Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. We’re starting to see more updates connected with the Lunar New Year roll in, along with the usual suspects and even a surprise or two. I’ve put a bunch of them in a metaphorical bag and splayed them out here for you to have a look at as you enjoy your cup of tea, coffee, lemonade, or what-have-you. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself using AppShopper or by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s dig in!
Respawnables - Special Forces, Free Respawnables always gets interesting updates around the holidays and this time is no exception. Celebrating the Year of the Pig, this new four-week event offers up a Toxic Heng Bow as its ultimate prize. Hopefully, you’ve already gotten started on that, because I’m not sure there’s enough time left to get it if you’re just getting going now. But hey, that doesn’t mean you can’t join in on the fun and get some other goodies, right?
Rules of Survival, Free Another week, another hefty update for Rules of Survival. The highlights of this one include a new weapon in the form of the M134 Minigun, some new Star Diamond supplies, adjustments to how Gold Mode+ works, and a bunch of optimizations, tweaks, and bug fixes to round things out. While this game isn’t as popular as it once was in most parts of the world, the developer sure is putting the work in to keep hanging in there as much as possible.
Gardenscapes, Free Okay, I know these games aren’t functionally any different from a lot of other free-to-play puzzle games on the App Store, but I have a weird soft spot for the Austin-Verse titles. Can’t be helped. The latest update for Gardenscapes isn’t terribly different from the one for its sister app, Homescapes. It kicks off a Lunar New Year event and adds more story content. This time, it’s a special love story between Jason and Alex. You can also check out a new area called Archipelago, and a special guest arrives in the form of Austin’s mom, Olivia. What wacky hijinks will happen? Ehn, probably nothing too wild. It’s the ‘Scapes, after all.
Candy Crush Soda Saga, Free Well, here’s the obligatory King and/or King-like update inclusion for the week. I’ve picked Candy Crush Soda Saga, because of a deep algorithm that takes into account several factors. If I had to say which of those factors hold the heaviest weight in the calculations, I guess I would have to point to it being the first one I looked at this week. Ha, levity! Anyway, it’s the usual business here. There are 15 new levels to play, just like there were 15 new levels last time, and very much like how there will be 15 new levels next time.
Jetpack Joyride, Free Well, what do you know? It’s a Jetpack Joyride update, and it coincides with the Lunar New Year. Honestly, I’m not sure how much actual new content is here, but hey, even if it’s just returning favorites, it’s still nice to see something. Collect Red Envelopes in the new event and you can unlock a variety of rewards, including the Chinese New Year Dragon skin, the Firecracker Jetpack, a Chinese New Year costume, and a flying pig vehicle skin named Truffles. Because it’s the year of the pig, you see.
SEGA Heroes: RPG Match 3 Games, Free Some of this was in the last update, but I see some new stuff in here, so SEGA Heroes gets another turn in the seat this week. Gena from Crazy Taxi has been and gone, B.D. Joe is not available in the Arena Shop if you have the special tokens, and Tyris Flare and Mr. X have been added to the Survival Shop. The Hero Roster and Set Collection screens have been updated to make it easier to see exactly what you own and what you don’t, and the icon for the “darkness" debuff is now a bit clearer. The difficulty of the Hunt Daily Events has been reduced, and you can put a bit more trust in the Suggested Team Power numbers as they’re slightly more accurate now.
MARVEL Strike Force: Squad RPG, Free It’s a War Machine Event in Marvel Strike Force, and I really can’t figure out why. Or how Carnage and Mantis figure into a War Machine Event at all. In addition to the event, most of the Guardians of the Galaxy have some ability updates and tweaks. The Blitz pre-match screen now shows tier progress and has character details that you can toggle on and off. And wow, there is a huge list of bug fixes. That’s a good thing, right? Hopefully they’re less like Hydra and more like, I don’t know, AIM or something.
Monster RPG 3, $0.99 Nooskewl makes some pretty nifty RPGs, even if they’re not exactly lookers. Monster RPG 3 may be the developer’s best one yet, and it’s only a couple of bucks. Seriously, go pick it up, you’ll probably enjoy it. This update adds the ability to play the game in portrait mode, which is always a nice thing for an RPG to offer. It also adds a vibration option that you can turn on to have certain events trigger a rumbly tummy for your device. Finally, the icon has been tweaked to make the logo a little bigger. I like this game a lot, so I’m going to give it the coveted UMMSotW for this week.
Pocket Build, $0.99 Yeah, this is a pretty cool update for a really good game, too. If I had a second award, I’d probably give it to Pocket Build. But I don’t, so let’s just look at what you get here. Okay, it’s really just one thing. But friends, it’s a dragon! A Red Dragon, to be precise. And it’s part of the new Dragons & Monsters series that will bring a bunch of new characters and creatures to the game in future updates. The rest of the update involves a whole lot of bug fixes. Those are also good, but they are not part of the Dragons & Monsters series. They are just bug fixes.
Rise of Kingdoms, Free Phew, yeah, this is one of those updates where I’m not even going to try to list everything that is included. Alliance Battlegrounds: Ark of Osiris comes to the game, adding a new Egypt-themed battleground to the game. This update also adds Middle Eastern civilizations, which includes Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire, and Arabia. New legendary commanders include Constantine I, Saladin, and Mehmed II. For epic commanders, there’s Belisarius, Baibars, and Osman I. You also get some new game music, some gameplay improvements, and some adjustments to the anti-cheating system.
That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!
