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. Lots of big updates this week, though few of them were for games that I’m particularly interested in. Luckily, if the charts are telling the truth, many of you are interested in these games. So it should all work out in the end. Plus, I get to debut a new award that may or may not ever be seen again! Wow! You have to be here to see it, truest friends! 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!
Subway Surfers, Free The Subway Surfers are off to… Arkansas? Really? Hunh. So yeah, I guess the kids are going to Little Rock this time, to ride the rails and see picturesque sights like… Walmart? Really? Really really? Isn’t Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville? Uh anyway, this update is basically a giant ad for Walmart. The store is in the game, the new board is based on Sam Walton’s truck Betty, and I’m pretty sure the new surfer Jack, who has a shirt, tie, and Walmart hat outfit, is based on the late Jack Walton. Kinda icky all around, in my opinion. I’m going to award this update the first ever not-so-coveted UMBBLotW award.
Homescapes, Free As part of his training for his inevitable invitation to Smash, Austin keeps busy every day of the week. In this new update, he’s busy decorating the garden with undersea accessories in order to try to get a gold submarine. No, not a yellow one. Who would want that? Over in Olivia’s corner of the Austinverse, a friend is opening up a new bakery. Beat levels to earn tickets that will help with the set-up, and if you can renovate half of the bakery you’ll get to keep it. In terms of new puzzle elements, Steam is going to block your progress. Make matches to get rid of it and clear the way.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Free Gotta love those fireworks in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. What a nice little update that proved to be. But this isn’t about the Switch game, this is about Pocket Camp. Its update is a bit less exciting, unfortunately. Seeding and cross-pollination features in the garden have been adjusted, you can now change your player name, some beginner’s goals have been added to the Stretch Goals, and a few UI elements have been tweaked. That’s about it. Well, that’s Pocket Camp at this point.
Pokémon Café ReMix, Free It’s early days for Pokemon TsumTsu… er, Pokemon Cafe Mix, so major game-changing updates probably aren’t going to be rolling in as often as pure content drops. That’s what this new version offers, adding more Orders to the game along with setting up a couple of upcoming special events. The game is still at the stage where you could conceivably exhaust all of the content, so it’s important to bulk it up like this for a little while, I think. Not a bad little game and it’s polished as heck, but I just can’t let another title like this into my life anymore.
Hearthstone, Free It’s just about time for the next big content drop in Hearthstone, which still exists, I assure you. Scholomance Academy arrives on August 6th and will bring with it 135 all-new cards, among them Dual-Class cards and more. If you log in after it launches, you’ll receive a free class Legendary and will be able to start a Quest chain that will reward you with six packs. Battlegrounds sees two new minions, Menagerie Mug and Menagerie Jug, and a new Hero, Mr. Bigglesworth, added to it. Any relation to the cat from Austin Powers? I’m… not sure if I want that to be the case or not. Very mixed Austin Powers feelings in 2020.
Transformers: Earth Wars, Free I’m thinking back to the first time I saw someone try to put the Transformers transforming sound effect into text, and how I was aghast at them transcribing it as “Err-ahh-ee" or some nonsense. Look, I don’t know how to make that sound in text, but it’s definitely not ERR-AHH-EE. That’s some kind of excited chimpanzee noise or something. Oh right, this game. Uh, there’s a new single-player campaign! You can revisit the conclusion to War for Cybertron and unlock two new Colossal bots: the Last Guardian Omega Supreme, and Overlord. Cool, cool. I had Omega Supreme’s toy when I was a kid. He was cool but I always felt he should have been bigger. Metroplex too, though I at least appreciated that you could fit some of the smaller Transformers in Metroplex. ERR-AHH-EE, indeed.
Grindstone, I find it slightly amusing that for all the great games that Apple Arcade has on it, far and away the greatest success belongs to a game that resembles a free-to-play experience in almost every way. What can you do? The audience knows what it wants on mobile, I guess. Anyway, this is a huge update that packs in a brand new Daily Grind mode, 50 new levels, new Gold Item Blueprints (oh they’re a grind, pals), a Pickaxe and Prospector Outfit (to slightly speed up said grind), and a whole bunch of bug fixes and improvements. I’m not here to fight the tide, so I’ll give this game the coveted UMMSotW award for this week and move along to the next game.
TEPPEN, Free Teppen! I forgot to check on it for a bit and I missed the addition of the Felyne to the game. That’s unfortunate. This update adds some new Skins, and every player will get a free randomly selected Skin chosen from those they don’t already own. It’s probably part of the Teppen 1st Anniversary Event, which is now entering its second phase. A ranked match called Diablos is now available for those who want to challenge it. There are also balance changes, adjustments to the activation conditions of certain Hero Arts, and some new items. This game feels like it’s older than a year to me, but that’s 2020 for you.
AFK Arena, Free There’s a lot in the latest update for AFK Arena, but I’m only going to hit the highlights and let you check out the rest if you’re interested. A new Graveborn Hero has been added, Daimon – The Forsaken Child. There’s also a new hero union: The Flame & Spear. A new feature called Misty Valley has been added, and new adventures, chapters, and floors have been added to various modes to give you more content to chew through. In addition, there are lots of UI adjustments, character balance changes, and so on. Do check out the update notes yourself or fire up the game if you’re interested in the specifics.
Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, Free You know, I appreciate that Lilo & Stitch hasn’t been forgotten the way so many other late Disney traditionally animated movies have been. It’s a really nice movie that deserves to be remembered. I mean, I’m not sure Jumba and Pleakly need to be remembered so much, but here they are. Both of these strange aliens are now available in Disney Heroes, and Jumba takes the place of Tron as the new Challenger Seasons reward. Well, whatever keeps Kevin McDonald fed, I suppose. He was always my favorite Kid in the Hall.
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!
