Category: Mobile Game Releases

Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. We’ve got three new releases of note and a bunch of sales to point out. Take a look and happy gaming!

Out Now

Stockpile (iOS Universal and Android)

Tabletop stock market and auction-themed game Stockpile has made its way from the physical realm to digital. Digidiced—makers of Terra Mystica, Cottage Garden, Agricola, Isle of Skye, and more—developed the digital version and it’s a solid edition. Gameplay centers on the auctioning of various stocks where you must outbid your opponents to win. Surrounding this, and simulating true markets, information is imperfect, and players have different levels of it. The goal, naturally, is to end the game with the most money. Stockpile features both a solo mode where you can play against three different levels of AI and online multiplayer where you can play other humans. Online play is asynchronous and is the selling point of the game. Solo mode is fine, the AI isn’t exceptional but it’s no pushover either, but other gamers certainly put up more of a challenge. My biggest complaints about the game are a cluttered UI where it is often hard to tell exactly what is going on. The game isn’t that complicated and it’s hard to imagine there wasn’t a better way to organize things. Also, the tutorial gets a bit long in the tooth, though this ultimately is a short-lived issue. Nevertheless, Stockpile is a fun game, especially multiplayer, and already includes the Continuing Corruption expansion.

[embedded content]

Where Shadows Slumber (iOS Universal and Android Beta)

The world has been plunged into darkness, but an old man’s discovery of a special lantern could change all of that. You guide the man, Obe, on a quest through an interesting and often terrifying world in Where Shadows Slumber, an adventure game. Where Shadows Slumber is full of puzzles and the lantern, and the interplay between light and dark, is central to those puzzles. It takes some experimentation but once you get the hang of it Where Shadows Slumber is a compelling adventure game and worth a look for fans of the genre.

[embedded content]

Pocket Farm (iOS Universal and Android)

Gamers have a fascination with farming. This is beyond dispute. Stardew Valley is a hugely popular PC game and several free-to-play farm-simulation games do quite well on mobile. Pocket Farm aims to bring a similar experience, but to the premium audience. The game looks good, and there’s quite a bit to plant and build, but it’s missing some basic capabilities like an undo button or obvious way to remove existing structures. Navigation around the farm is also managed via a floating joystick rather than normal touch controls.

Sales

Quest of Dungeons (iOS Universal and Android): $.99 on iOS

Entertaining roguelike Quest of Dungeons boils down the hack-and-slash genre to its core essence. A big bad needs beating. You have some skills in beating down big bads. Get to it.

Hostage Negotiator (iOS Universal and Android): $3.99 – Review

Hostage-rescue sim Hostage Negotiator was recently ported to mobile and is a buck off for now.

Baldur’s Gate II (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99

Super old-school RPG Baldur’s Gate II Enhanced Edition is on sale, down from $9.99 to just two bucks. It’s not on sale on Android, but the original Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition is just $3.

Beholder (iOS Universal): $2.99

If you’re ready to make some tough choices in a grim, dystopian future now’s your chance. Beholder, a game where you run an apartment building and must spy on and rat out your unpatriotic neighbors, is on sale for $2.99 (normally $5).

Among the Stars (iOS Universal and Android): $2.99/$3.49

Card-drafting game Among the Stars made the jump to mobile back in May and includes asynchronous online play. This is only its second sale, normally $4.99, though the first sale only lasted a couple days.

Tempest: Pirate Action RPG (iOS Universal and Android): $3.99

Take to the seas as captain of your own ship, hire a crew of misfits and ne’er-do-wells, board and rob merchant vessels, battle and destroy rival captains, and raid shore-based settlements in Tempest. That’s the plan in Tempest where you go a questing as a pirate captain. It’s not the best pirate game that’s ever been on mobile, but Sid Meier’s Pirates has walked the plank of iOS 11 so if you need something to fill the void, this might be it.

Brass (iOS Universal and Android): $3.99

Economic game Brass is all about making money and building monopolies during the Industrial Revolution. It’s $2 off right now.

With each turn, little tiles bearing individual letters count down to zero before ultimately being frozen in stone, but by chaining them together into words, these tiles transform into bears and grow into larger bears. This is Alphabear, and it’s a classic formula, so natural and fun that one might mistakenly believe it was discovered rather than designed. Alphabear 2 is almost strictly a better game in every respect, with more interactions and play-modes as well as better scaling, not to mention an in-game dictionary for the curious. It is perhaps the snazziest, coziest, smartest word game you can play on the go. This sounds like a dream and it’s mostly accurate, for Alphabear 2 plays like one too, but its ‘honey’ energy timers never go away even with the paid, fully-unlocked version. So the perfect word game is dragged down to an only slightly unbearable reality.

Alphabear 2 has a lot of bells and whistles, and a fairer monetization, but its spelling-whiz challenges are as good as they’ve ever been. The game’s transparency is perhaps its greatest strength. Each level has a point cutoff, with this goal score easily broken down. Each turn clearly spells out what a word is worth (just the simple sum of its constituent letter values), and last but not least, the big bear bonus. At the end of the match, either when a board is full or no words can be spelled, the largest bear is worth its area times four, in points. (So a 5×4 bear is worth eighty points.)

That’s it. The best turns have long words, sometimes easily recognized common words but more often than not obscure ones (almost obnoxiously so). But success creates suffering: a big turn opens up many more letters ticking down ominously, begging the speller to keep up the momentum and add more long words or else lose key central letters. This is one way Alphabear 2 encourages and rewards perfectionism, the other is with its ‘Big Bear Bonus,’ which offers special (cosmetic player character costume) currency for a perfect clear. With some letter layouts, this is a trivial accomplishment, but for many it feels like something special, especially during the hurly-burly of timed stages.

In terms of planning and strategy, there are a few strong points in Alphabear 2’s favor. First, the bears are ‘equipped’ before each level and give multipliers to this final score. Besides choosing Zombie Bear, Lucky Bear, Cleopatra Bear for their scoring potential, they also each contribute passive perks or potent active abilities to tweak the levels. The Hollywood Ingenue Bear (not her actual name) makes S letters 50% more likely to spawn, while the Zombie bear adds an active which reveals ‘ZZZ’ on the board. These custom loadouts offer a pretty big influence on how the actual play unfolds, which means the sheer variety of bears to collect isn’t cute or cosmetic but instead mostly functional.

There are about twenty levels to each stage, and ten stages. The hapless young bear has created a break in the space-time continuum which must be repaired by travelling to every-where and -when whilst spelling like mad. Suffice to say the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. The game has a faux-selfie mode after each level with a MadLibs-style random phrase generator. This is a nice touch for those who care and easily glossed over for those who don’t. Ditto for the costumes, earned by accruing red, blue and gold cloth, mostly from perfect clears. Earning a tuxedo for the player avatar isn’t profoundly meaningful, but trying it to performance and consistent high achievement is as good a fit as any. A good look, if you will.

Now for the downsides. The original Alphabear felt a little stale after a while, largely because of two fatal flaws. First, neither the boards nor the bears had any active or deep effects to alter planning in any real way, so each level played out more or less the same. Secondly, later stages were literally impossibly difficult. You see, a bear’s level increases its final score bonus modifier, so by artificially ratcheting up the minimum winning scores, Alphabear (originally) pushed its players to collect and level up bears in order to progress at all. In its endgame, skillful play became secondary to devoted, regular daily sessions. The game is easily great enough to play daily, but that’s no excuse to try to disincentivize other types of engagement.

So is the sequel any better on that front? Well, yes and no. (Mostly yes). Scoring is more transparent, effects are more dynamic, and the collectible aspect is both deemphasized overall and easier to accomplish. Two main currencies, coin and berries, fuel time-machines which work basically like lootboxes for bear unlocks. There’s also a free time-machine once per day, and special clocks to fix for significant resources. Oh, and daily school mode to level up bears. Each of these are pretty useful investments and just as fun as the main mode. It is still possible to get roadblocked from sheer bad luck for days on end, but if players invest their time equally across all game modes, this shouldn’t happen out of the blue.

Oh, and the ads. Ads for honey a few times a day, for faster free time machines, and for bonus loot drops from normal play. It’s about as tastefully done as can be, with one glaring exception. The premium version of the game drops ads completely but still restricts energy (honey). It takes hours for honey to regenerate, true, but it also takes quite a while to spend it all, given how tricky some of the harder stages can be. So the problem isn’t as acute as it would be in other free-to-play titles, but for some hyper-adept spellers who blaze through levels the honey limits will get on your nerves.

Alphabear 2 is a delight, accessible to those wishing merely to sample the gameplay but challenging for those on other end of the spectrum. It’s cute and smart and probably deserves a go from most anyone. If it had a premium-premium infinite energy purchase and less bumpy progression it would be perfect, but it’s still great and endearing as-is.

Considering the massive popularity of real-time strategy on PCs, where StarCraft was the first game to gain such a following as to become a legitimate profession, it’s a bit surprising that there are so few successful mobile RTS in the same vein. That combination of speed, precision, and strategy can be a heady brew, and one that’s hard to distil to a handheld screen. Although you can find a lot of options in our most recent Best Of feature, Front Armies is one game that won’t be joining the list.

At first glance, the game is attractive. The graphics are literally iconic. Each unit and building is represented by a front-facing (thus the title?) non-animated graphic. This is an unusual choice, but not one I’m wholly opposed to, especially since it makes identifying units easy at a distance. That’s a smart choice for a mobile RTS, which too often crowd the screen with tiny little soldiers made of a handful of pixels. There’s also less need for a minimap, since you can zoom in and out in a flash.

Likewise, the gameplay is utterly archetypal of an RTS. Minerals are collected and spent on new stuff, with power plants limiting the amount you can build and causing major slowdowns if you run out of power. There are production buildings for land, sea, and air units. Your basic units are a fast but weak buggy, a tough tank, and fragile but powerful artillery. Build a handful of buildings and you can get a few ships similar to the land units, as well as weak and quick flyers. At the top of the tech tree is a ballistic missile that blows a big crater in your opponent’s base in a very satisfying way.

There’s fog-of-war, but it only has one level, so once you reveal your opponent’s base, you get to continue to see all of their plans (or lack thereof) until you muster your forces to crush them.

Control is pretty intuitive. Everything is handled with single taps to select, move, and attack. Buttons on the side let you select all units on the screen, or order construction of buildings or production of units. To select multiple units, you tap and hold to let an expanding circle encompass the group you want. That’s okay, if a bit slow, as long as you’re basically dealing with two groups at a distance. What’s really missing is the ability to select all units of one type, which makes separating groups in your army a chore.

It’s basic, but, in some ways, this is a game that I think people have been asking for. It has familiar RTS gameplay, with visuals that are attractive but simple enough to play well on a phone. Should be, if not a grand slam, at least a hit.

Unfortunately, Front Armies is missing the most important element of any game: somebody to play with.

There is no online play or matchmaking included in the game, so if you want to play multiplayer, you’re stuck with LAN play. That leaves campaign mode or skirmishes against a computer player. Unfortunately, the AI for your own units and your opponents’ is terribly primitive.

Your units are suicidal, rushing to get as close as possible to the enemy they are ordered to attack rather than waiting at a sensible distance. Thus, without careful maneuvering, your artillery and flyers are useless. They are easily separated from their group, taking bizarre looping paths to destinations. They also easily get boxed in if someone else is going the opposite direction. They sometimes don’t react to nearby enemies until they are taking fire.

The opponent AI is no better. The computers build their bases haphazardly, overproducing structures they don’t need which often block in their own units. They underproduce armies and throw them at you with no apparent strategy. Sometimes one or two units will trickle down from their base to spend themselves on your defensive wall. It’s easy to draw their armies into a trap. If you care to spend the time, you can plink away at their defenses from a distance with artillery without drawing a response. But making use of speed or distance abilities in your units requires a lot of handholding. So why bother when you can easily make tanks twice as fast as your opponent and tank rush them before anyone hits the second level of the tech tree?

I tried a 2v2 team game with an AI teammate and found myself taking over all the responsibility for attack and defense for both of us—which wasn’t even hard. There is only one level of AI competence, so the best way to challenge yourself is just to play against three or more at once.

The campaign makes up for this by stacking the deck against you. You get set scenarios with preplaced waves and groups of enemies to wipe out on maps built like corridors. It does a good job teaching you the basics, but sometimes you don’t do what the game expects and get backed into an unwinnable corner.

If, at some point in the future, Front Armies adds some decent AI, it will be a solid recommendation for a mobile RTS. It’s not innovative, but there’s nothing wrong with the core gameplay and a lot to like. But, without an opponent, there’s just nothing to play.

I am really showing my age when I say that I can fondly recall gathering around my Sinclair Spectrum with a couple of friends for a game of the original Chaos. Looking back, it seems amazing that a few blocky pixels and the odd beep could produce so many emotional highs and lows. Chaos, a multiplayer tactical game of duelling wizards, with its wild swings of luck often led to equally wild swings of mood. However, as soon as one battle ended, and the whining and gloating had receded we were all ready to dust off our robes, polish our wands and recommence battle.

In Chaos, each player takes on the role of a wizard, equipped with a deck of spell cards.  Wizards begin at opposite ends of an arena and must attempt to defeat each other by summoning creatures and flinging fireballs and other spells. The author of the original game, Julian Gollop, went on to become an industry legend. Not so much because of Chaos but for a certain tactical squad-based sci-fi game called Rebelstar Raiders, which was later updated in a game entitled Laser Squad, before becoming the basis for the XCOM series.

History lesson over, let’s take a look at Chaos Reborn Adventures, which is based on the 2015 release Chaos Reborn, a PC re-imagining of the original that was designed by Julian Gollop himself. First off, I should address the randomly generated elephant in the room. The level of luck in the original Chaos may be difficult for most modern gamers to stomach. Magic is an unpredictable business with no guarantees of success. Spells have a percentage chance of success and even the simplest of summon spells can fail. Combat is equally ruthless, it is either kill or be killed with just a single hit required to defeat a foe. With a little outrageous fortune, a lowly rat can overcome a dragon – Chaos is indeed aptly named. This may sound highly frustrating, but it does mean that even when things are not going particularly well there is always the chance of pulling off a miraculous dragon spell, hitching a ride and flambéing all of your opponents.

If all of this randomness doesn’t appeal to you then fear not, because a new lawful mode adheres to more modern gaming conventions. In this mode, spells are cast using mana points and health points replace one-off kills. This makes for a far less frustrating experience and although battles take longer it is the mode most likely to appeal to all but the most diehard of gamers. Whichever mode you choose, you will be able to enter into online battles against other players or compete in offline multiplayer matches. There is also an extensive single-player campaign. This will see you traversing realms, acquiring new skills and taking part in increasingly tough battles against AI-controlled wizards.

Whichever mode you choose, lawful or chaos, there are measures that you can take to improve your chances of success. One key strategy is to make for higher ground, as this will significantly improve attacking and defensive abilities. Another thing to keep in mind is that each spell will have an alignment, either chaos, lawful or neutral. Casting spells will impact on the overall cosmic balance. This means that you can work towards casting a powerful spell by first doing the groundwork by casting lesser spells of the same alignment. Then there is the added brilliance of the poker-style bluffing of the illusion spell. Any creature spell can be cast as an illusion with a guaranteed chance of success. Illusionary creatures move around and cause damage just like their real counterparts. However, if an opponent suspects that your dragon is not all that it seems then they can cast a disbelieve spell, making it disappear in a puff of smoke. The disbelieve spell counts as your spell-casting action for the round, so it pays to be pretty sure that the creature isn’t real before casting it.

Mana is vital to success and some is regenerated each turn; you can get an additional boost by burning any cards in your hand. Mana is also awarded for destroying enemy units, with an added bonus if your wizard lands the killing blow in hand-to-hand combat. Make no mistake, these wizards aren’t doddery old men with beards that still contain the remains of yesterday’s lunch. You can equip them with enough armour and weapons to transform them into fearsome killing machines. Alternatively, you can concentrate on developing your magical skills, staying clear of direct conflict. Mana can also be gathered from locations on the map, tempting greedy wizards to overstretch themselves. Each wizard has a mega spell.  As the name suggests these are very powerful spells, such as conjuring a whole pride of lions. However, they require a huge amount of mana. There is no limit to the number of times mega spells can be cast but each casting becomes progressively more expensive.

In a nod towards modern games Chaos Reborn: Adventures also introduces a deck-building element. Victory results in gold, which can be used to purchase random card packs. The contents of these packs include staves and bodygear.  The type of staff you wield influences the hand of spell cards that you draw before the battle, how many cards you can hold at one time and which mega spell will be available. There is an excellent mix of creatures and spells that lead to a range of different tactical approaches. Because you will start each game with different spells you cannot overly rely on a single tactical approach.

Wizards may only have a limited amount of actions, but the nuances make for a game that offers real depth. There is a six-stage tutorial with various additional challenges that help enforce what you have learnt. You can access the rules at any point in the game and they are presented in a nicely illustrated and well-ordered fashion. This degree of care and attention to detail is something that carries over into the single-player campaign. Each level is a tense race against time, as the archmage will be doing their best to summon enough power to expel you from their realm before you have a chance to overcome them in battle. You get to explore ruins, hire mercenaries, enlist help from settlements and even take over citadels. The citadels give access to long-range realm spells such as clearing fog or even breaching the realm’s palace.

The original Chaos was all about the competition of battling against human opponents. Hopefully, the game’s pedigree will help it to secure the following that it needs to ensure an active and competitive online environment. However, the single player campaign is worth the admission price alone, being both tense and having just enough depth to remain interesting. The developers have cleverly elected to cover all bases to create a game that should appeal to diehards newcomers, solitary and social players alike.

Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. Byte for byte this is one of the better editions of the year owing to two standout games, one a tactical combat game and the other an old-school-style RPG. We’ve also got a tabletop to digital conversion.

Out Now 

Chaos Reborn: Adventures (iOS Universal) – Full Review Coming Soon!

A tactical turn-based combat game from the creator of XCOM? I’m listening. Recently ported to iOS so I can play it on my iPad? Now we’re talking. Chaos Reborn: Adventures is a grid-and-card-based combat game akin to Duelyst and Faeria, but in a premium pay-once-and-play-forever package. Combat is between two or more wizards, each armed with a deck full of spells driven magical style and gear rather than any deckbuilding efforts on the part of the payer. It requires good tactical planning thanks to considerations such as line-of-sight and high ground. Chaos Reborn also includes some cool mechanics like illusionary creatures. You can choose to cast a creature without paying its mana cost, which places a fully-functional copy on the battlefield. It’s able to attack and be attacked as normal, but, if the opposing wizard chooses to disbelieve the creature it disappears. Disbelieving is a free action if successful but costs the wizard their ability to cast another spell that turn if they are wrong, so it creates some interesting bluffing circumstances and yet another strategic layer.

[embedded content]

Chaos Reborn has a single-player campaign mode as well as online duels against another real-life human where you can choose live or asynchronous action. The AI is actually good and puts up quite a fight, especially as you work to ascend the game’s learning curve. As to that, I highly recommend playing through the tutorial. It’s long but does a nice job of layering in complexity as you go and is a good initial challenge in its own right.

Chaos Reborn: Adventures is a well-designed game and absolutely worth picking up if you love the tactical crunch of games like XCOM and Duelyst. The variety of different creatures and spells—a forest of crystal trees with a chance to transform into elven archers for example—should ensure the game remains compelling for quite some time. The premium price, with no packs to buy, is icing on the cake.

Vampire’s Fall: Origins (iOS Universal and Android) – Full Review Coming Soon!

The king is dead, and without heirs his kingdom disintegrates into warring factions. A dark force grows in the power vacuum, The Witchmaster and his army threaten all in their path. Your village, Vamp’Ire, decides to raise a militia and you volunteer. Things…do not go well, and you’re left changed and seeking answers about what happened to you.

This is the setup for Vampire’s Fall: Origins, an old-school indie RPG built for mobile. Aside from the main quest line exploring your new circumstances, the game has side quests and plenty of random combat encounters. It’s also full of laugh-out-loud moments due to some witty and often sarcastic dialogue. The combat is good as well and is turn-based with an intriguing combo system. A normal turn allows you to make one attack or use one special power, but every three turns you can unleash a barrage of attacks and special powers limited only by the amount of energy you have available. It’s quite fun and adds an entertaining tactical layer to planning your attacks and energy  usage.

As you complete quests and defeat foes you gain experience and gold. The former gains you levels and points with which you can improve your abilities and advance your way along three different skill trees called Blood Lines. Each point adds what appears to be a relatively minor benefit, but over the course of a couple levels you can make huge strides in terms of character capability and the blood lines offer a lot of different ways to optimize. Naturally, gold buys gear to kit out your ten different equipment slots (including both main and offhand weapons) and higher quality gear provides special benefits. This all combines for some satisfyingly deep character progression.

Vampire’s Fall: Origins is a surprisingly strong mobile RPG with lots of single-player content, sarcastic NPCs, a PVP mode, and plenty of room to improve over time. It’s built by a small indie crew and is completely free-to-play with no ads or freemium mechanics. The developers plan to add optional IAP down the road to support future development (implementing a clan system is one goal) but are dedicated to not mucking up the user experience. If you’re a fan of RPGs, especially on mobile devices, you should absolutely go grab this one.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions (iOS Universal and Android)

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions is a new CCG with the physical game landing on shelves earlier this summer. Now, the digital version has officially launched. You pick one of four Grand Alliances: order, chaos, destruction, and death and go to battle using its champions and blessings. Warhammer doubles down on the two-lane system made popular by Elder Scrolls: Legends. Quite literally, in fact, as there are four lanes, one for each of your champions. The more-unique twist is that turn by turn the champion cards rotate 90 degrees, offering up different effects as they do. The other interesting difference from other CCGs is the fact you can scan your physical cards and make use of them in the digital game.

[embedded content]

Sales

Infinite Passengers (iOS Universal and Android): $.99 on iOS

If you want to simulate running an airline Infinite Passengers has you covered. You cater to customers and attempt to run the best airline in the biz. 

Patchwork the Game (Review) (iOS Universal and Android): $2.99/$3.49

Uwe Rosenberg’s two-player quilting game is also on sale on both iOS and Android. It’s easy, colorful, and has a good amount of strategy without being overwhelming. 

Potion Explosion (Review) (iOS Universal and Android): $2.99/$3.49

Symbol matching game, Potion Explosion, has a solid solo mode and offers online multiplayer as well.

Cosmic Express (Review) (iOS Universal and Android): $2.99

Challenging puzzle game Cosmic Express has reached its lowest price ever. It’s about finding the best train route for a series of space colonies. It’s a lot of fun and worth a look for puzzle fans.

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

When it comes to real-time strategy, the mobile marketplace has big shoes to fill. From Age of Empires to Command and Conquer and Starcraft, the frantic blend of actions-per-minute with grand strategy, the macro- and micro-management required to play this genre at peak performance has inspired many a gamer.

The internet is great, but we don’t always have access to it. Here are some of the best strategy games you can play while offline.

It also presents something of a design challenge – the concept of APM needs to be carefully applied to a touch interface so that players don’t get overwhelmed. Even on-the-go offerings need to provide that similar thrill, with various settings, mechanics, play-modes and distinct pacing.

Here are the best RTS games for android, iPhone & iPad.

Autumn Dynasty

Developer: Touch Dimensions
Platforms:  iOS Universal, Android
Price: $1.99, $4.99 

Autumn Dynasty has campaign progression and a bare-bones story to push the action forward with some serviceable if dull reasoning, but what really makes it shine are the battles. Unit types include simple categories like cavalry, pikemen, archers and catapults but this simplicity is complicated by the rock-paper-scissors relationship between them.

In the heat of battle, single moments of positioning and command become crucial, and this constant feeling of decisive command is what makes Autumn Dynasty such a fulfilling RTS title. Its sequel, Autumn Dynasty: Warlords lost some of the pure force and tension of the original in favor of adding map objectives and 4X elements, but the first game is still the best. This one is for all intents and purposes an Android-exclusive, for the developer’s whole portfolio was wiped out with iOS 11 Appocalypse. It works, but only selectively on older Apple hardware.

Auralux: Constellations (Review)

Developer: War Drum Studios
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: Free (IAPs)

Auralux is generally brilliant and wickedly simple. Glowing orbs skip across the void of space to do battle over planets, which in turn spawn more orbs for the controlling player. Gestures are dead simple, tapping to select and dragging to assign. There is only one type of ‘unit’ and one objective: take over the entire map. From these givens, Auralux has some intense, hair-pulling and nail-biting levels where the odds are almost ludicrously stacked against the little player that could.

The ‘constellations’ in the title are simply clustered series of levels, each with a gimmick mechanic which must be understood and utilized to power through said levels. The game shows its age a bit, but it also demonstrates how a simple idea with excellent execution can stand the test of time. Another bonus is the variable speed setting, which makes the action go from hyper to sedate, depending on playstyle. Local multiplayer is a nice plus, but the game’s primary draw is solo play.

Mushroom Wars 2 (Review)

Developer: Zillion Whales
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: Free (IAPs)

Mushroom Wars 2 has sent its spores far and wide and proliferated grandly for its efforts. (The series has successfully spawned a sequel and premium versions for the PC and Switch, that is). The soldiers in this battle hail from the kingdom ‘Fungi’ and are constantly churned out by villages as players send them out to capture new turf or perhaps take on a boss. The original’s formula was much the same, but this one adds heroes who function as commanders with special abilities to give some tactical oomph to the feel of play. 

The art and story are merely perfunctory, but this is ultimately unimportant, because the game itself has fair, crisp actions and a robust ranked multiplayer mode. Those here just for the single-player campaign will find a challenge but also a fair bit of repetition, so be warned that while solo play will season you in battle, multiplayer is where it’s at.

Dominations

Developer: Nexon M
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: Free (IAPs)

Dominations deserves to be loved and known for the quality of play it provides and its relatively tasteful monetization, but unfortunately the quickest way to worm its way into your heart and home screen are comparisons, so let’s get those over with. It’s Civilization meets Clash of Clans, with empires spanning the Iron Age to Space Age, wonders to build, raids to conduct, and all the usual trappings.

So, yes, there is a certain likeness to established powerhouses, but the devil is in the details, and Dominations gets those spot-on. Playing it to a satisfying endgame without shelling out serious dinero will take patience, but Dominations’ emulation of all of recorded human history and conflict is pretty satisfying to stretch out and play in pieces. Of course, human history never before ran on a timer…

Iron Marines (Review)

Developer: Ironhide Studios
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $4.99

The Iron Marines are a space-trotting, world-saving team of elite squads tasked with putting out fires and defeating hostiles wherever needed. The elevator pitch for the game would be Starcraft…in space. There is a home-base which usually has to be fortified and defended, additional refineries to secure more resources, and just a handful of units. 

From these simple, intuitive elements, the game ekes out a good sense of micromanagement and delectable real-time tension. Its enemies have unusual abilities and synergies, and its difficulty is no joke, especially on the higher levels. Yet the game also retains Ironclad Studios sense of long-term planning and strategy present in its tower defense titles. Its next update will introduce a brand-new world, the icy Borealis, on September 27th, but this is just an extra check in its favor.

Subterfuge

Developer: SnappyTouch
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: Free (IAPs)

Subterfuge is exactly as advertised: a subtle, long-term game of expedient alliances and stone-cold betrayals, filled with the irrefutable logic of hard numbers and the soft uncertainty of fog of war. A turn just means giving subs and bases a command which will take hours to fulfil, so while it is real-time like warfare is real-time, in Subterfuge the theatre of war sees its stage advance slowly.

Its scale is just grand enough to be deeply satisfying but be warned that it does take some time investment to get a game fired up. The leaders provide asymmetrical player powers, but even these super-units can be captured and bartered. Barring these modifies and special cases,  the bases and subs are more or less identical. The game is simply a question of position, resources and force, but these factors are always shifting because of the partial information and precarious alliances.

Rymdkapsel (Review)

Developer: Grapefrukt Games
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $3.99

Rymdkapsel is about space-base-building and defense, mostly, but also includes some spatial puzzling a la Tetris and ‘exploration’. Its minimalism is more than just stylistic, going instead to the core of every action, options and goal. Perhaps the most satisfying bit is the constant packing problem for expanding the base.

New buildings can be any type and go any spot the player chooses, but also must have predefined dimensions. (all four unit polyominoes) A tightly knit base might come across as more defensible but reaching and researching the far-flung monoliths gives permanent global passive bonuses. The game is a logistics and timing puzzle with a really keen sense of efficiency and management for all its stripped-down design.

Tropical Stormfront

Developer: Noble Master Games
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: $3.99

Island-hopping Tropical Stormfront pits the United Democratic Alliance against Order, Discipline and Obedience in a faux-historical struggle across the archipelago. The graphics are deliberately dated and the unit mixture, contrary to every other item on the list, is realistic and accurate. Missions scenarios range from the typical conquest to capture the flag and survival mode.

It’s like a real-time Advance Wars with pretty much no hand-holding, just sink-or-swim gameplay. The touch controls mean a bigger screen is practically a must, for while missing a swipe or tap in another genre would be merely inconvenient, in a game like this it is quite the setback. Still, Tropical Stormfront is a smartly realized real-time-strategy game with staying power.

Anomaly 2

Developer: 11 bit studios
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: $3.99, $4.99

‘Reverse tower defense’ just means normal protect-and-escort missions, but the moniker is an apt way of conveying the claustrophobic battles and quick wits required to succeed. The ‘morph’ mechanic lets players adjust squad composition on the fly. Variable tools and an expanded suite of power and abilities go hand-in-hand with vexing and varied level design. The game’s five years old but made waves on release for its unusual level of visual pizazz, which has aged gracefully. Most compelling of all is the asymmetrical multiplayer, scored on a point system shared between the attackers and defenders. This series set the standard a half-decade ago, and it still shines today.

Plague Inc.

Developer: Ndemic Creations
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: Free (IAPs) 

You’re a disaster waiting to happen, a plague carefully evolved to swallow the whole globe in the embrace of black-winged death. Starting life as just a twinkle of a mass pandemic, in an undeserving corner of the world, players pick traits and use evolution points to increase their plague’s rate of infection and severity of symptoms. From the beginning, players must balance virulence against lethality. While the ultimate goal is always to make the earth a human-free zone, this usually requires a skosh of subtlety.

Once the plague is detected and rated a danger to humanity, the globe will mobilize research efforts towards a cure. So the game has a doomsday clock within a doomsday clock. Plagues must spread well enough to get a reserve of points and eventually flip the kill switch. The many varieties of plague types and scenarios give the game massive replayability, and the pacing is surprisingly sedate given the stakes. Still a tense and intense pleasure and the number-one way to strike fear into the hearts of the WHO.

What would your list of the best RTS games on mobile look like? Let us know!

We’re fans of Ironhide Studios’ Iron Marines. Released a year ago tomorrow, it was an interesting RTS/Tower Defence hybrid that had some excellent visual design.

It got a major update a few months after launch but not much since then. Come September 25^th, the game is set to get a major update in the form of a new planet – Borealis, as well as the following new features:

• 9 new stages
• 10 new enemies
• New boss Fight
• 3 new paid heroes
• New upgrades
• New power ups
• Over 10 new achievements

There’s a trailer you can watch below, and the update is coming to both iOS and Android versions of the game. We’ll remind you when the time comes via The Weekender.

[embedded content]

Diablo. It’s one of the most popular, successful, and beloved gaming franchises in the world. The very first entry came out in 1996 and it and its two successors defined the huge hack-and-slash action-RPG genre that exists today. The franchise is known for its story-driven campaign, fast-paced combat, diverse class options, and deep skill trees. Diablo III is the very model of a comprehensive gear system that allows for some serious min-maxing along with ample end-game content for gamers who don’t mind the grind.

Want to look at mobile RPGS in general? This list might be of interest.

There’s no version of Diablo on Android or iOS, though Diablo III may be headed to the Switch. Close, but no cigar. There are, however, a number of mobile titles that capture parts of what makes Diablo great that fans of the series should definitely check out.

Barbearian (Review)

Developer: Kimmo Lahtinen
Platform: iOS Universal
Price: $8.99

[embedded content]

2018 has seen the release of a couple games that have earned a place on this list and Barbearian is foremost among them. Barbearian features frenetic fights against death-defying odds, a combat style that is very reminiscent of Diablo III. You charge into and through huge hordes of enemies and send their lifeless bodies flying in every direction. These fast-paced battles are about where the similarities end. The game follows a story but is driven by its action and does not have the quest lines associated with standard RPGs. Nevertheless, it’s a heck-of-a-lot-of fun and I got over fifteen hours of entertainment out of completing all of the content. I gave it five stars in my review and recommend you check it out for a lot more on why Barbearian is great. 

Battleheart 2 (Review)

Developer: Mika Mobile
Platform: iOS Universal and Android
Price: $3.99

[embedded content]

Also new this year, Battleheart 2 picks up where the original Battleheart game left off seven years ago. It features real-time combat where you control up to four characters, chosen from a variety of options, in a series of battles to gain loot and experience. As you level up you unlock new skills and talents to enhance those skills. There’s also a variety of gear and four different slots in which to equip it. This creates some opportunity for Diablo-like min-maxing. Battleheart 2, unlike its predecessor, offers a co-operative mode for up to four players along with an Arena mode where you face down wave after wave of enemies to see how far you can get. This is simplified version of Diablo III‘s rift system. An unintentional game mode has also arisen: AFK (away from keyboard) Arena. Astute min-maxers have realized that Cyrus, the necromancer, raises skeletons from the dead that automatically lock onto and attack the nearest enemy without any player intervention. An optimized Cyrus can go deep into the Arena without any help from the player. If that doesn’t speak to the spirit of Diablo III, I’m not sure what does. 

Crashlands (Review)

Developer: Butterscotch Shenanigans
Platform: iOS Universal and Android
Price: $6.99

[embedded content]

Crashlands is a survive/craft/explore game where you play as an intergalactic UPS driver who crashed on an alien world. You must figure out how to survive and get yourself, and your precious packages, off the planet and on your way. What does Crashlands have to do with Diablo? It’s the combat and gear. Pretty much everything you come across is looking to kill you and it is best to wheel around and shake and bake, all the while attacking with your homemade arsenal of weaponry. Even more similar is the game’s surprisingly expansive gear system. Flux, the game’s main character, rocks a primary weapon, four secondary devices (bombs, flamethrowers, freeze rays, that kind of thing), four trinkets that provide various bonuses, and four armor pieces. All of this equipment provides bonuses to damage, critical hits, move speed and more along with providing special abilities like life drain, stunning your target, and a whole lot more. She also has the power of Juicemancy at her disposal, which allows you to optimize your gear by upgrading it and rerolling stats until you get the stats you want. Crashlands is a fantastic game and merges the exploration and crafting of Minecraft with the combat and gear optimization of Diablo III. 

Titan Quest (Review)

Developer: Dot Emu
Platform: iOS Universal and Android
Price: $6.99

[embedded content]

For those looking for the traditional RPG quests and storyline, Titan Quest is the most Diablo-like you can get on a tablet. It started on the PC as an attempt to replicate the success of Diablo II and was later ported to iOS and Android. Set in the ancient, pre-Roman world it also has solid loot acquisition—there are over 1200 items which can be enhanced with runes. There are also diverse skill trees, called masteries, from which you pick two. The masteries essentially decide your class and provide some great variation, customizability, and high replay value to the game. The mobile version of the game has had plenty of issues—including frame rate and saved game issues—but it is still one of the better Diablo-like titles.

Bastion

Developer: Supergiant Games
Platform: iOS Universal
Price: $4.99

[embedded content]

Action RPGs are frequently known less for story and ambiance than, well, the action. Bastion, the debut title from Supergiant Games, is different. Bastion’s story—set after the Calamity, a devastating event that shattered the city of Caelondia—is amazing. You play as the Kid; a survivor skilled in the ways of the new, violent world. The Kid meets a man named Rucks who directs efforts to collect the cores that once fuelled Caelondia and rebuild a bit of what was lost. Rucks also serves as the game’s outstanding narrator, who gives both play-by-play and color commentary on the Kid’s every action and every mistake. Bastion’s soundtrack is perfect, and its graphics are still impressive after all these years. The action is fast-paced and chaotic very much like the Diablo games. There are various weapons from which to choose, though gear plays a smaller role in Bastion. This is definitely the game for you if you value the action and production values of Diablo over its loot and min/maxability. 

Rogue Wizards (Review)

Developer: Spellbind Studios
Platform: iOS Universal
Price: Free ($5 Gem Drops x 2 IAP recommended)

[embedded content]

If you’re looking for dungeon-delving action and gear optimization of Diablo III without the real-time pressure, Rogue Wizards is the perfect game for you. It features a great deal of variation in gear and slots in which to equip it, a town with upgradeable shops from which to buy and sell, and even a Treasure Goblin. Rogue Wizards feature a strong storyline, but the turn-based combat is king. Once you’ve completed the quests, there’s still plenty to do in the game’s Gauntlet mode, a high-score chasing dungeon where you see just how far you can go. The game is free-to-play and the monetization is easy to ignore if so desired, though I recommend the “Gem Drops x 2” IAP which brings progression in line with the premium Steam version. I’ve already written quite a bit about the Rogue Wizards, and its monetization, and you can check out my five-star review and game guide for more. 

Eternium

Developer: Making Fun, Inc.
Platform: iOS Universal and Android
Price: Free (with IAP)

[embedded content]

One of the closest games to Diablo III on mobile is Eternium. You play as an adventurer—a mage, warrior, or bounty hunter—on a quest to stop Ragadam, an ancient evil, from bringing an apocalyptic plan to fruition. The adventure hops between multiple planets in the universe and you’ll face dragons, aliens and more deadly creatures. You collect companions as you go to help you face the increasingly dangerous foes in your path. Both you and your companions will gain new and varied powers as you level, which you cast by drawing symbols on the battlefield. 

Gear is a huge consideration in Eternium, and there is a ton of it. As in Diablo, you can equip something on nearly every major body part and each piece of gear has several attributes that enhance your abilities. The game also features gems, which can be combined into even better gems and slotted into items for bonuses. Eternium even duplicates Diablo’s features that allow you to add sockets to equipment that doesn’t have it, collect sets of gear, and reroll an attribute for an item.

Eternium is a free-to-play game and uses gems as its primary currency. The game is well balanced, you don’t need to buy gems in order to play but can do so to unlock certain quality-of-life options faster. I spent $5 to get an additional companion slot earlier and more character storage space, for example. You can watch optional ads for more gems and there is a setting to turn them off entirely for those who want to avoid the temptation.

The campaign is extensive and Eternium also includes a series of special “trials”, think rifts from Diablo. Gameplay is good but nowhere near as great as Blizzard’s series. That’s a high bar to clear, however, and Eternium will definitely scratch the itch on your mobile device.

What would your list of favourite Diablo-like games look like? Let us know in the comments!

As far as solitaire board games go, The Draugr stands out as an example of how the iOS can give a game that could easily vanish in the tide of competition some much needed exposure. In some more nuanced ways, it can also be an example of how removing some of the tactile experiences can change how easy it is to comprehend a game, at first.

The titular draugr are a collective force to be reckoned with. Drawn from a pool at the beginning of the game, six of them descend on the town of Stjordal. Their task is simple and cruel – slowly corrupt the people and places of the region with their undead magic. You, a lone revenant hunter, can’t just stand by and let this happen.

The undead menace plays the long game, only slowly compromising prominent people and places in town until they topple to the darkness. You must run from place to person and back, protecting them from harm, and being persistent in your rebuke of these twisted villains. Your only tools of the trade are iron spikes, holy water, and your wits.

If The Draugr does one thing well above all others, it’s translating a sense of tenacious doom. No matter how hard you work, the end always feels like it’s near. The tokens that mark the spread of corruption multiply quickly. The randomness of where they can be spread is sort of a clever chaos. Even when you can prevent the spread in some way, it’s usually only partially, and often at the opportunity cost of re-upping supplies, or taking the fight to the beasts directly.

The randomness can create some inconsistent experiences, though. A random, unseen roll is made to determine where the corruption spreads during the next ‘corruption phase’ and which draugr causes it. They each divide the locations among each other, so you can have a top line look at who can hurt whom. But how much corruption can happen from turn to turn feels completely inconsistent. Sometimes, just one point of interest is affected, other times, the whole row feels like it’s under attack. It feels impossible to really counterplay. That seems like the point here, but if someone’s first game is one of these randomly bad ones, then it almost guarantees that it’ll be their last one.

And for as much personality famed Irish artist Harry Clarke adds to the game’s key art and the pictures of the draugr, the creatures are massively bland mechanically. Each are defined by how many units of spikes and holy water it takes to slay them. A handful of them impose a penalty when they strike, taking some of your resources as well as corrupting places or people. But there isn’t much difference between Ivers and Lord Molton save for their names. It almost doesn’t matter whose name is drawn during the corruption phase, because they all do the same thing.

Each have varying amounts of necessary spikes and water necessary to kill them, so over multiple sessions you develop macro-level strategies. That’s where the game’s real commanding charm reveals itself: through repetition. Any given session can take upwards of 20 minutes, which is no time at all in board game minutes. Learning how to react tactically to a board driven completely by chance is engrossing. It does its best to replicate that you-versus-the-cold-machine vibe well executed in games like Arkham Horror. For what it lacks as far as in depth board game mechanics, The Draugr has a speed running sort of appeal to it that you really only find in roguelike video games these days.

The Draugr holds up as a mobile app, but there are things that aren’t translated well to the digital format. Besides the collectors appeal of having the physical cards on a shelf somewhere, some physical cues are missing that helped pass on some simple mechanics. A single die roll tells you which draugr will attack and where, thanks to the combination of numbers and symbols on the die. In the video game, there is no roll, just some border flashing and a tossing of tokens. It leads to the same end, but a bit less elegantly.

On the other side of that token, this would have been a great opportunity to add visual cues that you couldn’t add in the physical version of the game. For example, The Nunnery and The Foundry are locations that you can choose to forgo gaining resources from in order to protect all townspeople or locations from corruption, respectively. Once you choose the option, turns sort of go by unbothered, and maybe you did stop a person or place from being targeted thanks to your sacrifice. Since you aren’t actually rolling dice and passing out physical markers, and there’s no visual signifier that you’re protecting something this turn, you don’t have the same satisfaction in your sacrifice. It’s a ‘gamefeel’ thing that I didn’t expect to see as a problem until several runs deep.

And the app itself suffers from some minor, but annoying, bugs and glitches. More than once has a draugr flashed, notifying me that it will attack, and then never stop flashing. It’s a cosmetic blunder that always seems to translate into a mechanical one, because that draugr now requires multiple taps to register things that previously only took one or two.

All told, The Draugr is a very clever single player card game in a world where they are few and far between. Finding the physical version may be a challenge, and though there are plenty of pluses to pursuing it versus this digitized version, being able to engage with these simple yet shrewd systems on the train or on a lunch break is handy. It’s imperfect in execution, but it delivers the tension and desperation of a lone peace keeper trying to fend of the imminent and inevitable threat with the best of them.

Welcome to the Weekender, your weekly look at the best new games, sales, and updates. It’s a slow week, thanks in part to The Elder Scrolls: Blades slinking away to December.

It’s been a slower week on the site as well, but hopefully we’ve given you some interesting reading none-the-less. We only had one review this week, Evergarden, but we also gave you our thoughts on what the best strategy games to play offline are as well. We also highlighted the (now finished) sale on Six Ages and wrote up a spot of news as well.

Out Now

The Elder Scrolls: Blades (iOS U- oh wait…nevermind)

We thought we were going to be able to talk about The Elder Scrolls: Blades this week, Bethesda Game Studio’s latest foray into mobile games. Blades is to be a first-person RPG based in the popular Elder Scrolls game world, but its App Store release date keeps moving. It was September 1st, then September 7th. Now it is December 1st. Bethesda said the prior dates were never the real release date and the game hasn’t slipped. Apparently, they looked at the September App Store dates as ‘placeholder’ dates used by Apple only. 

SpellKeeper (iOS Universal and Android)

SpellKeeper is a puzzle game where you become a Chosen One. Your job is to free butterflies trapped in magical cocoons using spells. You have limited spells at your disposal, so it’s all about their efficient use to free all the butterflies on each level. SpellKeeper is not particularly challenging, it’s going for more of a relaxing style puzzle game, which is supported by attractive graphics and sound.

[embedded content]

Onitama: The Board Game (iOS Universal and Android)

Asmodee Digital secretly launched another game into their digital catalogue this week – Onitama is a strategy boardgame that resembles Chess. Each side as four warriors and one elder at their disposal, and the aim is to either capture the opponents elder or take their place in the temple arch. Unlike chess, movement is controlled by randomly drawn cards, with the players swapping cards between them as they use them. We haven’t had a chance to play this one, but it’s free-to-play with only a couple of IAPs right now, one of which being for the expansion.

Final Frontier: A New Journey (iOS Universal and Android)

It’s 3018 and humanity has taken to space. You are a captain of the space fleet and are in charge of finding a new world for our species to inhabit. It’s Reigns in space. Like any Reigns-like the gameplay in Final Frontier: A New Journey is very familiar so it all comes down to the narrative. While the narrative choices aren’t bad, they also aren’t particularly varied or compelling. I’d pass on this one unless you’re in the mood for more Reigns, but space.

Sales

Reiner Knizia’s Money (iOS Universal): $.99

The digital adaptation of Reiner Knizia’s card game Money, where you start with six different kinds of currency and try to concentrate your holdings into just two or three, is on sale for a buck… 

Reiner Knizia’s Kingdoms (iOS Universal): $.99

…As is Kingdoms, a tile-laying strategy card game set in medieval times. Neither game features online multiplayer but are worth consideration if you enjoy solo board gaming on your device. 

Dungeon Rushers (Review) (iOS Universal  and Android): $1.99

Dungeon Rushers isn’t a terribly deep dungeon crawler, but it is entertaining and worth a couple bucks if you’re looking for a new game. It’s got monsters, traps, treasure, loot, skills, crafting, and even an online arena system to battle other players. 

Out There Ω Edition (Review) (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99/$.99

Also just a buck or two, depending on your device, is Mi-Clos Studio’s fantastic sci-fi adventure game Out There: Ω Edition. It’s got a little of everything from interactive fiction, to RPG, to resource and crew management simulation game. If you haven’t played it, this one is worth a go. 

Out There Chronicles Episode – 1 (iOS Universal and Android): $.99
Out There Chronicles Episode – 2 (iOS Universal and Android): $1.99

Mi-Clos also has a discount on their interactive fiction games based in the Out There universe. You can pick up the first episode for a buck and the latest game, episode 2, for $1.99 (on iOS only at this point). 

Templar Battleforce Elite (Review) (iOS Universal and Android): $4.99

XCOM-like, turn-based tactics gem Templar Battleforce is a must-have for fans of the genre. It’s currently half off and is worth it, so much so that’s on our guide to the best offline strategy games on mobile.

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