{"id":102663,"date":"2019-10-28T14:02:25","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T14:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pockettactics.com\/articles\/apple-arcade-new-games\/"},"modified":"2019-10-28T14:02:25","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T14:02:25","slug":"apple-arcade-roulette-bonus-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/10\/28\/apple-arcade-roulette-bonus-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Arcade Roulette – Bonus Round"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sheer volume of games available via Apple Arcade<\/a> has meant that we\u2019ve had to try and take a different approach to coverage. Richard’s \u2018Arcade Roulette\u2019 was an idea we came up with that would allow us to look at a range of games all at once, but in less detail than what would be typical.<\/p>\n

After-all, if you\u2019ve already committed to paying the subscription, you\u2019ve got 80+ games at your finger-tips you can try out for free. If you\u2019ve not, our bet is that you don\u2019t necessarily need full-reviews of every game in order to sway you one way or the other.<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s very committed to getting themselves to 100 games as part of their initial line-up, and at the pace they\u2019re going it\u2019s not going to take them long to get there. At least four new games have been added to the service over the past few days, and we actually managed to try out a few of them before they were due to go live.<\/p>\n

Consider this a \u2018bonus\u2019 episode of the review roulette – please note that I wasn\u2019t able to give them a full work-out like Richard would typically do. I was only at the event for about an hour, but here are some initial impressions anyway to help you decide whether these one are worth your time. I haven\u2019t decided yet if I\u2019ll keep these in the potential pool for a full Roulette entry, so they may turn up again with a more comprehensive overview (and a score).<\/p>\n

Monimals<\/h2>\n

Monimals<\/em> at first glance seems like a bit of a run-of-the-mill game, but it\u2019s got some interesting additional applications it hope will earn it a bit more longevity on devices.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a puzzle\/platformer where you must navigate a sound jack underwater through levels to try and find \u2018Monimals\u2019, creatures that embody a single musical note. There\u2019s the usual array of hazards and light level manipulation, with a \u2018boss\u2019 fight in the end that can help you win the monimal.<\/p>\n

\"Monimals\"<\/p>\n

Each Monimal represents a single note or sound across lead guitar, bass and drum, and as you collect them you can then jump into the game\u2019s \u2018other\u2019 mode and use the collected monimals to create your own music. It\u2019s a simple drag and drop interface that lets you place a sound and define its length, as well as other typical tools you\u2019d need for something like this. You\u2019re not likely to create masterpieces, but you can create some pretty decent tunes. You can also have those songs play in the background as you go back into the \u2018game\u2019 part and find more monimals.<\/p>\n

The developer\u2019s have said that players will own the IP rights to everything they create within the app, but that it\u2019s against the terms of service for someone to recreate a piece of music that already exists. They don\u2019t sound too keen on trying to police that though, and they\u2019re also working on ways for players to be able to share their music amongst themselves online.<\/p>\n

Lifelike<\/h2>\n

This one stretches the definition of the term \u2018game\u2019, but it was still a really neat little app that I can actually see being great for young children. You are in charge of a little dot – the Diver – and you\u2019re able to use simple swipe controls to guide it around a sparse open space inhabited by brightly coloured creatures that look a bit like swarms of fish.<\/p>\n

The whole game is partly inspired by the lead designer\u2019s experience with diving, but it also uses meditative techniques to give a very calming and relaxed experiences as you wander around. You can \u2018discover\u2019 a species by hovering over a specific point, and then that swarm will start interacting with you. Sometimes you can lead them, sometimes they lead you. There are lots of different levels, species and music to experience.<\/p>\n

[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cB651Y4gG5c?controls=0]<\/p>\n

This one\u2019s the least \u2018game-y\u2019 of the three, but I really appreciate how colourful the swarms are, and the way they move and flow about the map is quite mesmerising.<\/p>\n

Hogwash<\/h2>\n

This one was definitely the most \u2018fun\u2019 of the three. I don\u2019t want to say \u2018enjoyable\u2019 because given the breadth of apps available, something like \u2018enjoyment\u2019 is actually pretty relative to both a person\u2019s tastes and the intent of the app to begin with (e.g. Lifelike<\/em>).<\/p>\n

This was definitely one you can imagine sitting down with some friends to have a couple of rounds. It\u2019s got that \u2018party game\u2019 feel, even if it doesn\u2019t quite support the numbers for it, being limited to only four players. One person plays as a farmhand, the three as pigs. The pigs need to run around the game map, getting themselves dirty, and then trying to make the Farmer\u2019s prized possessions so dirty they can\u2019t be cleaned.<\/p>\n

[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Dgy1qyUcDYg?controls=0]<\/p>\n

The farmer, armed with only a simple (tho, unlimited) water hose, must chase after the pigs – they can wash clean anything that hasn\u2019t been \u2018maxed out\u2019 in terms of dirt, and they can also try and catch the pigs and hogtie them (only another pig can free them). If the farmer catches all three he wins, otherwise it becomes a kind of \u2018top score\u2019 determined by how dirty\/clean everything is, and then either the Farmer or the Pigs win.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good clean (dirty?) fun, and has both a single-player mode against an AI (which is no slouch) and online multiplayer.<\/p>\n

Make sure you check out our master game list to keep on top of new & upcoming releases!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sheer volume of games available via Apple Arcade has meant that we\u2019ve had to try and take a different approach to coverage. Richard’s \u2018Arcade Roulette\u2019 was an idea we came up with that would allow us to look at a range of games all at once, but in less detail than what would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile-game-releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}