the Cube.

This extended past his puzzle box and eventual toy empire. Rubik believed that the geometric cube was a divine shape, and that his Cube was just an expression of something bigger. “The number three seems to have a particular significance,” he once said of it, “relevant in some strange ways to the relation between man and nature.”

Euclidean Lands, 2017’s clever prequel, represented these concepts more directly. Its echocrome/Monument Valley camera trickery and Rubik’s Cube puzzle principles were sound on their own. When met with the strategic combat of Chess or developer Square-Enix’s Go Series, the experience was next level. If the Cube is fundamentally anthropological, then is there a human complement to the furious combat raging on its surfaces?

Euclidean Lands maintained the sort of simple elegance of the primary subject matter, even as it expanded into its later, more extravagant stages. From almost the first stage, Euclidean Skies rejects that elegance. It resembles less of Rubik’s holy Cube, and more like every other puzzle on the shelf next to it. You know the ones – the Hanayama U-bolts wrapped around one another that you must disassemble, or Nier Bohr’s Tangaloids, or that weird thing that looks like a wire hanger wrapped around a piece of wood.

The concept is the same. By both shifting the land you stand on, and moving space by space on its surface, you must slay all the enemies and exit the stage. But almost every bit of that foundation is iterated on in Euclidean Skies.

Firstly, in the core conceit. Unlike in Lands, all of the bad guys are mobile. When you move, they move, creating that sort of turn-based call-and-response relationship that 1980’s Rogue introduced to the world. At once, you are both moving to avoid the enemies predetermined paths, and moving to intercept and destroy them. That tension between tapping spaces and spinning whole rows in order to dodge and corner foes is an engaging experience far beyond just trying to place yourself around static targets.

This added kinetic energy often clashes with the added scope and dimensions of each puzzle. No longer is every stage beholden to the cube shape. Now, they can meander into outstretched pathways, often not even connected by blocks. The axis that each row and column spin on aren’t always even, either. So what may appear to be a cube will actually unravel into an exploded mess after just a couple of turns.

This is a blessing and a curse. Not being attached to some predictable central core means that even puzzles that may start out in a similar arrangement can end dramatically differently. These can also create obstacles to block enemy movement, or set a hard point to swing an enemy into, destroying them like baseball bat might a glass vase.

These transformable platforms can be their own obstacles though. With this new range of transformation comes a camera that is free to move where ever you need it to go. But if that camera isn’t facing a particular way, moving the world the way you want can be impossible. It’s a war of position. A totally winnable war, but one that will be fought in little annoying battles more often than you’ll want.

If Euclidean Lands achieved a sort of tranquil state thanks to the sound, models, and color palettes relationship to that slower paced gameplay, Skies is a practice of staving off chaos. The pale warmth of the sunsets and blocks are replaced with scorchingly bold reds and greens and blues. Your character, a nameless woman with a large sword, is dripping with personality. Same with the enemy models, which are packed with details that you often fail to see because you’re never close enough to see them, or incentivized to stop and smell the trimmed cloaks and armor.

There is a sort of charm lost in the switch from the ultra-minimalist style to this new, more aggressive one. It’s not as dramatic as, say, Nidhogg to Nidhogg 2, but it still takes a period of adjustment. Ultimately, this new art direction allows for environmental details that really expand the sense of surrealism from stage to stage. Stone awnings curl around the play area in wide arcs. Skeletons of giant beasts drape themselves over branches, periodically serving as obstructions to prevent moving a row a certain way. Lush trees and waterfalls add a sense of adventure when traveling between doors or maneuvering around paths. While it feels less orderly, it’s absolutely more expressive.

All this new kinetic energy can make this almost feel like a race against time. Some moments of twisting and twirling may cause the images to look less polished, or force the animations to creak while the framerate catches up. While playing, more often than I like to admit, I would find myself completely out of sorts several minutes into a puzzle. Blocks had been rotated so much that I’d no idea how to get them back. Soldiers wedged in between each other, swapping positions ad nauseam. A quick tap of the reset button straightens you out, but when I’m stuck in Skies, I’m waaaaay more helpless than when I was in Lands.

The hints are vague, but the special objectives can serve to keep you focused, even if you can’t solve the puzzle with only one move, or other such feats of heroism. In maybe the most indulgent – and least effective – attempt at moving the formula forward, there’s a feature that lets you play a given puzzle in a digital version of your physical space. The augmented reality function is finicky, and the experience isn’t worth the effort at all.

Would old Erno appreciate this expansion away from the primal and sane simplicity of his Cube? Not sure. Elegance is traded for unabashed ambition, and for those not concerned with how it sits in the cosmic order of things, Euclidean Skies is a no-brainer to add to the collection. It finds a way to break every rule Euclidean Lands wrote, and with its own sort of rugged flair. It can’t be the holy Cube again, that’s trite and uninspired. This new thing may not be some perfect union of heaven and earth, but the rest of the shelf is great too.

Every year over-optimistic newspaper headlines promise an Indian summer, only for August to be meekly followed by a shivery and soggy September. Happily, when Pocket Tactics promises an Indian summer we are true to our word. So, pull on your boots and let’s take a timely hike through the glorious autumnal woodland of New England.

Indian Summer is the second part of Uwe Rosenberg’s puzzle trilogy and follows 2016’s Cottage Garden, strangely Uwe’s Patchwork, which shares many similarities isn’t considered part of the series. The game shares the same tile-laying, grid-filling gameplay of the aforementioned titles but this time the action is geared towards more experienced players.

The aim of Indian Summer is to fill your section of the forest floor with leaf tiles, foraging for “treasures” and attracting wildlife as you go. Each player has a forest board that is divided into six sections. Boards feature a random assortment of mushrooms, berries, nuts and feathers that once collected can be used to trigger special powers. 

Players begin the game with a collection of five leaf tiles; these are Tetris-style pieces that players take turns placing on their boards. Tiles are colour coded and are three, four or five squares in size. The innovation is that much like a Polo mint, each tile has a hole. Ideally, you want to place a tile so that a woodland treasure can be seen through the hole. When a player manages to complete an entire section of the board all of the visible treasures in that sector will be harvested.

Mushrooms, berries, nuts and feathers may not be most people’s idea of treasures, but in Indian Summer they can prove to be extremely useful. Normally, you only refill your store of tiles when you place your fifth and final one, but use a berry and you can replenish your supply right away. Since there is a visible trail of tiles, you will know exactly which tiles you will be drafting, so you do not have to rely on a blind draw. Nuts attract squirrels, which can be placed on your board to fill a single square. Mushrooms allow you to steal a tile from two other players and immediately place them. Feathers allow a player to place two tiles from their supply in a single turn. You can exchange treasures based on their respective values, for instance, it would cost three berries to acquire a single feather.

Woodland wouldn’t be woodland without its fair share of critters. On your turn instead of laying a tile, you can instead place a squirrel. These are useful to fill those spaces that are too small to accommodate a leaf tile. There are also seven other types of animal tile that you can attract to your woodland habitat. Only one of these can be placed each turn and their numbers are strictly limited. Animal tiles can only be placed if you can overlay their shape with the corresponding vacant holes on your player board. Placing an animal over harvested treasures has the benefit of allowing them to be collected for the second time.

Indian Summer is a pure race game; there is no point scoring to worry about. The end of the game is triggered as soon as a player completes their board. The current round is played out to its conclusion before everyone has a final opportunity to trade in their treasures for squirrels, which can be used to fill in gaps. Players who are still unable to complete their forest floor lose. If more than one player has finished their woodland then the player who has the most remaining nuts wins. 

By now, Digidiced have pretty much nailed the tile-laying format. The game is well laid out and the controls are both smooth and responsive. There are still a couple of niggles: the tutorial could be clearer in places and the way that the interface handles the exchange of treasures takes some getting used to, however these are very minor faults. The presentation is charming with some cute animal animations and a lovely autumnal palette that replicates the board game perfectly. The laid-back acoustic music also complements the mellow atmosphere. The menu options adhere closely to the Digidiced standard, with pass and play, casual and ranked online matches available. The AI will give new players a decent challenge, although on the hardest level it does require a bit of thinking time.

A range of different player boards enhances replayability, although games do tend to follow a similar path. Indian Summer is a race, so acquiring the feather and doubling down by ensuring that you can overlay it with an animal tile, seems like a pretty solid way to go. Luck only plays a small part, and the deceptively simple but nuanced gameplay should appeal to a wide range of players. The tile stealing aspect may put some players off, but in fact, it feels more like an opportunity for the stealer to place an extra tile rather than a way of scuppering your opponents. The game plays well at all player counts, although pass and play games can grind to a halt if you include players who have a tendency to over-analyse their moves.

Indian Summer is yet another high quality digital board game conversion. The ability to swap and change treasures really adds an extra dimension to the tile placement gameplay. Choosing the perfect moment to use a mushroom to snatch a couple of juicy tiles from your opponents is highly satisfying. The exchange mechanic will also have you thinking, as you weigh up the benefits of using a berry to refill your hand, or save up and trade them in for something potentially more powerful. Players are not only racing to fill their board but also to complete and harvest individual sectors. So, although the general atmosphere is fairly laid back there is still a tangible tension to proceedings.

As much as we enjoy our serious mobile games here at Pocket Tactics, sometimes it’s nice to just unwind and have some fun with friends and family. Party games are a really entertaining and worthwhile genre of games and nothing’s better than meeting up, sharing a good meal, and capping off a hangout session via our mobiles.

Sometimes it’s hard to get a group of people together, but so long as there’s two of you, we’ve got another great list you might like. 

Easy to pick up, high-energy and socially demanding, but along with these requirements comes exhilaration, surprise and a guaranteed way to shake things up. The life of the party might just be lurking in the palm of your hand. Here’s our collection of the best games you can play with your friends, whether you’re using an iPhone, iPad or an android device.

Identity V

Developer: NetEase Games
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: Free

One hunter chases four innocents across a gothic manse while the would-be escapees struggle to find and solve puzzles. The asymmetry and creepy-cute aesthetic make for a thrilling and iconic experience. The devs are always experimenting with new play modes (like the 8v2 for starters) and the hunt-or-be-hunted setup is a timely mix of the survival- and battle-royale games so en vogue these days. Add in a splash of progression (skill trees, new and unusual characters, cosmetic unlocks) and you have a winner. 

Soul Knight

Developer: ChillyRoom
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

Soul Knight is a pixelated top-down arcade shooter with a dash of roguelike elements thrown in for good measure. Technically it’s not primarily a multiplayer game, but the local multiplayer mode is so good it would be criminal not to give it a shout-out here. The weapons are unusual and distinctive, dreamt up with some real flair. It takes some real skill to pull off impressive moves, but the difficulty-satisfaction curve is pitched just right with this one. 

Mucho Party

Developer: GlobZ
Platforms: iTunes, Android
Price: Free (effectively a trial with limited games), $3.99 one-time IAP for full unlock.

Sample a sumptuous variety of mini-games with inspired and easily-digested twists with goofy facial reactions, and deft touch controls. Your player avatar has an oversized head with a handful of emote options which are customizable: just snap a few photos of your mug with exaggerated expressions and mild hilarity ensues. Yes, the new Mario Party is a classic return to form but Mucho Party is a really nice substitute available for the price of a song. A hidden gem.

Heads Up! 

Developer: Warner Bros.
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: $0.99, Free (android). Optional IAP to unlock extra category modes.

Heads Up! Was a victim of its own success for a time. The game is dead simple: a word appears on screen and is held above the guesser’s head. This same guesser is assailed by clues from teammates until the guesser finds the right word or phrase . Cycling through words quickly to rack up a high score, switching up the guessing role amongst team members. Heads Up! has one simple advantage over every other game on this list: it doesn’t need a surface to work. Works just as great standing or crammed together in a vehicle. Anywhere with good sight lines is fair game for Heads Up! short of a hall of mirrors. It’s so good that it’s cliche, at risk of getting played to death and forgotten. In case you’ve never given it a chance with a bored group, do.

Spaceteam

Developer: Henry Smith
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

Masquerading as chaos and nonsense, Spaceteam never fails to gin up a riotous good time. Navigating the reaches of space takes technical know-how and precise coordination, and Spaceteam spoofs these facts of spacetime-travel by splitting up instructions from control panels. Someone knows which button to press, and where, but the orders and details are deliberately turned into techno-speak-gibberish. Jabbering, giddy gibbons sharing gibberish…in space. Seriously though, the game works wonders for those improvisational types who thrive on chaos and unprecedented social situations. Oh, and it allows for cross-platform play between Android and iOS.

Talisman: Digital Edition

Developer: Asmodee Digital
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $3.99, $3.49. See here for an extensive DLC guide.

Talisman is a wild time and a mess, digital or analogue, but it’s markedly tidier and every bit as much of a caper on the good old ‘pad. Collecting magic artefacts, spells and literal pieces of fate and destiny as the hour grows late. It’s a classic and epic game, but also well suited to casual meet-and-greets, too. Because each turn’s decisions are relatively simple and straightforward, players can banter, chow down or otherwise divert themselves without hampering the flow of the gameplay at all.

Psych!

Developer: Warner Bros.
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

Creative word games can be risky prospects when entertaining guests, but they also give such sharp turns of phrase and sweet surprises. (Cue Balderdash, Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity) Anything that allows for write-in answers is a golden opportunity, and Psych! Is no exception, adding replayability and variety. After hearing the prompt, each player jots down a fake answer to add to the pool. Points are earned by either guessing the true answer, or duping others into picking yours. It’s clean, freeform and effortless excuse to mess around and let your imagination run wild with some friends.

Mysterium

Developer: Asmodee Digital
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $3.99, $3.49

Solve a murder mystery with a little ethereal help in Mysterium, where players will use richly illustrated images to try and winnow the guilty from the innocent. Just like in Clue, location, suspect and weapon will have to be grouped into the proper combinations. The mediums divine which of these combinations is valid, and then after successfully sleuthing, the group has to figure out which of the stories is the ghost’s own tragic ending. So a game that goes well ends where the ghost’s afterlife begun. It’s a fun gothic take on deduction, creative visual interpretation, and contention, sometimes downright quarrelsome co-operative goals.

Triple Agent

Developer: Tasty Rook
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free

Triple Agent is a mixture of chaos and order, of ineffective backstabs, liars giving useful tips and honest fools botching the naked truth. It’s a find-the-betrayer style party game, just like Mafia and Werewolf, but what sets it apart from its ilk, aside from a whip-smart app and panoply of extra optional win conditions, is the total miniaturisation of the experience. One device is passed around to dole out identities, clues and the final elimination vote. The group at the end of the chaotic play session collectively eliminates one person, and if they were a Good Guy the Bad Guys win and vice versa. Really fresh interface and game design take on an old standard.

Worms 4

Developer: Team17
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $4.99

Worms are good for the earth, enriching the soil and setting the fields for a rich harvest next season. Worms from Team 17, on the other hand, spend all their lives trading quips and aiming impractical and ultraviolent weapons at each other. Carpet bombs, napalm, the holy hand grenade, anything and everything is an instrument of death in Worms. The terrain is destructible too, and the only ‘loot crate’ drops are just in-game goodies and not a euphemism for scummy monetisation. This is a premier zany 2D shootout, decades old and no worse for wear.

What are your favourite party games? Let us know in the comments!