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. I hope everyone is staying safe in these scary times. A lot of things may be unpredictable right now, but one thing isn’t: this weekly column. We’ve got the usual mix of titles to look at this time around, with a few surprises for seasoning. 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 go for it!
SEGA Heroes: RPG Match 3 Games, Free It’s been a rough couple of months for SEGA’s mobile initiatives. SEGA Forever more or less got the fork officially stuck in it as its social media account shifted to general SEGA fan stuff, and now SEGA Heroes is on its way out. Demiurge and SEGA have parted ways and apparently couldn’t come to an agreement to keep SEGA Heroes going, so the game will be going away on May 21st. The silver lining, if there is one to be found, is that the game has basically been shifted into Cheat Mode with this latest update. You can pretty much get anything you want as the game throws character shards, resources, and gems at you non-stop. I’ve had my ups and downs with this game, but I will miss it.
AFK Arena, Free Well, here’s an interesting turn. AFK Arena has a new hero, which isn’t exactly unusual for its updates. But that new hero is SNK’s Ukyo Tachibana from Samurai Shodown, and that is a first for this game. He’s a wandering swordsman, a major rival to Haohmaru, and totally awesome. Will this be a one-off, or will more of Tachibana’s friends and rivals be joining AFK Arena? We’ll know soon enough, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more familiar faces show up soon.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Free I’d imagine most of the people playing Pocket Camp at this point are playing it in tandem with the new Switch game, but I can’t be sure. Anyway, this new version makes a few modest changes. The Cookie & Depot Plan has been changed into the Furniture & Fashion Plan, allowing you to save up to five different layouts. There’s a new Preview function that lets you try furniture and clothes before you craft them. You can now take Fave Photos in Recreation Spots, and you can use items to clear maps in Blather’s Treasure Track using the new Auto-Trek option. Apart from that, it’s the usual bug fixes and adjustments.
MARVEL Puzzle Quest: Hero RPG, Free I don’t check in on this game that often, mostly because I have to go hunting for update notes. But I simply couldn’t let this one pass by without comment, because it’s adding one of my favorite Marvel baddies to the game. Super-Skrull joins the game in his classic form, allowing you to add the mighty Kl’rt to your team. True to the comics, he’s got powers from all of the members of the Fantastic Four, making him a very versatile addition to your roster. This update also makes some adjustments, balance changes, and bumps up the required version of iOS to iOS 10 and up.
Mortal Kombat, Free The Black Dragon Tower! That’s what’s new in Mortal Kombat, and it’s a big addition. The Black Dragon Tower has two levels of difficulty to conquer, and playing through both of them will help you find new Equipment, earn Black Dragon Kano, and maybe even net you a Diamond character or two. Only the best will topple the Fatal Black Dragon Tower, but Black Dragon Tremor is your prize if you can pull it off. Kano and Kabal get new Brutalities in this latest version, and they are pretty nasty. Some bugs have been squashed as well.
Subway Surfers, Free The Subway Surfers continue to DEFY orders to stay at home by traveling the world, but at least they’re practicing proper social distancing by riding outside of the trains instead of inside of them. This time they’re in Buenos Aires, and that means beautiful beaches and some spiffy structures. It also means that Sofia gets a new outfit, dressing up like it’s time to Tango. And who knows? Maybe it is time to tango. There’s also the new Roto board, which is in fact not the hero from Dragon Quest in this case. Get out there, collect some horse shoes, and see what kind of prizes you can pull in.
Pocket Build, $0.99 Pocket Build got a pretty substantial new update this week. In the latest version, you can look forward to more than fifty new items including tiles, houses, walls, pillars, and more. Want to try out the new multiplayer mode? It’s here, albeit in early beta form. There are also some performance improvements, and apparently some silly bugs have been fixed. Only proper, self-disciplined bugs remain. For adding a lot of new goodies and that early multiplayer beta, Pocket Build gets itself a coveted UMMSotW award. How about that?
Sky: Children of the Light, Free Sky isn’t going to be mobile-exclusive for too much longer, but the game is still receiving plenty of support in its original form. The latest update kicks off the Season of Enchantment, adding all sorts of new content, features, performance improvements, and bug fixes. I don’t actively play the game and the update notes are a bit vague, so feel free to fire up the game to see what the specifics are. If it’s like previous updates with new Seasons, there should be plenty to see and do.
Void Tyrant, Free Oh, I’m glad you decided to hang around for the end of this list of updates. Because, you see, the latest update for Void Tyrant involves the new Hangar. I apologize for nothing. You knew what this article was when you clicked on it. Anyway, the new area can be reached from the town screen and offers a number of useful benefits. So too does the new Cloning Device upgrade, which lets you save a hero when reaching the entrance to Endless Mode. That allows you to start new games directly in Endless Mode with that specific build of that hero. Neat. There’s a bunch of other new things in here, so check out those update notes or hop into the game if you want to see more.
Toon Blast, Free And we’ll wrap things up with our obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game update, this week featuring Toon Blast. Yes, Toon Blast. It’s so popular, it’s so hot, its update notes are so disconnected from the game itself, but none of that matters! What matters is that this paragraph is almost finished already, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. Anyway, this update adds yet another fifty new levels, and the notes attribute them to some fluff like a movie premiere the Toons are attending. Don’t know what movie that would be, as movies are not a thing that is happening right now. Fiction is a nice place to live out fantasies, I suppose.
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!
