Category: Game Releases

It’s felt like a very busy week – plenty of news to write-up, and I’ve been experimenting with a wider range of topics and angles to see what happens as there’s not as much to review at the moment. Got a few more things in the pipeline for February, but expect a more conservative approach from me as we approach the beginning of March as the new team will likely be in place by then and I’ll need to facilitate a formal handover.

Meanwhile, in the world of mobile games…

New App Releases

Disgaea 1 (iOS & Android)

The Disgaea series is very well regarded as far as tactical JRPGs are concerned. Over-the-top, bonkers, but also featuring some quite clever twists on the genre that has even won fans amongst western audiences. If you like Final Fantasy Tactics but felt there wasn’t enough anime in it to make it pop, then this series is for you.

Luckily, you can now travel back in time to experience the birth of this series with the complete edition of the first game, now available on iOS and Android. Buyer beware though – NIS have taken a page out of Square’s book and are charging $32.99 for the game. Hopefully you save up that pocket money this month.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhEd3m4mI3A?controls=0]

Spelltower+ (iOS Universal)

I’m not even sure Pocket Tactics existed when this game was first released back in 2011, but we do have a lot of time for Zach Gage and his slightly off-kilter creations. This was a word-puzzle game, but one that involved tumbling towers of letters and modifiers and other unique elements not often seen in this genre.

If you never played this game the first time around, then now’s a great time to start with the ‘+’ edition, which is mainly about making it work better on modern devices (it has been nearly a decade, after all) but it does have 11 game modes to keep you occupied. It’s an ad-supported free-to-play game with a $5 unlock to remove them.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsWDr1qCPaQ]

Top free-to-play offerings that caught our eye:

• Magic: Manastrike is a more traditional lane-based auto-battler that seems surprisingly tactical and obviously as that MtG sheen to it. Available on iOS and Android.
• Might & Magic: Chess Royale – is meant to be some kind of bizarre hybrid of Auto Chess and Battle Royale. It looks bonkers, and we’ve got someone having a proper look at it as we speak. iOS & Android.
• Dungeon Faster – the art-style reminds me of Meteorfall, and bills itself as a “fast-play” rogue-like card game. Offline mode and available on iOS and Android.

App News & Updates

We quite liked Grimvalor when we originally reviewed it, so we’re pleased to learn that the dev team are working on an update that not only localises the game into eight new languages, but also includes a New Game+ mode as well. They’re currently looking for Beta testers, and you can email them here if you want to take part. This news comes via the TouchArcade forums.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ7t3UGMYBY?controls=0]

Arnold Rauers, fresh off the release of his newest Tinytouchtales creation Maze Machina, has just released a breakdown of how the first two weeks went. Some interesting insights to be gleaned here, including:

• The game was developed in about a year with a three-man team doing part-time work.
• Miracle Merchant, TTT’s last game, was released in August 2017 and the app store has changed a lot since then.
• Maze Machina has brought a revenue of $14,000 in the first two weeks, 99% of it from iOS. This is compared to Miracle Merchant’s $40,000 in the same period (~35%)
• The experience has led Rauers to the conclusion that he needs to fundamentally change the way he sells his games.

It paints a bit of a bleak picture for premium mobile games made by small developers, but we’re glad Mr. Rauers isn’t totally disillusioned by the experience. We’d hate to see him stop making great games.

While we’re talking about the business of making mobile games, PocketGamer.biz have posted an interesting breakdown of top app performers for the week January 12th – 18th. It breaks down the top ten apps by Downloads, Active Users and Consumer Spend, and it’s interesting to see which games are succeeding in which category. PUBG Mobile had the most people playing it, but the Honour of Kings player base spent the most money.

Book of Demons is a rather interesting desktop game that combines dungeon-crawling with deck-building, and it’s being brought to tablet after a year of delighting PC players. The developers are currently looking for beta testers for the Tablet Edition, if you’re interested in checking it out. Again, this news comes via the TouchArcade forums.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKm2YoRYnPQ?controls=0]

Last but not least, if you’re a fan of Pokemon and the Pokemon ecosystem, you might be excited to learn that Nintendo have announced the pricing and launch features for their planned Pokemon Home hub service that will in theory connect all of your Pokemon games together via the cloud. It will be coming to mobile and the Nintendo Switch, although some features will be unique to specific platforms.

There’s also a free and a ‘Premium Plan’ option, with that latter scaling from $2.99 a month up to $15.99 for the year. You can read more about it on the official website.

App Sales

It’s a bit of a dry week for app sales, although all of the Holy Potatoes! games are discounted again to their Christmas 2019 price of $1.99. This only on iOS sadly; what HP! games are on Android (which is not all of them) are still full price.

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

By Dick Page 30 Jan 2020

By Joe Robinson 29 Jan 2020

By Joe Robinson 29 Jan 2020

Pascal’s Wager may sound like a Gallic gambling game, but it is in fact an argument formulated by the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal. The crux of the argument suggests that we should hedge our bets by believing in God and abiding by his rules. Sure, we may have to spend our Sunday mornings sitting on uncomfortable pews in draughty churches. We may have to sacrifice some of life’s little luxuries and abstain from certain unwholesome practices. However, in return, there is the prospect of a pair of wings, a harp and eternal happiness. Then again you could just throw caution to the wind; live the life of a scoundrel and take the chance that you will not have to spend the afterlife stoking the fires of Hell.

You may well ask what has all this to do with mobile games? Well, enter Pascal’s Wager and lead character, Terrence who has been banished from the church for transgressions and is struggling with his theological doubt. Who is Terrence? Imagine tearing The Witcher’s Geralt of Rivia away from yet another round of Gwent and dumping him into an even bleaker and more hostile world, heavily influenced by Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Indeed, the elevator pitch for Pascal’s Wager must have been to replicate Dark Souls’ aesthetics and gameplay on mobile devices. Apple was suitably impressed, being quick to jump on the bandwagon and showcase the game on its latest devices.

Talking of horse-drawn conveyances, Pascal’s Wager begins with a cutscene carriage ride. It may not cause the PS4 underneath your telly any sleepless nights, being a bit blurry and choppy (more VHS than UHD). However, for a platform that not that long ago saw controlling an ever-growing snake as the apex of mobile entertainment, it is mightily impressive. Obviously, you are not going to get the lavish detail and extra polish that a triple-A console release allows. Yet, for sheer bloody-minded ambition, the developer, TipsWorks, deserves admiration.

As already touched upon, our hero resembles someone cosplaying Geralt at a comic convention. Indeed, with a name like Terrence you would assume that he would be more at home sifting through stalls of limited edition Funko Pops rather than hacking and slashing his way through monster-ridden landscapes. It is a dark domain, both metaphorically and literally. The sun has long since crashed into the sea, causing a dark fog to enshroud the world. Only the mysterious colossi, who emit sparks of light can keep the fog at bay. But now even these glorified standard lamps are beginning to fail, and it is your job to find out why.

The first few combat encounters serve to lure you into a false sense of security. Terrence uses a combination of fast slashes and powerful slices to dispatch a few blissfully unaware snail guys without so much as breaking into a sweat. However, any game inspired by the gothic action role-playing of Dark Souls, which is admired and loathed in equal measure for its unforgiving difficulty, needs to be tough. Thus, any hopes of a walk in the park are laid to rest as soon as you encounter the first boss. This is also the point at which you will also realise that the touch controls will simply not do. It is not enough to just master the art of stabbing and lunging; you will also need to perfect the parry and dodge, and all of this is just too much for touch controls to handle. Now is the time to dust down a trusty console controller and take advantage of Apple’s new pairing feature. Even with a controller, you are still likely to die numerous times, but you will at least stand a chance of working out each boss’s weaknesses. Each move has to be considered, as stamina is limited and mindlessly pummelling away will only get you killed. The game’s influences are obvious and with the right controller, combat works well. Taking down a boss that has been making mincemeat of you feels immensely rewarding.

Pascal’s Wager does try and introduce a few ideas of its own. Exploring such a harrowing world has an impact on Terrence’s reason. If he doesn’t restore his sanity with potions then his mental state can lapse into the abnormal or, worse still, lunatic. A neat touch is the way that Terrence perceives how the world changes as his sanity slips away. The skies redden, enemies become tougher to defeat and our hero’s abilities weaken. On the plus side, defeating enemies whilst non compos mentis will earn extra rewards.

So far, I have only talked about Terrence, but other adventurers are encountered along the way. There are a total of four characters, each with their own combat styles and related skill trees. You can take two characters into battle and as soon as one is defeated, the other will enter the fray. This adds a welcome extra layer of strategy, as you try and work out which characters are best deployed against a particular boss.

In addition to the unsuitable touch controls the game does have a few other problems. The text translation can sometimes feel awkward and the camera is a bit twitchy. The voice acting is amdram, understandable when taking into account the game’s much lower budget. On the positive side, the music and sound is excellent, creating a wonderfully creepy and bleak atmosphere.

Pascal’s Wager replaces free-range roaming with small, self-contained areas. This is a blessing as navigating your way around the levels can become frustrating. The game requires quite a bit of backtracking and with no detailed map or compass, and few landmarks or signposts, travel can become confusing. The latest version includes a jar of ten jellyfish, which can be used to leave waypoints. Even so, a map of your immediate surroundings would really cut down on the frustration, especially since visiting shrines to restore health and save progress also causes defeated enemies to respawn.

There is a lot to admire in Pascal’s Wager, it offers 20 hours of challenging gameplay without resorting to in-app purchases. It shows ambition and scope and although it could be accused of borrowing too much from Dark Souls, it has at least captured the tone and core gameplay of its muse. I just wonder if there is really a market for this type of game on mobile devices. The game pretty much demands that you play with a controller, not the ideal set-up for playing on the bus. Even if you are going to play at home, the chances are that you already have a console where such games feel much more at home.

An Android version is due Q2 2020.